Mitchell: Because values are often not accessible, decision-makers may find themselves in a situation where they make a choice, experience the consequences of that choice, and discover that, in fact, the choice is not truly consistent with all of their core values. As you might imagine, this can be a very difficult situation and one that we should all try to avoid.
A good example of this is a colleague of mine who had decided after much soul searching that what she really wanted was to work at a fast-paced, high-stress, start-up dot-com company. This was based very much on values of wanting to challenge herself in her job and also wanting to move ahead and advance in her career. After only one week on the job she happened to go to a family reunion, and in fact called in afterward to say that she realized after spending time with her family, that she had made that choice based on only a part of her values, and that in fact, family was so important to her, she was not going to return to the job and in fact was going to move back to her hometown.
Phillips: That's a good story, and I think there is a similar kind of story about prevailing values in management consultancy organizations back in the 1980s. Some of their values had a profound impact on a great many businesses. The particular value I'm thinking of was the one where they were recommending businesses should minimize risk by developing a portfolio of businesses within the organization. And the result was, of course, if one part of the business was failing, another part of the business could successfully compensate. So, these organizations went out and started acquiring businesses—and often businesses they knew little about and didn't really know how to manage. Then, in the 1990s, the prevailing value in the management consultancies shifted, particularly as they saw these mismanaged businesses failing. The new value was focus: stick to the knitting; do what you know best. And the result: These large organizations shed all but their core businesses. So here is a shift from one decade to the next having a profound impact on many businesses throughout the world.