The Missing Depth of Values

What happens when you invite members of a local venture capital and startup ecosystem to reflect deeply about their values – and how those values align (or don’t) with business and societal values? 

That was the focus of this month's Circle event, hosted by VC firm Real Ventures . 

In the gathering, I was a little surprised to discover how fluid values turn out to be, and even more surprised that this left me with renewed hope for humanity. I also left with a sense that there’s a widespread and urgent need to go deeper.

The Circle event series emerged from Real Ventures’ Annual General Meeting in September last year, where 100 members of the startup and investing community were invited to name “the questions we’re not asking as an ecosystem and the conversations we’re not daring to have, but need to.”

The subsequent monthly gatherings each take on a different theme that emerged. This time, the theme of “human and personal values” came from questions like: 

• What are the tradeoffs for whatever values we choose to embrace as a society?
• What is the urgency for new frameworks and models in investment and governance to align with societal values?
• As [a startup and investment] ecosystem, are we after making money or making a better world?
• How do we walk the walk personally and professionally?

Questions like these have relevance at multiple levels, from the fate of humanity to the bottom line, and everything in between. For example, yesterday morning I saw the following quote in an article: 

Burnout comes not from overwork but from a gap between what you do and what you believe in. Reconnection begins by naming the gap, then choosing work that reflects your values.

This reminded me of some striking statistics shared by Real Ventures’ Lisa Seguin: 

• 48% of startup founders experience burnout
• 55% of co-founders break up within four years
• 48% of founders get divorced vs the average 40% of first marriages
• 30% of founders suffer from depression
• 72% of founders’ mental health is negatively affected

“It’s hard to believe that these harsh realities aren’t contributing to the 65% to 75% failure rate of VC-backed startups (those that never yield returns),” Lisa writes.

If we are to believe the quote about burnout, then apparently values matter to us personally, to the success of our enterprises, and beyond.

But it's not a straightforward thing to address.

At yesterday’s gathering, what I heard consistently was: "I’ve questioned and changed my values regularly over the course of my life." We all seemed to realize at some point that what we interpret as good, right and true is shaped by innumerable factors, including family, childhood experiences, religion, culture, gender, profession, and economic circumstances. This realization opens the door to more deliberate personal choice. 

But then, the choice is rarely clear. Again, the consistent story was: any time we tried to grab hold of a particular value, we found times when the opposite was actually the better option. Even worse, several people shared stories of stated values being used as weapons or means of manipulation, and it seemed to be a familiar experience for many. 

“What is the definition of a value?” asked one participant, rhetorically. “Is it some universal inner wisdom? Is it about vocabulary we can agree on? Or is it something that can be used as a tool to differentiate and create walls? I don’t know what values are anymore.”

This might have been worrying: if values are so fluid and unreliable, how will we ever find our way to a better world? Are we building society on ethical quicksand? Is that the underlying cause of all the problems we face – a lack of clear moral compass? 

What gave me hope, however, was that this was a room full of professionals actively, regularly reflecting and then reflecting again on what is good, right and true, for ourselves and for each situation in which we find ourselves. 

There are good people in the world working to figure out how to do the right thing, even in the absence of an ironclad, always-true checklist of values. 

That helps me understand why I find most corporate values exercises trite, at best. They generally seek to name a short list of values as if they are something simple, static and self-contained. And most of the time, there is no follow-up reflection, no ongoing consideration. The plaque goes up on the wall, and that’s the end of it.

But what our evening gathering revealed is that the point is not to declare a value and wear it as an unchanging badge; it’s to grow our individual and collective attunement and ability to discern what the good, right choice around that value is in any particular circumstance. And we can only do that through practice, accompanied by reflection, conversation and re-orientation. 

As an example of this in the real world, I have a client that named transparency as a core value. But, of course, transparency isn’t the good, right choice at all times, for all things. My suggestion was a once-a-year company-wide conversation to compare stories about when people had to make a choice about transparency, how they knew what to do, and what they noticed and learned in the process. 

In all the confusion and comparison around the merits of one value over another, what we can too easily overlook is the underlying search for wisdom. The question at the heart of it all is: “What is the wise choice in this circumstance?” Our group last night felt that, if we allow ourselves to be honest (and admittedly, that is a big “if”), we generally know. We can find our way to wisdom. And with practice and reflection, we can grow more attuned to what is most wise. 

I would take this a step further and assert that the opportunity – the need – is to recognize our organizations as practice grounds for deepening individual and collective wisdom.

For myself, I'm guided by the belief that the wise choice is the one that most enables life to thrive over time. The wise choice is the one that “tends to enhance the integrity, beauty and regenerative capacity of the living community it touches.” For me, this is the taproot at the heart of all values.

Until we commit to serving wisdom – and, ultimately, serving life – and to ongoing collective refinement of our ability to discern the wise choice, all the talk about values will be just so much surface-level posturing and debate. And we will continue to burn out, and the world will continue to burn.

But with that clarity and commitment, I find an explosion of creativity, energy and alignment. And I begin to see glimmers of a more thrivable world.