Ever heard of Zoroaster? He was an Iranian prophet who founded a religion some seven centuries before Christ around a central idea we still believe in: the dualism of good and evil. Although he has only about 100,000 followers today, Zoroaster remains very much alive in our culture.
He set the pattern for every story told since: the struggle between protagonist and antagonist, hero and antihero. What is Batman without the Joker? God without the devil? Good without evil? We love tension, opposing sides that define one another, and an eventual victory.
For our grandparents, good and bad were still matters for the church; they did not have to decide for themselves. In an age of individualism and anti-globalization, people and their ever-smaller tribes must determine what is good. When we started deciding for ourselves, we brought out the word ‘values’ to talk about it.
What does this have to do with work? Everything. Why does every hospital spend considerable time and money defining its own values instead of collectively examining the values of healthcare? It is not as if different hospitals reach radically different answers, judging by the popularity of ‘attention.’ Or consider why every notary’s office formulates its own values, only for most to arrive at ‘trust.’
Why all that individual effort? Exactly: we want to decide for ourselves. My work is about values—what people believe to be good and bad. What strikes me is how little the story of values actually lives within organizations.
We can learn from Zoroaster.Do not discuss only the good; discuss the bad as well.
Do not merely decide together which behavior brings joy. Also consider which behavior causes pain. Talk not only about values, but about anti-values too.
Organizations have forgotten how to tell stories. Most are about KPIs, processes, and technical detail. When values do enter the conversation, it is one-sidedly about the good, neatly reduced to a list of desirable words. Weak stuff.
My advice: put something at stake and create tension. Dare to talk about evil. Just as every hero like Batman needs an antihero like the Joker, your values need anti-values to define each other.