Years ago, I co-facilitated a workshop in which our opening activity invited participants to review a list of core values and narrow those values from ten to five to three, and eventually, choose one to share with colleagues about which value mattered most to them. You may have heard of this. You may have even done this yourself at one point. It’s powerful and useful to know what we value—and what we aspire to—because often, the values we select are aspirations as much as our lived realities.
A Different Question About Values
Fast forward several years to a coaching course I took. The instructor had us do a similar core values activity. We looked at a list and narrowed it to the ones that most aligned with our lived experiences and aspirations. Then she asked a different question: “What makes you mad?”
My values shifted.
Yes, creativity was and remains central to me. But rather than creativity being the lifeblood of my work, I saw it was rooted in moments I’d been boxed into either/or thinking or had run into a failure of imagination in the people I worked with. My core value of equity got turned on its head, too. I aspired toward equity, but what I really wanted was justice. I get mad when people get away with harmful behavior. It’s not enough for people to be called in or out. I want them to take responsibility.
And one value that never showed up on my aspiration list turned out to be central to what makes me the most mad: integrity.
What We Say, What We Do
I know integrity is a value because I get so mad at the gap between what people say and what people do—and what they get away with as a result. I see this gap most in those who hold power: formal power that comes with a title, expert power that comes with a role, status power that lets someone manipulate others, and identity power when those who hold more dominant identities exploit them.
There’s research behind that gap. Edgar Schein spent decades studying organizational culture, and he describes it in layers: the things you can see, the values a group says it holds, and underneath it all, the assumptions people take for granted and rarely question. When what a group says doesn’t match what it assumes and does, people feel it, even when nobody names it. That’s why values matter. They’re in the room whether we talk about them or not, and they get activated in moments of deep connection and in moments of discord.
Anger as Information
I could go on a diatribe here, and I know this kind of exercise could tip me into cynicism about the world. That’s not where I’m headed. Anger that stays anger wears us out. Anger that points to what we care about gives us direction, sometimes purpose. Audre Lorde wrote about this decades ago: anger, used with focus, can be a source of clarity and energy.
I also know anger isn’t received the same way for everyone. Some people get called passionate for their anger while others get called difficult—or worse. So when I ask this question of others, I’m asking people to trust me with something they may have been punished for. I don’t take that lightly. My hope is that they find the values their anger points toward.
Between the Revelatory and the Obvious
I share a lot in groups I lead that there’s a fine line between the revelatory and the obvious. Many people in my sessions find themselves thinking, “I never thought of it that way,” or realize the practices I share are ones they’ve done for a long time—and feel affirmed. This core values activity lives right on that line.
When I ask people what makes them mad, and what value lies underneath, the stories they tell seem more deeply rooted in who they are and what matters to them. For some, narrowing an aspirational list is still their jam. I like giving people options. After all, just like our students, adults appreciate choice in how they process their learning.
My colleague Tamisha Williams and I put together a core values activity that offers both paths: narrowing down to aspirations and probing beneath what makes you mad. I hope one of them serves you well and helps you get into greater alignment between who you are and how you hope to be in the world.
So what makes you mad? What values lurk beneath the anger? And what do they tell you about how you want to live, work, and be in the world with others?
