A632.5.4.RB - How Protected are Your Protected Values?
In the Hoch text, based on Irwin and Baron's discussions on
protected Values (pgs.251 ff.), reflect on three of your major protected
values, support those values with at least three major beliefs and show the
pros and cons of each belief in terms of trade-offs you are willing to make to
support or not support that belief. How do these Protected Values potentially
affect your own decision making? Do you feel as strongly about them as you did
when you began this exercise?
What I
consider my protected values are compassion, equality, and the importance of
family. My values are all sort of rooted in the idea that human compassion
above all else is important. I believe that there is always an opportunity to be
nice to someone else – that is a choice we make – the opportunity exists in
every interaction with a fellow human. Compassion also works in my value system
that everyone should be viewed as equals. Living in the deep
south as a woman working in a man’s world of aviation is challenging. It requires that I suspend my reality for the
actual reality around me. Here in South Carolina, we tour manor houses on properties that were once farmed
and worked by humans that were owned by other humans. Humans thought of as
property – same as a horse or a garden hoe. Women have been thought of property
for most of history and I can’t say that they still aren’t. My value of the importance of family is also rooted in compassion. I
was taught compassion and inclusion from a very early age. I don’t understand
people who aren’t compassionate – I don’t even get why not being compassionate
is an option.
As far as
how these values affect my decision making – I try to be compassionate in my decision
making. I try to consider all sides and think about how each party will be
impacted, positively or negatively. This isn’t a perfect world so decisions that
need to be made will inevitably not benefit every individual. I think that’s
where the real compassion comes in though – we know that for every choice we
make, someone is probably unhappy about it – we can’t please everyone. When I
need some personal time, I usually lose myself walking around Target or Pier
One or someplace like that. I also usually buy things – not big things – but I
do gravitate toward unique bowls. We have so many bowls. My husband is not
happy about the number of unique bowls we have – but he knows that when I need
some “me” time that I usually come back happier or more a piece with something I’ve
been trying to work out. I make the decision to walk around a store knowing
that I’ll probably buy something and that my husband will probably be annoyed,
but I know that it helps me think so the trade-off is better for both of us.
Instead of going home and sulking or getting into a fight or something – I spend
some time with myself and then come home in a better mental state. I decompress
and don’t take it all out on the man I love.
When I make
decisions at work, I also try to be compassionate. Compassion though, does not
carry a lot of clout in aviation. It can be misconstrued as unsure or
indecisive. I just don’t believe that we don’t have five minutes to think about
who the decisions we make really impact. The hardship the families of the
mechanics will go through when we implement mandatory overtime before the
holidays – thinking about that is important. It’s so very important. We don’t
live and work and exist in bubbles. We don’t float around in our tiny little
compartmentalized worlds not interacting or impacting other people – it just
doesn’t work that way. Even when we don’t interact or impact someone we are
making a choice to not impact or
interact.
The big one
– equality – is something I deal with every day. I wrote about my new boss and
how my first reaction to hearing she would be my new boss was very negative and
not very compassionate. It didn’t value her as a person much less a woman. For
all my talk about compassion and equality; I most definitely am still working
on it. In our industry, women have been very much less than equal for a long
time. Even when we did pick up a wrench and built airplanes during WWII – Rosie
the Riveter style – we were once again relegated to the chrome kitchens of the
1950’s when it was over. When I was an industrial engineer, I was the only
woman on our team. I thought that my team respected me and we worked well
together. The truth was that I was always the one they came to when they needed
to plan a birthday party or team event, not when there was a cool project or a
tough assignment. I was on those teams for sure – but not as a leader, usually
as a data compiler, not a decision maker. Inequality in my industry is a lot
more polite than it used to be, no one is being deliberately rude or dismissive
of women but the assignments are different and the longer I’m with Boeing, the more
I see it. It’s kind of like when I took drawing classes and I learned about
negative space – suddenly I saw the negative space everywhere I looked, to the
point of distraction. The more I think about compassion and equality, the more
I notice it for better or worse. Those things are important to me and I don’t
want to compromise those things – I want to do better at recognizing my faults
when it comes to being compassionate and inclusive.
This post
assignment talks about trade-offs – what trade-offs are we willing to make to
support (or not support) our beliefs. I’m going to try to not sound defensive,
but I don’t think that you make trade-offs with values. I know that’s contrary
to what the text says, but I don’t think of values as being interchangeable
with other values. If I hold compassion as a value then I hold it for the
newborn baby as well as the serial murderer. There is no trade-off. If
compassion means we execute that serial murderer so they never kill again, then
so be it. Does that make me less compassionate? Less inclusive? I honestly don’t
see it that way. I don’t know what trade-offs I might have to make to practice
compassion and inclusion at work – does that mean I might never get to be a
manager or make a real difference at work? If in order to be a manager I have
to be less compassionate then that is something I would rather not be. I don’t
believe that being a manager and being compassionate or inclusive are different
things. But if where I work thinks they are, then that’s a trade-off I’m not
willing to make.
Are my
values as protected as they were at the beginning of this post? Yes. If they
weren’t, they’d merely be priorities. Values are deeply rooted things that we
hold on to as absolutes. Whether we have to make tough decisions or choose
between a bad and a less bad thing, we have to consider our values. We will fail,
we will make mistakes, but we have to hold on to those values. Personally, they
are what connects me to my family and the way I make it through each day. The
importance of family means that although I think my niece is too young to have
a baby, I’m going to support her because that is what she needs. She is family,
my new great-nephew is family, it’s not easy because I see all of the things
she could be giving up at 19 being a Mom already. But that’s the thing, I value
the importance of family over my doubts so there isn’t a trade-off. I’m
absolutely imperfect and I absolutely make poor choices – like my initial reaction
to my new boss – that was awful. But I recognized it and it has opened my eyes
to other women and how I react to them as well. If compassion is such a strong
and protected value of mine, I need to be sure to be compassionate to myself as
well. I feel like I got on my soapbox a little with this post, my apologies. By
recognizing how the context of the decision affects the application of values,
one can more effectively present questions involving values. (Hoch, et al.,
2008)
References:
Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., Gunther, R. E., & Wharton
School. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. New York: Wiley.
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