on values
DATE OF ENTRY: 2-11-25
As photographers, we want our work to portray a certain set of foundational values. As viewers or buyers of imagery, we also want the art we observe or purchase to act as an extension of our personal values. Doing so lets others know what we value in the arts.
Thus, values carry a lot of weight in our decision-making processes.
When I think back on my corporate career, I easily recall the number of times the various organizations I worked with would change the set of core values almost on a whim. It was as if by simply repeated the values to ourselves, writing them down, and maybe get a poster of them to hang on the wall, we would live and breathe the set of values.
I worked at a place that had an amazing core value for why I wanted to join them on a plaque on a wall.
“The way we’ve always done it is not an answer.”
I joined and was hired to do things differently for my little problem-riddled professional career. Guess what happened?
Over the convening years, I’ve read no shortage of advice articles about getting better at living the stated values within organizations. These articles always suggest that we simply need to find a better way to implement them with the existing top-down model. No one seems to reflect on the fact that we’ve been trying this for decades and it’s still not working.
The adoption of a new set of values, either new-to-you or as part of a revamping or redesign, is 100% a genuine change situation. These moments absolutely require a period of liminality in which the change can gain a foothold and be carried into “what will become” of some future state of the work ti be done.
New sets of values layered on top of “what was” simply achieve a slightly tweaked version of “what was.”
My sense is that we can look to the struggle of an artist to find his/her/their art as people working holistically to discover their foundational values that they want to honor through their art.
My personal sense is the along with “finding a purpose”, perhaps we should wait to claim our values and purpose after having done enough work to know that we truly can do and honor them. I’d suggest that artists seem to do this best.
The set of values to be honored through a set of work is a grassroots, from-the-bottom-up challenge, not something that can be forced from the outdated top-down model. Can we imagine if in the arts, values were assigned to an artist?
It simply flies in the face of human nature…which is likely why it also does not work at work.
Transitioning from a top-down model to a bottom-up model requires a liminal space for genuine change to happen.
As I’ve learned to become a disciplined photographer, I’ve discovered that the photographic mindset and process can help us get a better grasp of the thinking required for genuine change. Photography provides a robust, hands-on metaphorical immersion into the liminal spaces required for pursuing a more genuine form of change.
END OF ENTRY
