Working individually, circle up to 10 words on the list that you feel are important to you. Add in words if you feel something is missing. Then, discuss the words you chose with people you work or live with to discover what is important to each other.

If you’re doing a values exercise as a work team (business or non-profit), make a new list of the values that people held in common, and any others people can agree should be part of your team’s stated values. Then define how each values word would appear or influence your decisions and operations as a team.

A values list doesn’t have to be exclusive: there may be words that don’t appear in your selected list but you still consider important. For example, honesty may be something you consider so obviously important that it “goes without saying” while slightly less common words are more unusual or unique in your particular context, so you decide to put them on your list. There are no “wrong ways” to do this exercise!

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