Assignment Goals:

1. Students will provide a list of 10 values in rank order.

2. Students will write a mission statement that guides your professional and or individual direction and goals.

3. Students will create 2-3 goals based on their values and mission statement.

4. Students will evaluate a social issue within the context of their own values and beliefs, and be able to identify their own personal bias.

If communication has a value embedded it in, then it follows that you connect because you share that value. What are your own personal values, and what role do they play in your own bias towards issues and the plan you have for yourself? From deciding on where to spend your vacation or when to attend graduate school, to starting a new business venture—values are the basis for the information you accept or reject, and the direction that determines your life. Values, beliefs, purpose, and goals: These relate to your own bias, or the prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

1.) Read the following list of values, and then write down the top ten values that guide you. Rank them by number with 1 being the most important. Select from the following:

• Accomplishment
• Adventure
• Caring
• Comfort
• Creativity
• Excellence
• Family
• Financial
• Friendship
• Fun
• Happiness
• Health
• Home
• Honesty
• Humility
• Independence
• Integrity
• Knowledge
• Leadership
• Love
• Loyalty
• Peace
• Power
• Recognition
• Religion
• Security
• Serving others
• Solitude
• Stability
• Structure
• Trust
• Wisdom

Values  

Values refer to a set of ideas that guide an individual on how to evaluate right versus wrong, whereas beliefs  refer to a set of doctrines, statements or experiences a person holds as true, usually with evidence or proof. Both are deeply intertwined because  beliefs  influence how an individual develops values. Your beliefs are specific to you—to all that has contributed to your development up until this point. These are personal, like values are, and they differ from one individual to another. Values and beliefs influence bias.

Life is Good: 

“We have Superpowers: Optimism enables us to access the 10 most important core values we have for leading a happy and fulfilling life. We call them the Life is Good Superpowers. But, unlike X-Ray vision, bullet speed, or Herculean strength, they’re accessible to us all. Openness, Courage, Simplicity, Humor, Gratitude, Fun, Compassion, Creativity, Authenticity and Love. By embodying these values Superpowers every day, we positively impact our culture, our products, and our community.” https://apply.workable.com/life-is-good/

Values and Mission Statements

 Values influence the direction an individual or a corporation/institution takes. They provide the basis for a mission statement. Mission statements are used to guide a company’s or an individual’s strategic planning. Mission statements are value-based and answer the question of Why?

Here are a few examples:

Professional Mission Statement:

Life is Good: “To spread the power of optimism.”

An individual’s mission statement for his or her personal life:

To have a stable relaxed balance of creativity and adventure in my work and personal life.

If values are the planning environment and the mission statement is the overall vision and guide, then goals are the product or outcomes of what that vision is aiming for. Goals get you to where you want to be. They are the clear and practical things that you actually do to accomplish the mission.

How a Mission Statement Influences Goals

Patagonia: https://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/company-info.html

Professional Mission Statement: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

Goals:

“Promote silent sports that promote connection between us and nature. Sports such as skiing, snowboarding, surfing, fly fishing, paddling and trail running.

Donate our time, services and at least 1% of our sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups all over the world who work to help reverse the decline in the overall environmental health of our planet.

Our business activity – from lighting stores to dyeing shirts – creates pollution as a by-product. So we work steadily to reduce those harms. We use recycled polyester in many of our clothes and only organic, rather than pesticide-intensive, cotton.

Stay true to our core values, create a company we’re proud to run and work for, while maintaining our focus on making the best products possible.”

Your Personal Mission Statement

An Example Personal Mission Statement: To have a stable relaxed balance of creativity and adventure in my work and personal life.

An Example of a Goal that Connects to This Mission Statement: Take an evening class in yoga or sculpture, plan a vacation that mixes adventure with unstructured relaxation.

Goals can be short or long term, and successful people establish both. You’ll have self-generated goals as well as external goals—those determined by an employer, teacher, or others. What’s your goal in taking this class? How does this fit into a value-driven mission?

2.) Write a personal mission statement. 

3.) Write 2-3 goals that will help you to make your mission statement a reality.

Use This Knowledge About Yourself to Identify Personal Bias 

Lastly, you will use this knowledge about yourself and shift into viewing the world through your own perspective to identify personal bias. This is a more difficult task than it seems, but it is one that is worthwhile.  

4.) Discuss how your personal bias influences your worldview. Remember that bias refers to your own point of view (for example, that which is based on your politics, faith tradition, cultural identity) and that it influences how you see and understand an issue or problem. “Personal bias manifests itself through selecting materials that agree with your viewpoint while rejecting those that challenge it or by allowing a particular belief to shape your analysis of the problem…the outcome is determined beforehand” (Repko, 2012, p. 96-97). Leaders must recognize their personal biases and ensure that they can reach those and teach those with differing worldviews.