The Owner's Manual for Values at Work: Clarifying and Focusing on What Is Most Important

In the 1970s, an educational movement called Values Clarification (VC) invigorated school curricula across the United States and elsewhere. As a school consultant, the author of The Owner's Manual for Values at Work was immersed in the VC literature and engaged in the practice of training teachers to use the seven-step VC model. He also adapted VC activities for use with adults and found them to be a valuable tool for adult development as well as child development. Who doesn't benefit from periodic scrutiny of how one expresses one's values?

In the 1990s, the author was no longer training teachers and schoolchildren but was working with adults. By 2010, he had written over a dozen books, including four major personality test professional manuals and an "Owner's Manual" series including The Owner's Manual for the Brain (4^th ed.), The Owner's Manual for Personality at Work (2^nd ed.), The Owner's Manual for Personality from 12 to 22, and The Owner's Manual for Happiness. Something was missing, however: He longed for a version of the VC literature that was both contemporary and focused on the world of work and adults. Nothing was available--the only current literature on values was pure theory and of no help to the typical human development professional.

Realizing that if it were to be it would be up to him, Dr. Pierce J. Howard began the development of three legs to support a VC stool: 1) a comprehensive assessment of personal values for use in the workplace, 2) another in the series of Owner's Manuals that would focus on the exploration and implementation of values in the workplace, and 3) a "toolkit" of scripts and activities that adult development professionals could use in coaching, consulting, and training.

The assessment--The Values Profile(TM)--was completed and launched in 2013. This book represents the second leg of the VC stool--a treatment of the history, theory, and application of values to the lives of adults. The third leg is a companion book to The Owner's Manual for Values at Work and is titled The Values Toolkit--a collection of eight scripts and 42 activities that cover topics such as motivating employees, relationship management, team development, leadership and sales training, the corporate values statement, and succession planning. The Toolkit is nuts-and-bolts practical and application-oriented and is available separately from this Owner's Manual.

The second leg of the stool, this Owner's Manual for Values at Work, contains a semantic map that articulates how values, morals, beliefs, virtues, traits, and other personality attributes interrelate. Based on the simple definition that values are what is important to us, the volume includes a comprehensive map of the Self, a detailed presentation of the set of 16 values researched by the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies (Charlotte, North Carolina), the impact of genes and culture on values, an explanation of the VC 7-step model, a list of films and literary works that illustrate the 16 values, a summary of how the 16 values form the basis of motivating self and others, how to integrate values into the teaching of various workplace subjects (leadership, sales, quality, teamwork, and so forth), and ends with a guide for developing a personal values action plan.

About the Author
Howard, Pierce J.: - Pierce J. Howard grew up in Kinston, North Carolina, the youngest of seven, and attended public schools before studying at Davidson College (B.A.), East Carolina University (M.A.), and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (Ph.D.). While studying at Chapel Hill, he taught English at Chapel Hill High School and later at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. After his studies at Chapel Hill, he took a position as head of School Services at the North Carolina Advancement School in Winston-Salem-a special program for research and dissemination regarding underachievement among teenagers. It was during this stay in Winston-Salem that he began using Values Clarification concepts and materials. He moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, to teach and administer in a school-within-a-school at West Charlotte High School. Since that time, He has worked as an organization development consultant in a variety of settings around the world, while continuing to teach undergraduate and graduate students at Queens University of Charlotte's McColl School of Business, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Pfeiffer University at Charlotte. He has lived out his values with his wife, Jane; daughters Hilary and Allegra; acquired son, Will; and grandchildren, Liam, Stella, Rowan, and A.J. At the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies, he devotes most of his time to his roles of co-founder and innovation officer (also known as director of research and development) and is involved in re-search, writing, and product development, mostly focused on the five-factor model of personality. He balances his professional life with model railroading (n-scale), playing chamber music, building models with grandchildren (next is a 19th-century schooner), singing in the choir (at Providence United Methodist Church), walking the incomparable streets of his Dilworth neighborhood, reading classics and lighter fare, indulging his gustatory senses through cooking and dining his way through the world's cuisines, traveling with Jane and their family to the great national parks of the U.S. and to bucket list destinations around the world-from Petra to the Terracotta Army of Xi'an-advising students on research projects, attending professional meetings, attending family and school reunions, and, in general, staying young. Or, as he describes in his book, dressing his elephant in ways that express his values.