Firstly, to create efficaciousness value descriptors we should:
- Identify values which have like roles and work with the identified set of values. (For example, control/order/discipline, law/duty, law/guide, accountability/ethics, etc. all have an ordering role within their respective world-view -- each world-view has different beliefs about how the ordering should be effected, therefore, each world-view has a different value giving expression to the beliefs.) In working with the new descriptors for a set of values, we must ensure the role for each value within its world-view is maintained, and each descriptor clearly distinguishes each value in the set from the others.
- Keep the value label and its descriptor simple using more common-usage words. For example, Collaboration/Subsidiarity could become Collaboration/Delegation.
- Use word senses which are the most common interpretation of the word.
- Ensure the descriptor of a value makes it simple to distinguish it from other values, particularly from other values which have labels of like-senses such as, for example: Cooperation/Complementarity, Collaboration/Subsidiarity, and Interdependence.
- Not use other value labels within the descriptor.
- Not provide examples of how the value may be lived -- this narrows the descriptor and could bias its meaning.
- Ensure it facilitates the process of people working through the VAK questions to identify how they are living the value in their life.
- Is it simple?
- Is it constructed from common-usage words?
- Does it use words such that their most common meaning-sense is the sense intended?
- Does it faithfully describe its role in the world-view to which it belongs as a focus value - i.e. is it congruent with the beliefs of its world-view?
- Is it sufficiently different from other values whose labels have like-senses?
- Is it free of other value labels?
- Is it free of examples of how to live the value?
- Is it easily used with the VAK questions?
I agree it needs to be simple and the further we can move away from words that can be read as something different to what we mean in the context of the AVI the better. Discipline is one of the difficult ones, control is another for some of the people I work with - the negative association they jump to is being a "control freak" I don't have a solution though at the moment - influence is too weak and power isn't quite right either would something like "determination" work (although it isn't simple....)
ReplyDeleteI shall keep thinking!
First..I apologize for using the term definition instead of descriptor, because I definitely agree, descriptors are a better way to allow the expansion of meaning.
ReplyDeleteI also believe less is more when it comes to effective wording for the descriptors.
I really hope you DO NOT select Collaboration/Delegation as a value choice. Why can collaboration not stand alone?
Also really hope Control/Order/Punish(Train) is not selected. What is wrong with multiple interpretations? Isn't the point of the AVI the discussion that occurs about the selected values? If we agree that the benefit of descriptors is that they allow for greater interpretation, why are we trying to narrow the possibilities?
If people are uncomfortable with the words, there is a reason that can then be explored.
Control/Order/Discipline works for me. Both Control & Discipline are important words and they do have an emotional impact that perhaps should not be ignored or softened.