A few years ago, Peru was shaken by the dissemination in the media of some images that showed how a recently elected parliamentarian received money from the adviser to the National Intelligence Service, that is, he received a bribe in exchange for a political favor. With these images, a series of events at odds with the law, ethics and morals were uncovered that involved a whole series of politicians, jurists, soldiers, businessmen and characters from the world of entertainment and sports and that marked the end of a government which was characterized by corruption, immorality and the degradation of values.
Today the campaigns in the various media, in schools, in public institutions, in companies, in the church and in government, about values and their recovery are laudable.
A good wash for the country is necessary with a permanent campaign of values, because as long as the country is seen as corrupt, investors looking for a healthy market will not come.
Values
The word valor comes from the Latin valor, valere (strength, health, being healthy, being strong). When we say that something has value we affirm that it is good, worthy of appreciation and esteem. In the field of ethics and morals, values are qualities that we can find in the world around us. In a landscape (a beautiful landscape), in a person (an honest person), in a society (a tolerant society), in a political system (a fair political system), in an action performed by someone (a good action), in a company (responsible organization), and so on.
Although they are complex and of various kinds, all values agree that their ultimate goal is to improve the quality of our life. The most widespread classification is the following:
- Biological values. They bring health as a consequence, and are cultivated through physical and hygiene education. Sensitive values. They lead to pleasure, joy, recreation. Economic values. They provide everything that is useful to us; they are use and exchange values. Aesthetic values. They show us beauty in all its forms. Intellectual values. They make us appreciate truth and knowledge. Religious values. They allow us to reach the dimension of the sacred. Moral values. His practice brings us closer to goodness, justice, freedom, honesty, tolerance, responsibility, solidarity, gratitude, loyalty, friendship and peace, among others.
Of the above table, the most important are, without a doubt, moral values, since they give meaning and merit to others. It is of little use to have very good health, be very believing or very intelligent or live surrounded by comforts and beautiful objects, if you are not fair, good, tolerant or honest, if you are a bad person, a harmful element for society, with who coexistence is very difficult. The lack of moral values in human beings is a regrettable and sad matter precisely for that reason, because it makes them less human.
Moral values are what guide our behavior, based on them we decide how to act in the different situations that life presents us.
They are mainly related to the effects that what we do has on other people, on society, on the company or on our environment in general. In this way, if we want to live in peace and be happy, we must build together a scale of values that facilitates our individual growth so that, through it, we contribute the best of ourselves to a community that will also have much to give us. Values are, then, so human, so necessary, so desirable, that the most natural thing is that we want to live them, make them our own, defend them when they are in danger or instill them where they do not exist. This is where morality and ethics come into play.
Values, Morals, Ethics and Anti-Values
The meanings of the words moral (from the Latin mores, customs) and ethics (from the Greek ethos, home, place where one lives) are very similar in practice.
Both expressions refer to those kinds of attitudes and behaviors that make us better people, more human. Although morality describes the behaviors that lead us towards what is good and desirable, and ethics is the philosophical science that reflects on those behaviors, both of them encourage us to live according to a high scale of moral values.
Just as there is a scale of moral values, there is also a scale of immoral or anti-values. Injustice, dishonesty, intransigence, intolerance, betrayal, irresponsibility, indifference, selfishness, are examples of these anti-values that govern the conduct of immoral people.
An immoral person is one who stands in front of the table of values in a negative attitude, to reject or violate them. She is what we call an "unscrupulous person", cold, calculating, insensitive to the social environment that surrounds her. The path of antivalues is clearly wrong; because it not only dehumanizes and degrades us, but also makes us worthy of contempt, mistrust and rejection by our peers, if not punishment by society.
Organizational culture
Translating the values to the field of the company, undoubtedly the Senior Management is responsible for promoting the values within the organization.
Do not forget that the organizational culture is the personality of the company and what differentiates one organization from another in terms of processes, procedures and relationships. This is how this company culture includes everything from the knowledge, beliefs and values to the policies, procedures, capacities and abilities acquired by people as members of the company for which they work. When people live together in a company, they form something in common, such as a collective personality, without losing their individual differences. When new people join the company, they are often not adequately socialized, that is, not only technically training them for work, but also culturally: how to dress, what time to eat lunch and with whom, how are work meetings,how people are related within the company, who are the formal and informal leaders, how are the internal and external communication systems, among others.
Understanding the culture of the company is important for people to get to know what are the appropriate and expected behaviors within the company. This is how, when a person does not perform as expected, one of the reasons is usually that they have not adapted to the organizational culture. For this reason, it is essential that leaders know how to objectively consider the prevailing culture, since it can become an obstacle to success.
Final Words
The world of values is vast, complex and in permanent transformation. In each epoch, new values appear or old values change their name. We are all free, in addition to choosing our values and giving them the order and importance that we consider correct according to our way of being and thinking. However, there are values that do not change, that are preserved from generation to generation, always and everywhere. Universal values, which we would demand from anyone.
It depends on the values that we lead a pleasant and happy life, in harmony with ourselves and with others; a life that is worth living and in which we can develop fully as people and workers.
