Your values drive your behaviors, from the toothpaste you buy to who you choose as a partner to which career path you pursue. Every decision you make, and your ultimate satisfaction with those decisions, ties directly back to your unique values and your beliefs about those values.

The idea that values drive our behaviors is not new. Chris Argyris and Donald Schoen describe how values drive behaviors in their Ladder of Inference Model. Michael Kallet in Think Smarter describes how we filter our facts, experiences, observations and assumptions through our personal beliefs before making a conclusion.

Senka Holzer, Ph.D., takes values one step further in Be You: The Science of Becoming the Self You Were Born to Be. She defines two types of values: Core values — our innate, psychological DNA, our intrinsic motivation — and Acquired values — those internalized from our environment, our extrinsic motivation.

If values drive our behavior, and Core values are the basis of our intrinsic motivation, then educators finally have the key to help learners integrate and retain the knowledge: We must tap into their Core values.

By tapping into a learner’s Core values, you ensure engagement, participation and enthusiasm for the material that promotes retention of the learning. You also ensure the learner feels excited and motivated to move the learning from their head to their heart. The head might know, but the heart is where the committed action takes place.

This session will explain the power of Core values and provide you with exercises that help tie the education experience back to the student’s personal Core values.

Learning Objectives

You will attain:

• An understanding of the differences between Core and Acquired values and their ability to build lifelong satisfaction.
• Methodologies and exercises for quickly helping learners ascertain their Core values in individual and group learning environments.
• Simple reflective exercises that will help learners tie the concepts, skills, and knowledge they gain to their Core values and adjust their beliefs in order to further build on the material well into the future.