Assignment
Exercise: A Tale of Two Stories
In your lives thus far, you have likely encountered situations at school, with friends, in jobs or clubs, when your values conflicted with what you were asked to do. Often it is not easy to align your own personal values and purpose with those of your classmates, co-workers, friends, etc. This exercise is designed to help you identify and develop the competencies necessary to achieve that alignment.
Objectives
1. To reflect on your previous experiences, successful and less so, at effectively voicing and acting on your values in your lives.
2. To discover which conditions and problem definitions empower you to effectively voice your values, and which tend to inhibit that action.
Instructions
Part I
• Recall a time in your experiences in a summer job, an internship, a student club, a student team project, etc. when your values2 conflicted with what you were expected to do in a particular, nontrivial decision, and you spoke up and acted to resolve the conflict.
• Consider the following 4 questions and write down your thoughts and brief responses:
o What did you do, and what was the impact?
o What motivated you to speak up and act?
o How satisfied are you? How would you like to have responded? (This question is not about rejecting or defending past actions but rather about imagining your Ideal Scenario.)
o What would have made it easier for you to speak/act?
Things within your own control
Things within the control of others
Part II
• Recall a time in your experiences in a summer job, an internship, a student club, a student team project, etc. when your values conflicted with what you were expected to do in a particular, nontrivial decision, and you did not speak up or act to resolve the conflict.
• Consider the following 4 questions and write down your thoughts and brief responses:
o What happened?
o Why didn't you speak up or act? What would have motivated you to do so?
o How satisfied are you? How would you like to have responded? (This question is not about rejecting or defending past actions but rather about imagining your Ideal Scenario.)
o What would have made it easier for you to speak/act?
Things within your own control
Things within the control of others.