‘Values’ — In theory and practice.

‘Shared values’. From finding a romantic partner, to seeking the right company culture to call ‘home’, to raising children — we use this phrase a lot! But what do we mean by it? What are values? In theory and practice.

In our search for shared values, it’s almost as if there is some nostalgia, some subconscious memory of utopia, or of enlightenment — of a magical person in a magical tribe in a magical place in which individual and group metaphysical values are perfectly clear, aligned and made manifest in the physical environment.

But first, let’s get on the same wavelength! This is the Spotify playlist I’m listening to right now…

We Are The Musicians, We Are The Makers Of Music

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep…” — William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1

One more time, I’m going to repeat this paragraph, so we can play with its concepts:

Think about that. Why do we think that shared values are even possible at all? Why isn’t the opposite to be expected? Aren’t values just words and concepts? Don’t they mean something different to each person? Most people disagree on most things. Most people make different decisions in similar situations. Yet disharmony seems at least as prevalent as harmony.

By arriving at harmony and disharmony we have introduced a musical metaphor into our sociology…. Humans are the musicians and the instruments. Our thoughts, our words, our actions are the musical notes. Which means that our mind, our voice, our senses and our body’s capabilities — are the instrument. Our mind is both the instrument and the player of the instrument.

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.

— The Buddha, The Dhammapada, Teaching 1. Contrary Ways

I’m traveling in Asia right now. Last week I was motorcycling to yoga on a dirt road after heavy rain had fallen, and I fell into a giant mud puddle, while fully clothed in my nicest clothes. Has your perspective on a situation ever shifted suddenly? I broke out in joyous laughter! I didn’t understand why I was laughing, but I was laughing. At myself, at the situation, at the absurdity of it. I was so gloriously delighted. Afterwards I was reflecting on why I felt the way I did in that moment. Maybe it was because this is the sort of thing that would just never happen in New York City, the sort of thing that happens on an adventure, but not in ‘ordinary life’ — at least as I had known ordinary life to be.

“The mind is its own place and in itself can make a hell of heaven and a heaven of hell.” — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 254–255

I made for myself a heaven of hell, in that moment. I felt liberated of pretense. Of urbanity. But! Much of the last week I had been grumpy and miserable in similar upsets. This just took it to an extreme, and in the extreme, I experienced the magic of reversal. It was too absurd not to laugh. The alternative was to cry! And I just didn’t feel like crying. It didn’t bother me that much. It didn’t damage me that much. I scraped my knee and created some laundry. These are my biggest problems, as a stranger in a strange land, on my way to yoga? Easily fixable. Meanwhile, what an experience. What a memory to remember. What a story to tell. What a joy.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 14

Somehow the doors of my perception were cleansed in that moment. I got a glimpse through all the narrow chinks in my cavern.

We Are Professional Ballerinas

Let’s return to our opening question: What are values? In theory and practice. Why does everybody talk about them, but nobody think about them, deeply?

Once more:

Do any two minds think alike? If my life is a solo performance, am I making harmonious music, and am I enjoying my own concert? Now I am not only the musician and the instrument, I am also the audience! If I am playing for an audience other than myself, who am I playing for?

If this is not a solo performance, and I am supposed to harmonize my music with others, how do I do it? That would require clarifying, negotiating and coordinating our thoughts, words and actions.

In seeking the source of harmony and disharmony in values we are implying that values are the foundation of human decisionmaking. When human conflict arises, humans are competing over scarce resources, and some situation has arisen in which their opinions about what to do, and thus, their behaviors, diverge. Logically conflict can take these forms: avoidance, passive aggression, political competition, economic competition, verbal aggression and physical aggression. As disharmony becomes increasingly painful, it has a tendency to ultimately resolve itself in harmony, either through escalation or descalation.

We inquire into values. We inquire into values for the source of harmony and disharmony, because we desire harmony. We want the secret skill of harmonization. We want to harmonize ourself with ourself, ourself with nature, ourself with our environment and ourself with others — from our inner circle to society as a whole.

If even one person achieves harmony, do they somehow magically bring everyone and everything else around them into harmony? Or, to achieve harmony within an organization, or within society as a whole, is a minority or a majority sufficient, or does every single member need to achieve harmony?

"To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”

— Confucius, The Great Learning

Memories Of A Future Golden Age

Once more, back to the opening question… We’re investigating values. Corporate values. Family values. Romantic values. Everyone talks about seeking shared values. What on earth do we mean by that? Is that even possible? Do we actually know any individuals or organizations that define their values clearly and live by them and are shining examples of harmony?

It’s almost as if…

It’s almost as if we have déjà vu… Like we’ve seen the ideal individual, the ideal romantic partners, the ideal friendship, the ideal family, the ideal company, the ideal society… We’ve seen them somewhere, but we only vaguely remember them… We used to know how to live in harmony, but somehow we forgot… We’re somehow trying to remember, trying to get back…

Have you ever experienced déjà vu and wondered whether, maybe, you had already been there? In the Meno dialogue, Socrates expounds a rather shocking theory: that nobody ever learns anything, we’re just remembering. He demonstrates this by asking questions until a child ‘remembers’ The Pythagorean Theorem from scratch! Whether that was just an incredible party trick or a convincing demonstration is for you to decide. But he, like many ancients, believed in reincarnation. But if we’re remembering, how did we forget? ‘Anamnesis’ is what Plato called the amnesia of souls.

This lineage of thought continued through Nietzsche in the 19th century, with his ‘Amor Fati’ concept — that one should love one’s fate so much that even if one had to live one’s own life over and over again, with no edits or omissions, the same tragedies, the same triumphs, the same heartbreaks, the same joys — that one would do it gladly and courageously. Another shocking thought.

In the 20th century, this mystical and philosophical concept, along with mythology itself, was psychologized by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts and others. A bridge was built, so to speak, between science, mythology and philosophy. Let’s walk across the bridge…

Déjà vu is a very strange psychological phenomenon. So I asked Carl Jung via GPT, “Dr. Jung, has there been a definitive scientific explanation for Déjà vu or is it still a mystery?”

Mismatch Theory: This theory posits that déjà vu occurs when there’s a mismatch between sensory input and memory-recalling processes. Essentially, our brains mistake the present moment for a past one.
Hologram Theory: The hologram theory suggests that human memory is structured in a way that’s similar to a hologram. In a hologram, even a small fragment can recreate the whole image. Similarly, a tiny piece of a current experience might be enough to trigger a recollection of a whole past event, even if it’s just a perceived memory.
Neurological Glitch Theory: Some researchers suggest that déjà vu might be a result of a neurological misfire, a temporary glitch in the brain where an event is mistakenly registered as a memory before being processed as a real-time experience.
Dual Processing (or Delayed Processing) Theory: Another theory suggests that déjà vu is due to a delay in information being processed by one part of the brain compared to another. This leads to the feeling that we’re experiencing something for the second time because one part of the brain receives the information twice — once directly, and once slightly delayed.
Neurochemical Theory: Some researchers suggest that déjà vu is triggered by a similar set of neurochemical conditions in the brain that were present during a past experience. So, even if the current situation is entirely different from the past one, the similar neurochemical state may elicit a feeling of familiarity or repetition.
Paranormal or Metaphysical Theories: Outside of scientific theories, some people explain déjà vu through past-life experiences, precognition (the ability to see the future), or other unverified phenomena.

Whether we entertain the mystical conception, or we just psychologize it, it is clear that we, as human beings, have some deeply held and widely shared belief that harmony is possible and desirable…

“Until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
— Carl Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self,
Volume 9, Part 2

That, in and of itself, is fascinating. It is the unexamined agreement behind every disagreement about values. We may disagree about which values are the most important, or how to apply them in a particular situation, but anyone who thinks that values matter, somehow believes in values as concepts, and concepts as real things that matter.

But without reprising Plato, how are concepts real things that matter? For example, why should CONCEPTUAL VALUES matter AT ALL in a profit-seeking company? Why should economic rational-actors waste any time at all on such a philosophical exercise as establishing corporate values and figuring out how to live them in practice?

I feel like quoting Lewis’ aged Professor Digory from The Chornicles of Narnia:

“It’s all in Plato, all in Plato! Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!?”

Applying Values Inside Of A Company

As you can see from this essay, I feel like a beginner when it comes to Values. Every time I think I’ve figured out what we’re talking about and how to apply it, I realize I’ve barely begun to understand, and am just starting on the path.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
— T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Little Gidding

And yet I’m in a rather weighty position of responsibility running a company which I founded eight years ago, which now has a team of two thousand people. That’s a lot of people to harmonize! With what? Words on a page?!

By the mere centrality of ‘values’ in our social and professional discourse, there is an acknowledgement that no matter how well designed our incentives, and no matter how well run our management systems, that something beyond the material is required to manifest harmony.

And yet we are living in the secular, post-modern and relativist 21st century. Any attempt to create a shared metaphysics puts us on a collision course with the great religious and philosophical debates of history. Any attempt to create a shared vision for society puts us on a collision course with politics and history itself.

And once again, who cares about concepts? How on earth can concepts help us make real decisions, in the messy and complex world, with its many variables and its many players, full of intense pressures and tradeoffs?

How is an organization in 2023 supposed to use values as anything more than window dressing?

Especially when the individuals leading that organization are themselves flawed mortals, and making mistakes every day — hardly paragons of virtue?

For reference, these are the five sets of values we’ve chosen, as an organization:

Myth and Wisdom. Myth is the wellspring from which our conviction and energy come. Wisdom is the ability to see exceptions, find nuance, and bridge theory and practice.

Strategy and Tactics. Strategy is knowing where you want to go and what stands in the way. With tactics, we know how to pivot in real time and respond to new information and new circumstances.

Ownership and Alignment. Owners take responsibility. Owners care. With alignment, we work in tandem with others, seek collaboration, harmonization, and standardization of efforts, processes, and goals.

Self Improvement and Excellence. We are all works in progress. At Invisible we seek to level up, and strive to become the best versions of ourselves. Excellence may be far off, but it is worth striving for.

Service and Partnership. Partnership requires mutuality and reciprocity. With service, we seek to help each other at every turn.

Okay great. How is this useful? I’m trying to decide whether to answer my emails or return a phone call. I’m wondering whether I should get on a plane to Seattle to meet with a sales prospect, or whether I should spend the next month working on these two critical innovation projects. I have really tough feedback to give someone without demotivating them. These sound so polished and abstract.

Exactly. These are ideals and reference points. Invitations to reflect. Reminders of concepts. A very zoomed out map. If they told you exactly what to do, then your judgement and discernment, your personality and experience, wouldn’t be required.

Why Not Embrace The Dark Side?

Darth Vader: “Luke, join me, and together, we can rule the galaxy!”
— Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back

But wait. Why not embrace Money, Sex and Power as our shared values? After all, these are truly universal values. Everyone is hardwired for physical pleasure. Money turns into whatever you want — at least, whatever you want that money can buy, which is just about everything in the material world. And power is, by definition, the ability to get what you want.

Yes, Money, Sex and Power are, in fact, universal human values, because with very few exceptions, you will find them pursued in every society on the planet. But the exceptions prove the rule! Across human history, the individuals and organizations and societies we admire the most, we understand to be the most noble and heroic, are those that, when confronted with tradeoffs between these values and some higher value, like Courage, Justice, Loyalty, Liberty, Integrity or Love, they chose the higher value, even at great cost to themselves. We understand these as ‘personal sacrifices’ and we even use language like ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ — usually without questioning it. We just assume that we aren’t saints and heroes like Churchill, Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Theresa or Japanese Samurai.

What is the secret to actually living these values in practice when they conflict with more selfish values like Money, Sex and Power? How do individuals, organizations and societies overcome their selfishness and develop the inner strength to make personal and collective sacrifices?

I put that question into GPT and it gave me a wonderful form-letter. For individuals, it recommended: Education and Reflection, Mindfulness and Self-Awareness, Empathy and Compassion, Community Support, Personal Growth, Role Models and Mentors. For organizations and societies, it recommended: Cultural Change, Leadership, Structural Changes and Education.

Recipe answers like this, while on the one hand, true, are also both comical and annoying. We all know that becoming more heroic and virtuous is difficult, complex and mysterious. Even more difficult, complex and mysterious that developing a six-pack of abs, or learning how to do a handstand!

Values As Shared Meditation Practice

Values can be thought of as a shared decision-making framework, but really, they’re a shared meditation practice. That’s because any advanced decision that’s really worth diagnosing doesn’t have a single correct answer. There is an endless optimization function, a limitless set of analyses and critiques. Values become a shorthand, a vocabulary for desirable qualities that help us weigh tradeoffs and measure results.

The more decisions we make, the more experience we have in understanding the relationship between decisions and results. We develop pattern recognition and abstract out principles. ‘In situations like X, dynamics like Y and Z tend to influence or determine the outcomes, which usually are either like A or B.’

There are companies like Bridgewater which have attempted to build libraries of Principles and operationalize them with Decision Logs. We’ve also attempted to build our own Operating System here at Invisible that somehow connects the theoretical with the practical, a bridge between heaven (abstract principles and values) and earth (day to day decisions), a kind of tech-enabled Jacob’s Ladder, a management synthesis of Plato and Aristotle. I don’t think it’s impossible, I think it’s the future. It’s just that all previous approaches, those we’ve attempted and those we’ve seen other’s attempt, have been extremely difficult and absurdly unprofitable. The Coasian Friction, that is, the micro-economics of applying this much of an analysis-tax on moment-by-moment dynamic and intuitive decision-making, is just too high.

Actually, this is one of the great projects, and the great practical tests, of applied Artificial Intelligence. To what extent can an A.I. either replace or augment human decision-makers in making advanced and subjective decisions? Without a parallel universe computer or advanced simulators, how do we measure the optimality of these decisions? These are open questions and opportunities.

Back to the breath. This whole essay has been a meditation. We have been essaying into the territory of values, principles and concepts. The territory is vast. The inquiry is neverending.

But the more often we return to this inquiry, and to these questions, the more likely we are to make better decisions. If there is an article of shared faith, it is merely that these exercises, namely:

thinking about values and principles, discussing them, articulating them, debating them, deepening our understanding of them,
diagnosing decisions, slowing down before making decisions, practicing greater mindfulness and awareness of the situations in which we are in,
exploring tension, seeking harmony, desiring a better way…

are a good use of time and energy.

Sorry, what again? Once more…

We believe that discussing Values & Principles on a regular basis is a good use of time and energy.

It’s our shared Meditation practice. That’s why the values we’ve chosen are sort of curious and strange. They “take a stand” but they also “leave you with the questions.”

A Company’s Character Becomes Its Destiny

The ancients believed that character becomes destiny. What if this truth is as true for organizations and societies as it is for individuals?

ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων

Ethos anthropoi daimon

Possible translations:
1. “Character is destiny.”
2. “Character becomes destiny.”
3. “A man’s character is his fate.”
4. “Character is a divine force in a person’s life.”
5. “A man’s character is his divine guardian.”
6. “A man’s character is his guiding spirit.”
7. “A man’s inner spirit determines his life’s course.”

— Heraclitus, Fragments, Fragment 119

Isn’t it fascinating how many possible translations there are of this tiny little three word fragment of Heraclitus, that has travelled 2,500 years to reach us in 2023?

That is because there are multiple meanings of these mysterious words “δαίμων” (daimon) and “ἦθος” (Ethos) in ancient Greek.

For example, the meanings of ‘daimon’ range from personality to inner spirit or creative inspiration or muse or even guardian angel. So we can even imagine a banal aphorism from Hollywood like ‘personality is everything!’ speaking to this hidden ancient truth.

Ethos means “way”, and so it means everything from discipline and habit, to way of life, ethics, decision-making framework and virtue. Heraclitus’ point is that these things tend to become, over time, destiny.

About a century and a half after Heraclitus, who lived in Ephesus in the 5th century, Aristotle taught a strikingly similar truth in Athens:

ἔστιν οὖν ἀρετὴ ἕξις προαιρετική
estin oun aretē hexis proairetikē.

Possible translations:
1. “Virtue, then, is a deliberative habit.”
2. “Mastery is a deliberately cultivated state of being.”
3. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

In this phrase:
“estin” (ἔστιν) translates to “is”
“oun” (οὖν) is a postpositive conjunction that is often translated as “therefore” or “then”
“aretē” (ἀρετὴ) translates to “virtue” or “excellence”
“hexis” (ἕξις) translates to “habit” or “state”
“proairetikē” (προαιρετική) translates to “chosen” or “deliberate”

With my third eye, I see my audience yawning. You are wondering when this nerdy lecture is going to end. I am ending it now. I am not going to bore you with a comparative study of the Ancient Greek concepts Daimon, Aristeia, Ethos, Logos, with the ancient Chinese concepts of Tao, De and Li, and the ancient Indian concepts of Brahman, Karma and Dharma, and the ancient Persian concepts of Vohu Mano, Asha and Ratu, with the ancient Jewish sense of divine intervention in the rise and fall of civilization and the virtue of kings and their kingdoms… Or with the later Buddhist concept expressed in The Golden Light Sūtra, that virtuous kingdoms will be blessed. Which echoes The Education of The Dharma King from the Mahabharata. Nor will I bore you with how obsessed all of these traditions seem to have been with bridging these philosophical concepts specifically into practical politics, to the art and science of day to day government.No I will not teach a comparative lecture series on Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Zarathustra, Vyasa, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, Confucius and Mencius!

At least, not right now! Not just because I’m not ready to teach that course yet. But because you’re yawning! You yawn all the time. Stop. Values and principles are exciting.

They’re the sort of things that prevent civilizations from collapsing, they’re the brick and mortar of castles and cathedrals, they are the rising strength of companies. Their presence is behind all success. Their erosion is behind all collapse. To your questions, they hold the answers. To your frustrations, they have the breakthroughs. To your mysteries, they keep the secrets.

Alas, I have no idea how to teach myself and others to understand these better or apply them better! So I’ll leave that up to you. Although I hope these mere words on a digital page helped you on your journey in some way.

Have a good day, and… good luck!