I usually write about finance, investment, entrepreneurship and leadership. In recent years, I have been increasingly concerned with the issue of succession, since these ten years of the coming generation have been devoted mainly to problem management. With this engagement I have realized the importance of values and with the publication of data on a large number of values worldwide, I found it useful to take a stand.
Valuegraphics used data from half a million surveys in 152 different languages to identify 56 values that influence human behavior. The company proceeded with this study as it offers marketing and sales services, but what is particularly interesting is that these values have a different hierarchy from country to country and possibly from period to period.
The 10 most important values, regardless of country or language, include family (1st) and relationships such as financial stability, acquisition and spirituality. So, it is clear that human relationships with security-related values form a general basis of the value framework for our world today. In the same context, social prestige and appreciation are much higher (17th, 15th) in relation to interest in the environment (36th).
Today we live in a fragile environment, both literally and figuratively. But, for some strange reason, we think that we can have material wealth, happy families and professional security in it. So we may spend hours discussing the actions of balancing the sufferings of a natural disaster in terms of individual or micro-collective reorganizations, compensation, etc. and overtake the signs for a blast approaching at high speed. And that is considered logical. In Europe the value of material acquisitions is well above the average in the ranking while the moral equivalent… is far below.
I have a reservation (that is, hope) that the data is not entirely accurate, but what they describe I see around me as well. We do not tolerate the view that as many lives as possible should be saved first, of living beings in general, and then reproducible constructions. We are not discussing the possibility of pursuing a strategy of limiting damage from a catastrophe for the wider community. But it is obvious that the value of “patience” for us Europeans is at the bottom of the list of values, as is justice in the broadest sense. “Hold on” because the above is supported by the classification of education, which we all know is a means of obtaining a job… So, unfortunately, no matter how many hours scientists devote to explaining difficult and complex phenomena or diseases, we lack patience, we demand justice in 5-10 years and we question their real knowledge as they do a “work”, simply.
In Europe, as in our country, tradition has receded into the value system. So has respect. Greece is a small but vast country in diversity. There are dozens of different microcosms. Smaller circles in the big one that unites them. Each with its own characteristic customs and traditions, festivals, gastronomy and local products, folk art, costumes, architecture, dances, songs, idioms. Is it a coincidence? Is all this tradition that regulates the way of life as a whole, without real value or enclosing the balance between people and nature from the depths of the centuries? Can we live harmoniously without the necessary respect? If you are bothered when in the vehicle in front the driver behaves with indifference, rudeness and arrogance in a country where family and relationships are so high in the value system, imagine what his behavior will be towards the “lifeless” forest, the sea or an animal that had the misfortune of not being domestic.
It is therefore a matter of values. I always believed it, but now I have found evidence to support it. To improve our country, especially now that the balance is so fragile, we need to change the ranking of our values. Not just some people, everyone! To do this we must start with the younger generations. From kindergarten. That early. For all the others, lifelong learning programs have a glorious field.
Our country has spent the past 200 years through successive disasters and an equal number of triumphs, as S. Kalyvas brilliantly describes in his book. I hope that with our next triumph we will discover how important our network of values is for shaping citizens, politics and long-term economic strategy and put it at the core of our state.