Whether we're trying to improve ourselves or taking steps to influence positive changes in our organizations and families, knowing where we are now has to be the first step. Any bookstore can provide too many choices of "self help" materials and limitless methods for accomplishing personal growth. However, planning any trip without knowing where you're starting from is unlikely to get you where you want to go.

The key to Axiology is that it gives you a place to start, to get in touch with why and how you do what you do. Several years ago a lot of work was done with "values clarification" exercises that took you through a process to prioritize your values. While this was an important step, few people where able to differentiate between what they thought they "should" value and the real underlying beliefs and attitudes that influenced their minute to minute decisions and actions.

I remember a values clarification course in the sixties where one of the people said that what they valued most was good health. The instructor then asked this person what kind of car he drove and the answer was a VW bug. We all laughed a little at that, and then he walked up closer to this person and asked what he had in his shirt pocket...and of course, it was a pack of cigarettes.

How different is this from the manager with the open door policy that is abrupt with people who stop in or the customer "service" person who is impatient with their customers or even the parent who pays more attention to their child's "C" than to their "As" and "Bs"? Why do we do what we do, feel what we feel and think what we think? Most of it comes from those insidious programs that have, over time, shaped and structured our thinking into predictable "set" patterns.

What we really value is evidenced by how we live life, how we relate to others, the importance we place on things and how open or closed we are to expanding our perspectives about ourselves and our world. Too often the simple idea of "that's just the way I am" is the very programming that keeps us from becoming who we choose to be.

Keep in mind, "If you want to have something you've never had before, you have to do something you have never done before".

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