John E. Jones

hierarchy of priorities. In the process of identifying and ordering their priorities,
individuals come to know themselves better and how they relate to the world in which
they live. It is this process of reflection and ranking that helps the person grow in selfawareness
as a person with a choice about his or her destiny.
The emphasis in the ranking of one’s priorities is not whether the person is right or
wrong or has good or bad values. Rather, the process is designed to help the person
become aware of what these values and priorities are. Once aware, he or she is free to
choose values and priorities. Being aware of what one’s full values are gives the person
the freedom to choose the values that foster growth and to choose the priorities that
achieve the desired ends.
One of the discoveries of VC is that two people may have the same priorities and
yet rank them differently. The difference in ranking is the source of conflict between the
two people. The use of the VC approach to priority ranking can be used as a way of
resolving conflicts. Once individuals see how their different rankings cause conflicts
they can negotiate out their differences and resolve the conflict in such a way that both
people will win.
For example, two vice presidents may have as the same priorities: (1) getting the
task done, and (2) maintaining good morale among the workers. Both would agree that
these two factors are the most important for building a successful business and yet find
themselves in continuous conflict because they rank these two values differently.
16 ❘❚
Vice President I Vice President II
task morale
morale task
Vice President I will continuously be pushing task over morale in discussions and
planning with Vice President II, who will be pushing morale over task. In other words,
these two are attempting to impose their priority rankings on one another. When they
discover this as the root of their disagreements, they will be in a position to negotiate
their different rankings. This may seem like an oversimplification: that the example is
too pure and would never fit reality. However, its validity will be discussed more in the
second section of the paper.
There are several other important value clarification concepts that cannot be
explored in an article of this length such as: values and leisure, values and environment,
values and guilt, people’s limitations, original value formers, values and creativity. The
references at the end of the article treat in depth the theory and methodology of VC.
The Pfeiffer Library Volume 3, 2nd Edition. Copyright ©1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer