Our values assessment inventory – The AVI - is a tested and proven tool used to identify personal & organizational values. The AVI is based on twenty-five years of academic research, numerous validation studies and real world applications. More than 15,000 people have taken this inventory.

Our values inventory and values mentoring programs are utilized in career & transition planning, enhancing emotional intelligence, improved communication skills, professional effectiveness, leadership and wellness programs.

The VM Values Based Leadership program (VBL) is based on the understanding of a significant shift in our contemporary management and leadership paradigm. This shift may be represented as an evolution from hierarchical leadership to a values based leadership.

Recognizing this, many leaders develop a set of values or values statements that are intended to both motivate their employees and guide their cultures. While many organizations boast about their principles and the core values, there are very few that really abide by them with any consistency. This is largely because their stated values are aspired or desired values rather than their actual or real values and therefore do not accurately represent their true motivations. The result is that typical organizational values statements are frequently greeted with suspicion and cynicism by employees.

In contrast, we believe that effective 21st century leaders are those who:

• Know their real values and related leadership styles and act on them.
• Help their employees clarify their real values in order to support their desire for meaningful work and engage their commitment and creativity.
• Effectively align their organization’s values and culture with its purpose, structure, strategies and goals.
• Support the development of the values of synergy, autonomy and collaborative individualism and social responsibility.

The learning objectives for the program are:

• To develop Values Based Leadership (VBL) skills.
• To acquire a common language of values and perspective for understanding the inter-relationship of values, organizational culture and beliefs.
• To understand why VBL is a key strategy for 21st century organizations.

Values based strategic planning is based on the understanding that there is a close connection between the successful execution of your organizational strategy and the actual values of the people charged with its execution.

The VM strategic planning model identifies three sets of value tracks that underpin three related types of strategic focus.

For example:

Value Tracks		Strategic Focus
Control Values		Operational Excellence
Relationship Values		Customer Partnership
Developmental Values		Innovation & Product Leadership

Each of the above value tracks contain multiple values that are revealed by our assessment methodology. Our CRD (Control/Relationship/Development) values report identifies the dominant value competency for a group or team within an organization and can help to determine which types of values naturally support the likelihood of that group successfully implementing and achieving a particular strategy.

Highly effective teams are ones where there is diversity of membership bound together by the "glue" of a strongly held set of shared values. Identifying and communicating the shared values and value skills of teams and work groups is an integral aspect of building trust, commitment and individual and team accountabity.

A relationship profile for business partnerships, marriages and any couple that identifies the key values each person presently shares with their partner and those they do not share.

Based upon this analysis of their commonly shared and unshared values, it is possible for partners to clarify how they can best evaluate and fulfill their own needs and behaviors and make more effective and satisfying choices, without infringing the needs of the other.

The Partnership Values Profile is based on work of Dr. William Glasser, an internationally recognized psychiatrist who is best known as the author of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy.

Dr. Glasser suggests that the reason why so many people are unhappy in their professional and personal relationships is the need for power or dominance - what he calls, External Control Psychology – literally trying to force people to do what we want them to do. External Control Psychology undermines our personal sense of freedom and initiative. It thus destroys relationships both in the workplace, in our homes and in our educational institutions.

In contrast, Choice Theory suggests that to be both happy and effective we must satisfy our needs for power and control by learning mutual respect and releasing habits of criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing and bribing our partners. Understanding our shared and differing values is an essential aspect of this learning.

Increase the likelihood of successful cultural integration by using our ValueScan methodology and management team values profiles to illustrate the critical value systems, motivations, leadership styles, and value based networks of key relationships that define an organization’s culture. These custom reports allow companies involved in M&A scenarios to clearly see naturally occurring points of blending and potential conflict that can be addressed by senior management and M&A integration teams.   

Stress levels drop when we are clear about our values and consciously committed to them and when there is alignment between our personal values and the core values of the organization we work for.

Our ValueScan program utilizes document scanning analysis to profile organizational values communicated in written and electronic communications.