Values

As mentioned earlier, during the change process I talked with the members asking them, among other things, how they felt about change, if they felt the organization’s story had changed, and how they personally adapted to change in the story. I was surprised by the effect of what I’ve come to call transcendent values on narrative change. I’ve parsed an individual’s values as being held as transcendent or transactional (the language is mine). Values held transcendently are absolutely right or correct, non-negotiable, and resistant to change. Values held transactionally are those needed to transact a person’s living in a given situation or course of life. An example of this is one member’s comment that if the practices of the church changed she would “keep an open mind, evaluate it, and see if it’s something that the other members want to do.” When asked if other members were to change their position regarding the Bible being inerrant would she go along with that? Her response was a firm, “No.” “That’s one thing I won’t change.” The willingness to change and even adapt to a practice not completely of her liking so long as it was “something that the other members want to do” would not extend to every practice. Clearly, there was more than a single value or a single narrative at work.