Relative Values

Just back from Amsterdam and considering contrasting  cultural values and beliefs whilst preparing for the up and coming Values & Beliefs NLP weekend this weekend. Walking through the red light district & past the coffee shops was utterly bizarre, I felt  like I was on another planet  rather than one hour’s plane ride from Liverpool. Similarities abound in climate, language and food tastes but there are some eye-popping differences at the level of values & beliefs between our cultures that show up on the level of behaviour. If we were able to elicit the values of a country, like we can with people: freedom, self-expression and honesty must be way up there; obedience to rules, conformity and propriety (particularly what other people think) not much at all.

Going to another country for the first time gives us a unique perspective on the country’s value system because we are immediately aware of the sharp contrast with our own. On a personal level it’s like going on holiday with another family and realising that some things that are of paramount importance in your own family (high class restaurants, total chill out) are in some degree of conflict with theirs (value food & sightseeing). It’s easy to spot when there’s a values clash – judgements start to come thick and fast if you’re not careful you may find yourselves in a less than benevolent state of mind. All judgements stem from a lack of ability to step into the other person’s shoes and this is the structure of predjudice. And having spent a few sobering hours in the Anne Frank house on Sunday, I’m pretty up for doing something to lessen that.

So how to turn your judgements to your advantage? As soon as you  spot the first symptoms of  judgementalism (a tendency to think things which sound like stuff Catherine Tate’s Harrogate couple would say : “Chips with mayonnaise? Of all the dirty evil….” The  interesting thing to do from an NLP perspective is to stop the judgement in it’s tracks for a minute and get really curious. If we were to hold the mirror up to ourselves right now what would it reflect about our own cultural values and indeed our personal ones? What would the Dutch lady in the window have to say if she showed up on our street or examined our lives. What would her knee-jerk reactions and judgements be to us? What places in our own psyches do we not yet understand and what unexplored corners of ourselves might we be projecting onto others? Because what we reject in ourselves we project onto others. And if we were to elicit OUR  country’s values  what would we find out about what’s important in the UK now and what is missing? Still and all though chips with mayo – what’s that about?