Introduction to Systemic Values Sort Pattern

Values are concepts for which people will make extraordinary efforts. They provide the motives for behaviours explained by phrases like 'It seemed the decent thing to do', or 'I did it because I want to live with myself in peace'. The more deeply held a value, the less consciously is its holder aware of it. Values include deeply held beliefs about what is right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable or unacceptable conduct, and about what is worth wanting, working for and making an effort to keep in life. For those to whom the phrase has meaning, values can be described as matters of conscience. In terms of logical levels and conscious awareness, values fall somewhere between presuppositions and belief systems.

There are values which are ends in themselves, and values which form a means to some other end. Values exist in hierarchies of importance to their holders, and are represented in visual, auditory and kinaesthetic modalities like other thought forms. This means that the submodalities of a hierarchy of values can be elicited, and the hierarchy rearranged if the holder so wishes. Values can also be taken right out, and replaced with other values more in keeping with the holder's current identity.

Values are acquired through life exposure to experience, other people's models of the world, and sometimes reading. Small children model their parents' or guardians' values, and sometimes those of their schools. In teen years, parental values may be dropped in favour of peer values, and then picked up again later less consciously than before.
The adoption of others' values in early years is often at the root of incongruity, as demonstrated in both language and behaviour. The modal operators 'should' and 'ought', for example, indicate that the speaker is carrying a value they do not share. The modal operator implies that they would rather do something else, but someone else will be displeased if they do. Until this is drawn to their attention, they are liable to conform to the old value, incongruently, or do their own thing, incongruently, neither of which works.

When someone ignores or violates a value, they may feel sensations they could describe as either guilt or shame, and sometimes both. Guilt is a response to violating someone else's value, and shame is a response to violating one's own. When someone discovers which value they have violated, they can find the value they hold which was important enough to outrank the violation. This discovery is often enough to neutralise shame or guilt; otherwise they can be useful pointers to further change.

To elicit values from someone, ask them what is important to them about that class of situation or activity. To discover their complex equivalent for non-sensory based descriptions, ask them what their description means to them, or what it represents to them. Then ask them to describe that in sensory based terms if it is useful.

The NLP classic code process of simply eliciting a hierarchy of values and changing the relative importance of a value in the hierarachy (by using submodalities to change the coding of the representations of the values) has the following limitations;

a) the values elicited are for only one particular context and are not considered within the multiple contexts within which the person lives.

b) the subject or practitioner makes a conscious decision about how important a particular value should be or even whether of not it should be replaced. The decison of course is made with the usual constraints of conscious attention.

Using the Systemic Values Sorting process solves the above limitations by working with multiple contexts and involving the unconscious mind in the sorting processs. The role of conscious attention is in organising the contexts to be explored and the gathering of information on values. In part 2 of the process, the unconscious mind explores the relationships between the various values within each state found within each context, relating the values across context and the relationships between each values set. The comparing and contrasting of values within and across multiple contexts creates a considerable amount of information and leads to to a reorgansiation of the values and the emergence of the persons core values. In part 2 of the process participants report overload of conscious attention followed later by the emergence of significant information about their values. They also often report a greater sense of personal congruity in their lives.

Instructions

Part 1. Eliciting states from contexts & finding the values for each state

1. Pick at least 5 different contexts which may include a present work situation, a desired / fantasy work situation and at least three enjoyable or favourite activities. The enjoyable activities are things you do whenever you can, for example 'travelling,' or, 'drawingç, or playing your musical instrument or reading in bed. Each of your defined situations (contexts) will contain a psychological state that you express in that context. How you get a state back, say it's a present work, is to see yourself in that present work situation, step inside so you're looking from your own eyes and as you do so take a step into an imaginary circle on the floor. Be aware of what you saw at the time, what you heard and how it felt. That's your state. Then step out. Then do the same for the fantasy work situation. Step inside that, be aware of the state, you'll feel a change in your state. Then step out. Then take something you enjoy that you do as often as possible in the present. So imagine doing that, step into it, be aware of what you saw, heard and felt, then step out of that. Often people find doing this physically with imaginary circles on the floor is a very simple way of getting into a state or accessing a state and stepping out of a state.

2. Then from each state either you or your partner can ask the question 'What is important in this experience'? Have your partner write down your values. You may be surprised how easily you access the values. So, for each state, ask, 'What is important to me in this experience'?

3. Then take those values and list them from most important to least important. With that information, it gives you some idea of what is highly valued for you and what may be not quite so important. We can then use this information for the next exercise.

Part 2. Exploring the relationships of values across contexts

1. Use each of your chosen states as a filter through which to perceive the other states. Take any one of them and step into it. Notice how the filters of one state influence your thoughts on the other states. Then step out of that state into a neutral space to ensure clean separation between states. Step into another state, and repeat the process until you have compared and contrasted all of them from each other. Is that interesting for you? Find any position between the five states, maybe from the outside, another side or from the middle. You can move around freely between different positions outside each of the five states on the floor, looking at those states so that you collect different perspectives. Any time you want to, you can step into one of them again, and gather more information.

2. Take some other perspectives in the room. You could stand in between all five states if you like. Find out what that's like. Simply by doing the comparisons and contrasts, getting those different perspectives you create the understandings where any changes, take place naturally and systemically. The present state and the desired state work well if you choose the same context or the same type of situation. So if you choose work for one it may be work for the other. Or you may choose home life for one and home life for the other. So for these two, you want to have the same class of information, the same class of context. The enjoyable states can be quite different from each other. The key is that they are things you enjoy. With something you enjoy, you create the opportunity to do it whenever you can. There are likely to be important values in something you do by choice. Keep in mind that people can get into situations with work commitments where they find themselves ten years on still doing something that does not fulfill many of their values. This process is designed to show up variations between life lived and values desired. When you know there is a mismatch, you can plan to change it to something you prefer. Not only will you find the situation more rewarding for yourself, you will perform better, by choice.

How Does The Systemic Values Sorting Pattern Relate To Complexity?

Complexity provides one explanation for how this works. The person takes a series of discrete states that occur in particular times, places and situations. The facilitator creates a context where those states and their value sets, the value sets acting as attractors, can be considered simultaneously and through each other. Thus they become highly connected in relation to each other and yet still separate, probably for the first time in the subject's experience. By having the person associated into each state, one at a time with a clean break between each, not only are the states highly connected but they are also interacting. Participants report after stepping in and out of states for about half an hour, a sense of their values spontaneously reorganising. I think of it as being like an editing process. Some of the less important values are deleted or incorporated into more important ones. Some participants report a developing sense of what values must be fulfilled for them to be satisfied in their experiences. After doing this myself for the first time I was left with a pervading sense of integration and well being that then flowed on into my relationship and work. This process can be used as the first stage of a sequence of processes in which people find a vision for their desired future for themselves which is congruent with their core values.

Systemic Values Sort Pattern Reference:

Systemic Values Sort developed by Chris Collingwood.

Collingwood, J.J.P., Collingwood, C.R.J. The NLP Field Guide; Part 2. A reference manual of Master Practitioner Practitioner level patterns. Unpublished manuscript.