Excerpts ·

An Excerpt from What Do You Really Stand For?: The One Question That Will Transform Your Work and Life

by Paul Ingram

Our closest relationships are shaped, in part, by shared values. But there are many people whose values are good but different from our own, and the world works better when we are able to live and work with them in harmony, which is why Paul Ingram offers a "A Strategy to Build Relationships Without Similar Values." 

What if one simple shift could make you feel as satisfied as getting an $84,000 raise? Research shows that really understanding your core values—and living by them—can deliver just that. 

In What Do You Really Stand For? Columbia Business School professor Paul Ingram reveals that values are far more than a moral compass—they're a source of advantage that can boost your performance, your leadership effectiveness, and your well-being.

Drawing on decades of research and the frameworks he's used with students and executives, Ingram presents a set of exercises and tools to help you articulate your values, integrate them into your work and life, build stronger relationships, and achieve better outcomes in all that you do.

Whether you're navigating a career decision or managing conflict, leading a team or an entire organization, or simply trying to live with greater purpose, What Do You Really Stand For? offers a powerful guide to taking more intentional control of your life and career—and leading yourself and others with more clarity, confidence, and purpose.

The excerpt below comes from Chapter 4: "Improve Your Relationships." That chapter begins by explaining how: 

Our relationships—at work, at home, in our communities—are shaped by shared interests or personalities but also by shared values. We are drawn to people who reinforce what we believe is important.

But we do have to live and work with people whose values don't neatly align with ours, which is why Ingram offers a section that provides…  

 

A Strategy to Build Relationships Without Similar Values  

There are a lot of people in the world who have values that are good but different from our own. What if we want to form a healthy relationship with one or more of those people? Without the natural gravitational pull of shared values, is it even possible?  

As you might guess, yes. This insight came out of a puzzle that my colleague Yoonjin Choi and I encountered in our research on business friendships. Early on, we saw that value similarity was more important than any other form of similarity for explaining who became friends during the first semester of an MBA program. But we discovered that it did not predict the longevity of the friendship over the next two years. How could values matter so much in starting friendships but not in keeping them? Our theory was that if people became friends for reasons other than value similarity—for example, because they sat next to each other in class—during the friendship they would come to understand each other’s values, and this mutual understanding allowed them to get along as if their values had been similar. 

To test this theory, we ran an experiment. We paired up midcareer professionals and put them into one of three groups. In the first group, each person shared their personal values with their partner for ten minutes. We provided each person with their own values structure so it would be salient and available to show their partner if they chose to. In the second group, we showed each individual their values structure and asked them to reflect on it for ten minutes but not to communicate with their partner about it. In the third group, we asked the pairs to make small talk for ten minutes, and we gave them a list of topics unrelated to values to make sure they stayed clear of it. 

The partners then engaged in a negotiation exercise, as that was the subject of the class session. After the exercise, we asked each individual whether they would like an ongoing relationship with their counterpart, using questions like, “Do you think you could become friends with your negotiation partner?” In the second and third groups, we found a result that is in line with our study of value similarity and friendship: If the members of the pair had more-similar values, they reported liking their counterpart and predicting they could become friends; if their values were different, this was less likely. But in the first group, where the pair had begun by talking about their values, people liked their counterpart and predicted they could become friends regardless of whether their values were similar.5  

This was a big breakthrough. It showed that what really matters for building relationships isn’t just similarity—it’s awareness and understanding of each other’s values.  

The experiment offers a strategy for you to make connections with other people. By sharing your values with each other, you can build a bridge with others who have good but different priorities. This approach can be the means for both making new friends and improving existing relationships.  

When we first discovered this insight, I began recommending to students that they tell stories about important moments in their life to make the sharing of values more natural. But eventually I stopped giving this advice, concluding the stories weren’t necessary. I reached that conclusion because, again and again, students would tell me they took their newly constructed values structure home and discussed it with their spouse, or brought it to work and discussed it with colleagues and had great conversations. It turns out that if you just show someone your values structure, it’s often not difficult to get them talking about their own values.  

In my workshops, after people create their structure, I put them into small groups with an assignment to give each member five minutes of thoughtful attention while they talk about their own structure. I simply tell them to explain what the values mean to them and why they identified the connections they did. Then, I encourage them to use the values structure to talk about what is important to them in their current job. Afterward, I ask them through an anonymous real time electronic poll whether they feel closer to the people they just discussed values with—98 percent say yes. That is as close to “can’t miss” as we get in the messy domain of interpersonal interactions. Values conversations build human connections.  

These are the best practices that I recommend for a values conversation: 

  • Go first. If you are initiating the conversation, talk about your values first. This does two useful things. First, you demonstrate openness, which will make your partner more comfortable about opening up. Second, you can make the values concrete and set an example for your counterpart as to what values are and what they do for us. The word “value” gets used imprecisely in our culture, and absent an example, some people will interpret it to mean political attitudes, which are divisive and exactly the wrong foundation for a relationship building conversation.
  • Be prepared to define values, simply. Often, your example will be enough for the other person to understand the concept and begin to articulate their own values. If they ask you what a value is, you can respond, “It’s a principle of evaluation.” For example, you might explain, “If I was considering two job options, I would be more attracted to the one that I thought would be better for my family” or “I’d prefer the job where I felt I could be creative, and surrounded by others who are creative” or “Ultimately, I’d prefer the job that would result in me feeling inner peace.” 
  • Use your values structure. Having the structure on a card can ground the conversation. Show it to the person when you explain your values—I hear repeatedly from people that this makes conversations smooth and productive.
  • Ask the other person about their values. If you have shown them your structure, start with an open question such as, “What would your values structure look like?” If they could use some help to articulate it, ask questions such as, “Tell me about your best day in the last month. What was it about that day that made it so great for you?” 
  • Listen like a friend. The real power of a values conversation comes from truly understanding the other person. Moreover, listening also increases psychological safety, which is the willingness to share one’s perspective despite vulnerabilities— clearly a useful input for this discussion.6 And while there are processes and training for effective listening, experiments indicate that when people are asked to “listen like a friend,” they exhibit the elements of good listening. In other words, we all know how to listen effectively; the barrier to doing so is motivational. The entreaty to listen like a friend reminds us to deploy our inherent listening skills. 

 

Excerpt from What Do You Really Stand For?: The One Question That Will Transform Your Work and Life published in April 2026 by the Harvard Business Review Press by Paul Ingram, Kravis Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School.

 

About the Author

Paul Ingram is the Kravis Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. He has received Columbia's highest recognition for teaching, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching, as well as the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence and thirteen teaching awards voted on by graduating students at Columbia and Cornell Universities.

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A practical, research-based guide to maximizing the most overlooked driver of lasting success and fulfillment--your values.What if one simple shift...
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