We live in a world obsessed with change. Changes in technology and the way we work. Changes we want to make in our lives, especially at the beginning of a new year. Changes we fear, whether in our role as a partner, parent or professional. The idea of change has become an idol to worship and a portent to fear. We are constantly told that the pace of change is accelerating, and we must rush to keep up by acquiring new skills and following new ideas.
Much of this is with good reason. There can be no escaping the reality that the world moves faster than it used to, and in our professional lives especially we have to evolve to respond. But change doesn’t always have to mean new things. Having been around the world, reporting from 150 countries, watching how people in countries as diverse as Uganda and the United States are dealing with change, I came to realise that change has as much to do with the past as the future. As I discovered, change is often rooted in ideas that are often decades or centuries-old: the values that are the defining feature of every country I visited.
Everywhere I went, I saw how values that have emerged from deep roots of culture, tradition, history and heritage are the touchstones of how communities are adapting to the world of today.
In Kenya, the value of harambee (“all pull together”) remains as prevalent now – via the ubiquitous mobile payment platform MPesa, used to send money to family and friends in need – as it was in the 1960s, when founding President Jomo Kenyatta made harambee his rallying cry for citizens to come together and build their new country.
In Ecuador, I saw how the reverence for nature – embodied by the idea of Pachamama, the Incan earth mother – is at the heart of a major dispute about how to protect the country’s nature reserves from the damage of oil extraction. While in Greece, people told me how the country’s compassionate response to the refugee crisis of 2015-6, when thousands of refugees from Syria’s civil war arrived every day, was rooted in the ancient value of philotimo: goodness to others.
These values are ideas and instincts that have been debated, taught and handed-down across generations. They represent a fundamental expression of national identity and mission.
France, the centuries-old certainty that protest is the primary means to achieve social progress; in Ukraine, the urge for freedom in the face of consistent foreign occupation and interference; in Denmark, a true belief in equality and the need for the collective to trump the individual.
These values have the power to drive and direct change precisely because of their deep roots.
They are galvanising because they are intrinsic to history and tradition. They are real and relatable. And they teach us an important lesson: when preparing for change, we cannot simply look outwards to where new things are happening. We also have to look within ourselves, for the values that are most meaningful to us – those we were taught from a young age, or which we acquired through sometimes painful experience.
You might be a person driven above all by a sense of loyalty, by a desire for order, a quest for peace, a respect for precision, or a need for exploration. But you need to know which is most important to you, and why, to let it effectively guide your choices and priorities.
In my new book, I look at 101 of these values through the prism of the countries I have visited: places that exhibit them on a scale like nothing else. From the countries of the world we can learn what values in action look like, and become clearer about our own.
Equipped with that knowledge, we are so much better placed to make the right decisions, whether for ourselves, our business or our family. I believe nations have survived and thrived because their values sustain and anchor them, including through the most difficult times. And values can do the same for all of us, if we allow ourselves to stand still for a moment, and let them provide a compass to navigate the rising tide of change.
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