CVS: Compelling Value & Stewardship
Personal Development
You are prone to being risk averse.
This is especially true when personal security is involved. It is not that you are looking for rational process like the KWR, but you need any risk to be mitigated by credibility and common sense.
You can be overly frugal to frustration of close relationships.
Colleagues may see this as being stingy. Family can interpret this as being cheap. Refusing to spend for the sake of social investment is also an area that can hinder potential.
There is a strong temptation to see finances as the point of security, manipulating networks through false ownership of resources.
Yes, money can accomplish many things; however, security is not one of them. But what’s even worse is using resources to manipulate social networks. True security comes from how you steward your resources. And using resources, especially the resources of an organization, as a point of power only breaks unity and trust.
You generally disdain being confronted with past issues.
CVS are well known for their ability to see realities and liabilities in others. And they have no problem pointing them out. On the other hand, the CVS is also known for being completely unaware of the state of his or her own condition; especially when it comes to character. Therefore, being confronted with an issue from a past situation can feel like a complete waste of valuable time. When you avoid facing your own character issues, you risk being considered arrogant by peers and co-workers who think you can dish out feedback but cannot take it in return.
Extremes Scale
This scale was created to rapidly and clearly illustrate the spectrum of extremes of an individual’s intrinsic motivations as a CVS. This scale can then be used for coaching or consulting.
+5 Generational Legacy:
Having a vision to impart a legacy of social value and transformation that reaches far beyond current leadership and corporate community.
+4 Change Manager:
Taking complete ownership of the organizational culture and advance objectives to create increased social value.
+3 Synergistic Leader:
Seeing and harnessing value in working with teams that represent diversity in talent and perspective.
+2 Invests in Culture:
Not only helping the organization meet financial needs, but also emotional and other intangible needs.
+1 Culture Contributor:
Performing public service and taking responsibility beyond your own cubicle or professional portfolio.
0 Professional Commitment:
Understanding the greater agenda and adhere to it ahead of personal security and comfort.
-1 Private Professional:
Are not presenting a liability but do not contribute either. Being more interested in a personal agendas and self-gratification than using personal resources for social value.
-2 Professional Exploitation:
Misappropriating resources for the sole purpose of personal and exploitative agendas.
-3 Corporate Theft:
Violating legal and social contracts in minor areas, from time-card theft to major acts of embezzlement.
-4 Destroying Previous Legacy:
Not only consuming current resources but also tearing down resources and social capital invested and accrued by predecessors.
-5 Destroying Future Legacy:
Knowingly and willingly contributing to a negative legacy that will affect future generations. Selling out now so others can pay later.
Legitimacy Gap
The following statement represents the thought pattern that triggers a Legitimacy Gap in a CVS. Believing this thought and acting on it leads to shortchanging the purpose, passions and potential of your MDNA.
“I have self-worth only if I can contribute to the success of others and when I am needed for my resources.”
For the CVS, resources can become a false sense of security. While resources can contribute to success, if you seek legitimacy—or value, worth and self-esteem—only from your ability to provide for others, your security will be shallow.
Think stewardship versus ownership. The true essence of stewardship is managing somebody else’s resources to accomplish somebody else’s agenda. For example, when you are a financial manager, you have accepted a fiduciary duty to manage the client’s resources according to the client’s agenda. To operate as if those resources were yours would be a breach in the arrangement and would strip the financial manager of all privilege and power. When the CVS takes false ownership of resources for the sake of personal legitimacy, danger occurs.
Personal Development Plan
The simplest and most highly recommended method to develop your Intrinsic Motivational Design is to find legitimacy—your personal sense of self-worth—outside of your social status and performance. Remember, you are a human being and not a human doing.
Ask yourself this question: “If my professional status and ability to perform were abruptly stripped from me, how would I account for my self-worth?”
Most people reference family or personal endeavors as the reason for their feelings of self-worth. If you did not have a solid answer to the question, you may need to make a serious investment of time to figure it out.
Next, you need to evaluate your priorities.
Ask yourself this: “Outside of my professional status and performance, is my personal character truly reflective of where I know it should be?”
This is where we must ultimately arrive before true development can begin. We must become honest about our true character outside of work. Are you the same person with every social circle, or does your character change, depending upon the people you hang with? If your professional accolades did not count, would the people around you still celebrate your character?
It may sound counterintuitive to approach this in your professional life by starting with life outside of work, but this is the launch point to get where we all desire to be. So, with a mindset of personal character development, here is a simple four-step process. Taking these steps will help you void a Legitimacy Gap and keep you on the path of success fulfillment.
1. Recognize:
Become aware of the areas in which you are feeling insecure professionally. What are your fears? Where is the anxiety? Write down whatever comes to mind. Do not judge what you write. Simply explore what may be there.
Do you find yourself saying, “My money, I earned it; I can spend it how I please?”
Do you neglect your resources? Are you dollar-wise but penny foolish? Do you allow your finances to leak in small dollar increments?
Do you use resources to buffer others from pain? Instead of allowing them to learn the hard lessons, do you swoop in and rescue? Do you then give those resources with strings attached?
Does your perceived lack of resources make you feel insecure? Does this prevent you from making investments that risk your comfort over your true calling?
Do you have difficulty engaging with your organization and community? Does this especially affect you with time? (Meaning you are often late or behind.)
2. Reframe:
Reflect daily upon the times in which the pain of life ultimately brought you closer to your calling. Focus upon the times you even voluntarily embraced that pain to realize your purpose, passion and potential.
Acknowledge the resources life has given you. Celebrate those times when something was lost, but you were compensated from alternative avenue. Do this daily.
3. Respond:
Be honest with yourself about whether you are compromising your convictions and integrity for the sake of your own comfort. Consider especially what you do for entertainment. Challenge yourself to spend 40 days without any. Then spend some time reflecting upon how you feel and how much more effective you have become.
Monthly, study successful people who have endured pain for long periods to fulfill their purpose, passions and potential. Then ask yourself, “How much pain am I willing to endure to achieve a similar kind of success?”
Find an individual, preferably a mentor, or a group, to stay accountable to during this process. Ask yourself three questions and share your plans:
- What should I START doing?
- What should I STOP doing?
- What should I CONTINUE doing?
4. Reflect:
Spend some regular time every week considering the following about being a CVS.
A steward is someone who has been entrusted to oversee and manage resources for the benefit of the owner of those resources. This means neither the resource nor agenda belongs to the steward. The steward simply follows his calling to a greater purpose in life. Thus, the gift of stewardship begins with an understanding of the great responsibility he or she has in Life to maximize the resources that have been entrusted to them.
There are two ways that one can abuse this gift. The first is using the resources Life provides for your own agenda. The second is using your own resources for the wrong agenda entirely. If the steward avoids these two traps, the he or she creates a legacy that lasts for generations.
Fear and control can blur the gift of stewardship and feed a root of false ownership that is in direct opposition to the calling of the steward. The steward can falter and place his or her entire security and significance in their resources, especially in money. We all know that resources come and go according to the seasons of life and are not necessarily based on our own desires or convenience.
Remember, you are to care for resources that are entrusted to you but that do not belong to you. You must hold them lightly and avoid the traps of controlling arrogance and fearful misappropriation.
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