The Franklin Covey TimeQuest seminar is advertised as training to "boost your effectiveness and accomplish more of what you value most." It promises a soul-searching, eye-opening process of discovering and clarifying what matters most in your life - what they call your core values. Then, it promises to show you how to use a Day Planner system to align your daily tasks and events with your personal and occupational values and goals.

The structure is certainly there to provide that information, and the issues they discuss in their advertising are definitely dealt with, but this seminar - though really enjoyable - tends to shift the focus toward the structural details of planning tasks instead of the values identifying end of the task.

I personally found the seminar enhanced what I know and gave me some tangible ways to convert my ideals to values which will hopefully influence how I structure my days and where I spend my energy, but it disappointed me some in the amount of attention it devoted to values.

The primary structural concept embraced by their program says that we make choices based upon what we believe. Our beliefs become the window through which events are perceived and reactions and decisions are formed.

                                                            |
             Thing or Event ------->          |        --------->  My perception/reaction/decision
                                                            |
                                                   Window of
                                                      Beliefs

Their presentation instruction is in keeping with what has been discussed in  William James' hypothesis: that we aren't born with a set of values. They make no mention of instincts that may be evolutionary, but they do say that we are taught our beliefs, as Bem says, by our parents; and our later experiences shape and reinforce or change those beliefs. Though they don't get very Skinnerian in their discussion of how reinforcement (or extinction) changes those beliefs, they do say that the events in our lives either challenge or reinforce our beliefs, and that building and following a Day Planner system prioritized by your core values will reinforce those beliefs.

At no point do they draw an equation that says that "belief" equals "values", but they begin to use them interchangeably as though they did.

They say that every choice we make is based upon our values, and that if you ask why you did something long enough, you will eventually get to a value. In spite of surface appearance, this is in contrast to the dissonance theorists say that we translate our behaviors into values. And somewhat contradictorily, they also say that studies have shown that 85% of our daily choices are out of pure habit. There is a tonal implication that the habits are not born of core values.  And the very fact that people attend the seminar for the purpose of aligning themselves with their real values pretty much supports the fact that they're not.

Why we would want to wrestle with operating from core values at all bears mentioning since much of their seminar material speaks to those issues. "Studies" they mention (but unfortunately didn't cite) reveal that our perception of whether or not we are meeting our most valued goals affects feelings of being overwhelmed and thus stressed by life. No matter how much you do in a day, if you don't ever do the things that matter to you deeply, you will feel stressed. Therefore, it is important to explore inward to find out what really matters to you most - even if you think you haven't got time for it. In the wheel of life, which they define as being comprised of the following components, everyone assigns different percentages of importance based upon a number of varying factors, which include things like age, lifestyle, etc.
 
 

   

Those who live their lives with the greatest inner peace - which is the real reason why we attempt to live in accordance with our deepest values (or ideals) - are those who have investigated all of these realms, identified the degrees of real importance for each, and have made their daily selection of controllable events on that basis.

Now, the guideline they use for determining the core values from which you will identify your long term goals, your intermediate plans and your daily tasks is this:

"What are you willing to walk across the I-Beam for?"

During the discussion of core values, the facilitator engaged a participant in a short exercise that demonstrated that there are things we won't do for any amount of money, and things we will do at risk of life and limb. The point involved offering a guy a half a million dollars to walk the length of an I-beam fastened between the World Trade Center towers in New York. Naturally, the guy wasn't interested. But his willingness to take that risk changed when the question was rephrased to include his son being dangled at the other end. Graphically gruesome, but it made their point in a way that gave the group an understanding of how to identify what you truly value. In effect, they're saying that your strongest affective reaction to a thing must govern your core values.  Zajonc would say that the reason affective judgments seem so irrevocable is that they "feel" valid, and that we're not easily moved to reverse our own deep affective impressions.  I never got a sense that the TimeQuest seminar was trying to impress anyone with the rightness or wrongness of a desire; only that one know their deepest affective reactions.  "What", as they instructed us to write in our notes, "are you willing to walk across the I-beam for?"

Core or "governing values", as they term them, are adhered to by doing a step by step process that translates each governing value into a set of long term goals. Each long term goal is translated into a set of intermediate plans and those intermediate plans are then inserted into your Day Planner as daily tasks with highest priority. Your governing values and your daily tasks are thus kept in the forefront of your thinking and the recency phenomenon begins to influence your moment by moment choices throughout the day. Everything else you accomplish after that is a "nice to do."

Now, it's never clear whether they see Benjamin Franklin's "Thirteen Virtues" (see below) as a nice-to-do, a suggested filler for the spiritual slice of the whole life pie, or an idea  of what values one might want to adopt, but a small amount of time was spent at our seminar looking at those virtues with an idea toward doing what Franklin did with them.  Each day, he supposedly evaluated his performance in one of these areas, selecting a different one each week for the point of his focus.  (I don't know if Franklin was willing to walk across the I-Beam for each of these.)  Franklin Quest company, by the way, was named after Benjamin Franklin.
 

---

Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues   Temperance Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. Silence Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Order Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. Resolution Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. Frugality Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing. Industry Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. Sincerity Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly speak accordingly. Justice Wrong none by doing injuries; or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderation Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. Cleanliness Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habituation. Tranquility Be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable. Chastity Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation. Humility Imitate Jesus or Socrates  

---

References Bem, D.J. (1970).  Beliefs, Attitudes, and Human Affairs.  Brooks/Cole, Belmont, CA

Franklin Quest Co. (1994).  TimeQuest, the Franklin Day Planner system:  Increasing Productivity through Value-based Time Management.  Franklin Quest, Salt Lake City, UT.

James, W. (1948). Essays in Pragmatism.  Hafner, New York.

Skinner, B.F. (1971).  Valence:  Selections from Beyond Freedom and Dignity   Knopf.

Zajonc, R.B. (1980).  Feeling and Thinking:  Preferences need no inferences.  American Psychologist, 35.  2, 151-175.
 
  Links that relate to Franklin/Covey's Work: 

FranklinCovey Tools for Highly Effective Living
"Seven Simple Insights for Motivating your Employees" by Bob Nelson
Amazon's books by Stephen Covey
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - from the
     original electronic text distributed by Project
     Gutenberg.
Benjamin Franklin: A Documentary History
World of Benjamin Franklin
"Why we need values and goals"

Citation

     Feedback