No one invented value. At some point, our ancestors recognised its essence sufficiently to need a word to describe it. The English version traces it roots back to the Latin ‘valere’; to be strong, well of person, worthy. Valour/valor shares the same root.
By Mediaeval times, French (value/valoir) had added price, worth, moral standing, reputation. As the centuries drifted by, ‘value’ was awarded ideas like usefulness, appreciation, non-material worth, relative status, esteem.
In music, ‘value’ is used to represent the length of a tone; in painting, the relation of light and shade. Over the centuries, value has come to carry a heavy burden. Today’s developed world has eased its load by reducing it to money; cash value.
We hang on to the echoes of its previous meanings, because they flatter us. We and our employers are happy to claim values that extend beyond cash, until they start costing cash. The value of value emerges when things do not go smoothly.
Do you live a culture of tolerance and mutual respect, or only when everyone agrees with you? Are you committed to diversity and inclusion, or only as long as everyone thinks the same? Do you live a culture of flat hierarchies, or only when the relevant egos are sufficiently fed and watered?
Values that survive a stress test – sudden demise, a cancer diagnosis, loss of a limb, financial meltdown – meet the criterion the word was coined (sorry) to express: moral courage. The rest is noise.
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