The Daily Drucker

10 June What to Do in a Value Conflict?

I saw no point in being the richest man in the cemetery.

There rarely is a conflict between a person’s strengths and the way that person performs. The two are complementary. But there is sometimes a conflict between a person’s values and that same person’s strengths. What one does well—even very well—and successfully may not fit with one’s value system. It may not appear to that person as making a contribution and as something to which to devote one’s life (or even a substantial portion thereof).

I, too, many years ago, had to decide between what I was doing well and successfully, and my values. I was doing extremely well as a young investment banker in London in the mid-1930s; it clearly fitted my ...