Can we know shared values without living them first?
The Churchill Fellowship is a travelling fellowship. Fellows are supported to spend 4-8 weeks overseas to learn from best practice, to distil learning to bring back into the UK. I don’t have a Fellowship; I’m in the application process (you can read more here).
The application asked for which countries I wanted to learn from.
My response included this:
I want to learn from countries that have embedded trust and humanity into reform: where public systems turn courage from something individual into shared culture.
In New Zealand, wellbeing is a policy goal, not a slogan. I’ll explore how leaders have built transparent, trust-based public services through the Public Service Act and Wellbeing Budget. Finland offers a contrasting model of trust-based governance, where autonomy, collaboration and psychological safety underpin both education and public leadership.
Wanting to orientate myself more fully in the worlds and work of these countries, I’m starting to read about leaders from each country, beginning with:
Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of NZ
Sanna Marin, former Prime Minister of Finland
A different kind of power
I started today with Jacinda’s book, A different kind of power, partly because it feels closer to my original homeland of Australia.
I’m four chapters in and already noticing Jacinda’s use of language – such as mana (dignity), fairness, warmth, connection, being useful, lives becoming better, trust; and trust taking time.
Tonight, I’m sitting with these stories and feeling curious about the naming of values and behaviours that matter. Jacinda reflects on how she didn’t have the words for these qualities when she was younger, but that looking back, they make sense.
Naming values
It makes me wonder whether the conditions for courageous change depend on this kind of naming. Whether the qualities, behaviours and values are made explicit – not as slogans – but as shared commitments. And if so, how is that done without becoming tokenistic or reductive?
How are these values arrived at collectively? How do groups say, “this is how we want to be here?” How does that evolve over time? What moments or pressures make this kind of clarity necessary?
The lived experience of values
I’m also curious about experience. Do we need to witness these values in action to truly understand them? Is being told enough?
This feels like where storytelling matters. When done carefully and respectfully, it allows to learn from experience we haven’t lived ourselves. Jacinda’s reflections feel powerful because she is naming something she once only sensed.
Could she have known these values so deeply without living them first? And more broadly: is it possible to share ways of being without direct experience?
If so, how do we do that in ways that honour both the lived experience of the sharer, and the integrity of the listener?
More questions than answers, for now..!
I’m deeply enjoying the journey.
Reading/references
1. Ardern, J. (2025). A Different Kind of Power.
Thinking Out Loud is where I share short pieces of thinking from the middle of the work. Ideas, questions and lived experiences, shared while they’re still forming. (Tiny Experiments Pact: Day 6/100).