The elicitation
- Ask: "What is important to you about [context]?" — record their exact words
- Repeat until exhausted (usually 5–8 criteria)
- Force ranking: "if you could have X only by giving up Y, which?" — pairwise comparisons build the hierarchy
- Listen for toward vs away values (achieve vs avoid) — motivation direction hides here
What the hierarchy explains
Why "more money" fails to move someone whose top value is belonging; why a promotion stalls when it violates a security value; why your own goals drift — they serve a values hierarchy you never wrote down. In sales: the buyer's stated criteria versus ranked criteria explains most "irrational" decisions. In coaching: the real work begins where stated values and revealed values diverge.
Discipline notes
Values are contextual — work-values ≠ relationship-values; elicit per context. And elicitation is listening, not interrogation: pace, don't push. The perceptual-positions drill pairs well when the hierarchy conflicts with itself.