Our clients include professional team and individual sports organizations (Pro Soccer, Baseball, NFL, NHL, NBA, Olympic teams, as well as minor and youth leagues) golf and tennis clubs, manufacturing companies, sales organizations, financial service providers & institutions, hospitality services (hotel chains), health care organizations and dental practices, among many others. We have also worked with several non-profits over the years, including Easter Seals, the holistic Habichtswald Cancer Clinic in Kassel, Germany, the JTPA (Joint Tennessee Partnership Act), United Way, and the Tennessee State Corrections system.

 

---

The company was originally founded in 1979, and has undergone several name changes since then – but its history really began years earlier, when Chairman Dr. David Mefford was a philosophy undergraduate at the University of Tennessee. He was fascinated by the new science of value, Axiology, which was developed by his major professor and mentor, Dr. Robert S. Hartman. Hartman, who also taught at the National University of Mexico and was a visiting professor at both Yale and MIT, argued that this new science enabled the precise measurement of human values. Before his death in 1973, he developed the first instrument to do just that – the Hartman Value Profile (HVP).

After completing their degrees, Dr. Dave and his wife Vera, along with CEO Gregory Woods have incorporated Hartman’s theories into a series of innovative tools, including numerous interest-specific assessments to help individuals, businesses and sports teams around the world evaluate potential and current personnel and players, and to train and develop managers and coaches. The company’s products and services are distributed globally through an SME (Subject Matter Expert) network. The company is a leading axiological service provider with a management team that has 80+ years combined experience. Our business purpose is to provide leading-edge axiological products and services to special interest groups in our society. TVSG is managed by Dr. David Mefford, Gregory Woods and Vera Mefford with offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, Morristown, Tennessee and Brielle, New Jersey. TVSG is the world leader in innovative applications of formal axiological science.

---

 What is Axiology, Formal Axiology & Axiological Profiling?Axiology is the name for “value theory.” It is derived from the Greek word “axios” meaning “worth.” Formal axiology is the logic-based science of value anchored in a “hierarchy of meaning” from the most meaningful or richest value to the most destructive or greatest value loss. The logic specifies 18 different levels of richness. Hartman’s “hierarchy of value” is the mathematical measuring standard for human evaluative judgment and decision-making in life and in all social sectors of life in our culture.

 Axiological profiles are constructed by selecting linguistic examples for each of the 18 levels of the mathematical hierarchy. These examples are mixed up and the respondent is asked to rank them from best to worst. Their ranking of the items is then compared to the mathematical value norm, producing a pattern representing the mental clarity and emotional quality of their decisions.

When people make value judgments, they use both their mental and emotional capacities to arrive at their decision. Some people have very solid and reliable decision-making abilities – while others routinely make wrong or inaccurate choices. Our profiles measure the quality of the respondent’s judgment and decision-making by gauging both their mental clarity and their emotional orientation & conditioning.

 

Research has shown that using the targeted profiles marketed by TVSG present very strong face validity, because respondents recognize and identify with language pertaining to their specific field(s). Our profiles also fulfill the great market need for industry-specific applications. For example, a sports coach is mainly interested in finding out how an athlete will play the game and engage with teammates on the field, court or ice, especially under pressure, versus how they may feel, act or think about life in general. The same principle applies to business, finance, relationships, fitness, tennis, golf, dentistry and health care, among other industries.

 

---

These days, the rules for work engagements are changing – employees are being judged by a new standard – not just by how smart and talented they are, or by their training or expertise, but also by how well they handle themselves and each other. As Daniel Goleman, author of Working with Emotional Intelligence, 1998, says, “the new measure takes for granted having enough intellectual ability and technical know-how to do our jobs; it focuses instead on personal qualities, such as initiative and empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness.”

 

This measure has been referred to as “soft skills” in the past, but emotional intelligence is no passing fad. We now have 35 years of empirical studies that tell us precisely just how much emotional intelligence matters for success, especially in management and leadership positions. Although many are still skeptical of “soft skills measurement” in psychology, neuroscience makes crystal clear why emotional intelligence matters so much. The skills necessary for managing ourselves effectively and for being socially adept are grounded in our evolutionary history for survival and adaptation. To quote Goleman again, “Our research reveals deplorable weaknesses in how businesses train people in skills from listening and leadership to team building and handling change. Most training programs have embraced an academic model – but this has been a drastic mistake, wasting millions of hours and billions of dollars. What’s needed is an entirely new way of thinking about what it takes to help people boost their emotional intelligence.”

 

---

TVSG assessments can and do measure the following traits associated with emotional intelligence, as well as standard competencies for specific jobs, management skills, job identification, problem solving, and compliance, among others. They include social competencies, like empathy and sensitivity to others, understanding and developing others, service orientation, listening capacity, communication, conflict management, collaboration and cooperation, team capabilities, etc. Personal competencies include: self management, emotional stability, self-worth awareness, self-assessment, self confidence, self-regulation, self control, self discipline, personal accountability, adaptability, motivation, drive, commitment, initiative and optimism, among others.

 

---

Psychology has been very valuable in our culture and is based on inductive logic grounded in empirical foundations. It is an instance of reasoning from a part to the whole, from particulars to generals, or from the individual to the universal. The general validity of a “law” is inferred from its observed validity by showing that if a proposed law holds true in certain cases, it must also hold in the next and succeeding cases.

 

Axiology, on the other hand, has the distinctive difference of being based on deductive reasoning, a method by which concrete applications and interpretative detail are deduced from axioms, definitions and postulates. Hartman’s “Axiom of Value” provides us with a formal mathematical norm which can be applied to any field of study to structure the value parameters of that field. It then weighs or measures individuals or teams against that scientific norm. Dr. Leon Pomeroy in his book, The New Science of Axiological Psychology (Pomeroy, 2005), has shown that formal axiology is also empirically valid. Thus, in our axiological assessment profiles we have the solid support of both scientific methods: the deductive logic-based axiomatic method and the inductive, empirical method. Dr. Pomeroy spent over 20 years collecting statistical data for his book cross-nationally, from numerous and diverse eastern and western countries and cultures, and proving that cultures all over the world make value judgments in the same way.

 

Formal axiology is a discipline that can enhance and improve the effectiveness of psychology – by merging it with the axiomatic method. We see the marriage of psychology and axiology as the very best approach to coaching and improving the skills and talents of teams and individuals. TVSG’s targeted Value Assessments are consistent and non-discriminatory. Since the value profiles are based on formal value science, rather than psychology, responses are compared to mathematical norms, rather than to group or population norms. Race, sex, age, and creed have no bearing on these instruments whatsoever.

 

---

Usually, the assessments are taken on-line through TVSG or one of our Master Distributors’ websites using a designated pass-code. This facilitates quick turn-around for our clients. TVSG also offers the assessments in paper and pencil self-administered format, if the client desires, or in various “special needs” contexts, such as in court-room/juror evaluation usage. To obtain the best results that satisfies all sides, we recommend in-house validation, because this enables employers to introduce the axiological assessment profile to a job applicant by informing them that completing the assessment is routine procedure for all prospective employees, and should they be hired, the results will be shared with them.

---

 

Most managers use the profiles to help determine which job applicants are best suited for a particular position, and which employees would make the best supervisors, as well as who may need training or coaching to better develop and apply their potential. TVSG can also help you determine the “can do”- “will do” factor – many people have the talents and skills necessary to do the job, but lack the internal desire and motivation to follow through (this is the distinction between talent and emotional stability).

 

This process will improve the retention rate and reduced employee turnover. Our profiles should not be considered “tests” because there are no right and wrong answers; but a person’s judgment responses do reveal his or her strengths and development areas. Our assessments have proven to be astonishingly effective in evaluating individual professional and personal value areas, such as drive, ambition, loyalty, capacity for work, people skills and honesty. In fact, our profiles have been termed “linguistic polygraphs” by several of our clients. Both the polygraph and the value profiles work by measuring emotional responses to questions and phrases. Polygraphs generally reveal whether a person has formerly engaged in dishonest activity, but the value profiles can reveal the degree of a person’s emotional programming and intellectual regard for law, order and authority, which can point to a person’s potential for illegal activity. In addition, our profiles will tell you how much stress a person may be under, how well they are coping with it, and the degree to which they may be accident-prone.

 

---

TVSG offers job benchmarking as well as numerous training modules, including problem-solving, team-building, conflict resolution and leadership. More training modules are added on a regular basis, and we always welcome the opportunity to customize a training module for the special needs of our clients. We also conduct various development workshops. Our basic workshop is designed for new managers and/or others who have been exposed to little or no management training. TVSG’s unique 12-step approach to management and leadership excellence teaches management skills in an organized, progressive format. Content includes planning, organizing, and controlling areas of responsibility (delegating), leading to an “ideal” where all management tasks and functions are balanced and hitting on all cylinders. The main emphasis is on motivation and development of people.

 

For executives and advanced management, we offer the R.I.S.E. profile, which covers all aspects of an organization in four dimensions:

1.       Resonance (the perceived reputation of the company in the marketplace).

2.       Interpersonal (employees and clients),

3.       Systems (financial, legal, and strategic plans), and

4.       Extrinsic (the product or service and the practical productivity factors).

 

We also offer the TVSG “AXCES” Communications Advertising model, used to refine the company’s communications message to its market.  In addition to this, TVSG offers the COMPASS Market Probe with solid success. The COMPASS can be customized for your company, product or service, and will help you gauge the resonance factor you have achieved in your market niche, and give you concrete suggestions on how to improve and increase your market share.

---

Concerning reliability, each axiological assessment has a built-in rank order correlation (Rho) measure indicating the consistency of the responses. If the life and working conditions of the respondent have not changed significantly from one completion to another, the “test-retest” reliability is extremely high.  

The validity of the Robert S. Hartman’s original Hartman Value Profile (HVP) upon which the TVSG parallel forms for special applications are based has been confirmed by extensive research at the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, and at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in New York. The two main sources of validity information are the following.

 

1.       Billie Cannon Elliot, Ph.D., “Factor and Cluster Analyses of The Hartman Value Inventory: A Study of Item Homogeneity and Factorial Invariance for Normative and Ipsative Scales,” a doctorial dissertation presented in the Department of Education at the University of Tennessee, June, 1969.

2.       Leon Pomeroy, Ph.D., The New Science of Axiological Psychology, Rodopi Press, 2005.

 

TVSG is currently engaged in research to produce similar validity studies for all our “special interest” targeted profiles. If you would like further information or if you would like to participate in these statistical studies of our profile results, contact us at http://www.thevaluesourcegroup.com.

Our clients include professional team and individual sports organizations (Pro Soccer, Baseball, NFL, NHL, NBA, Olympic teams, as well as minor and youth leagues) golf and tennis clubs, manufacturing companies, sales organizations, financial service providers & institutions, hospitality services (hotel chains), health care organizations and dental practices, among many others. We have also worked with several non-profits over the years, including Easter Seals, the holistic Habichtswald Cancer Clinic in Kassel, Germany, the JTPA (Joint Tennessee Partnership Act), United Way, and the Tennessee State Corrections system.

 

---

The company was originally founded in 1979, and has undergone several name changes since then – but its history really began years earlier, when Chairman Dr. David Mefford was a philosophy undergraduate at the University of Tennessee. He was fascinated by the new science of value, Axiology, which was developed by his major professor and mentor, Dr. Robert S. Hartman. Hartman, who also taught at the National University of Mexico and was a visiting professor at both Yale and MIT, argued that this new science enabled the precise measurement of human values. Before his death in 1973, he developed the first instrument to do just that – the Hartman Value Profile (HVP).

After completing their degrees, Dr. Dave and his wife Vera, along with CEO Gregory Woods have incorporated Hartman’s theories into a series of innovative tools, including numerous interest-specific assessments to help individuals, businesses and sports teams around the world evaluate potential and current personnel and players, and to train and develop managers and coaches. The company’s products and services are distributed globally through an SME (Subject Matter Expert) network. The company is a leading axiological service provider with a management team that has 80+ years combined experience. Our business purpose is to provide leading-edge axiological products and services to special interest groups in our society. TVSG is managed by Dr. David Mefford, Gregory Woods and Vera Mefford with offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, Morristown, Tennessee and Brielle, New Jersey. TVSG is the world leader in innovative applications of formal axiological science.

---

 What is Axiology, Formal Axiology & Axiological Profiling?Axiology is the name for “value theory.” It is derived from the Greek word “axios” meaning “worth.” Formal axiology is the logic-based science of value anchored in a “hierarchy of meaning” from the most meaningful or richest value to the most destructive or greatest value loss. The logic specifies 18 different levels of richness. Hartman’s “hierarchy of value” is the mathematical measuring standard for human evaluative judgment and decision-making in life and in all social sectors of life in our culture.

 Axiological profiles are constructed by selecting linguistic examples for each of the 18 levels of the mathematical hierarchy. These examples are mixed up and the respondent is asked to rank them from best to worst. Their ranking of the items is then compared to the mathematical value norm, producing a pattern representing the mental clarity and emotional quality of their decisions.

When people make value judgments, they use both their mental and emotional capacities to arrive at their decision. Some people have very solid and reliable decision-making abilities – while others routinely make wrong or inaccurate choices. Our profiles measure the quality of the respondent’s judgment and decision-making by gauging both their mental clarity and their emotional orientation & conditioning.

 

Research has shown that using the targeted profiles marketed by TVSG present very strong face validity, because respondents recognize and identify with language pertaining to their specific field(s). Our profiles also fulfill the great market need for industry-specific applications. For example, a sports coach is mainly interested in finding out how an athlete will play the game and engage with teammates on the field, court or ice, especially under pressure, versus how they may feel, act or think about life in general. The same principle applies to business, finance, relationships, fitness, tennis, golf, dentistry and health care, among other industries.

 

---

These days, the rules for work engagements are changing – employees are being judged by a new standard – not just by how smart and talented they are, or by their training or expertise, but also by how well they handle themselves and each other. As Daniel Goleman, author of Working with Emotional Intelligence, 1998, says, “the new measure takes for granted having enough intellectual ability and technical know-how to do our jobs; it focuses instead on personal qualities, such as initiative and empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness.”

 

This measure has been referred to as “soft skills” in the past, but emotional intelligence is no passing fad. We now have 35 years of empirical studies that tell us precisely just how much emotional intelligence matters for success, especially in management and leadership positions. Although many are still skeptical of “soft skills measurement” in psychology, neuroscience makes crystal clear why emotional intelligence matters so much. The skills necessary for managing ourselves effectively and for being socially adept are grounded in our evolutionary history for survival and adaptation. To quote Goleman again, “Our research reveals deplorable weaknesses in how businesses train people in skills from listening and leadership to team building and handling change. Most training programs have embraced an academic model – but this has been a drastic mistake, wasting millions of hours and billions of dollars. What’s needed is an entirely new way of thinking about what it takes to help people boost their emotional intelligence.”

 

---

TVSG assessments can and do measure the following traits associated with emotional intelligence, as well as standard competencies for specific jobs, management skills, job identification, problem solving, and compliance, among others. They include social competencies, like empathy and sensitivity to others, understanding and developing others, service orientation, listening capacity, communication, conflict management, collaboration and cooperation, team capabilities, etc. Personal competencies include: self management, emotional stability, self-worth awareness, self-assessment, self confidence, self-regulation, self control, self discipline, personal accountability, adaptability, motivation, drive, commitment, initiative and optimism, among others.

 

---

Psychology has been very valuable in our culture and is based on inductive logic grounded in empirical foundations. It is an instance of reasoning from a part to the whole, from particulars to generals, or from the individual to the universal. The general validity of a “law” is inferred from its observed validity by showing that if a proposed law holds true in certain cases, it must also hold in the next and succeeding cases.

 

Axiology, on the other hand, has the distinctive difference of being based on deductive reasoning, a method by which concrete applications and interpretative detail are deduced from axioms, definitions and postulates. Hartman’s “Axiom of Value” provides us with a formal mathematical norm which can be applied to any field of study to structure the value parameters of that field. It then weighs or measures individuals or teams against that scientific norm. Dr. Leon Pomeroy in his book, The New Science of Axiological Psychology (Pomeroy, 2005), has shown that formal axiology is also empirically valid. Thus, in our axiological assessment profiles we have the solid support of both scientific methods: the deductive logic-based axiomatic method and the inductive, empirical method. Dr. Pomeroy spent over 20 years collecting statistical data for his book cross-nationally, from numerous and diverse eastern and western countries and cultures, and proving that cultures all over the world make value judgments in the same way.

 

Formal axiology is a discipline that can enhance and improve the effectiveness of psychology – by merging it with the axiomatic method. We see the marriage of psychology and axiology as the very best approach to coaching and improving the skills and talents of teams and individuals. TVSG’s targeted Value Assessments are consistent and non-discriminatory. Since the value profiles are based on formal value science, rather than psychology, responses are compared to mathematical norms, rather than to group or population norms. Race, sex, age, and creed have no bearing on these instruments whatsoever.

 

---

Usually, the assessments are taken on-line through TVSG or one of our Master Distributors’ websites using a designated pass-code. This facilitates quick turn-around for our clients. TVSG also offers the assessments in paper and pencil self-administered format, if the client desires, or in various “special needs” contexts, such as in court-room/juror evaluation usage. To obtain the best results that satisfies all sides, we recommend in-house validation, because this enables employers to introduce the axiological assessment profile to a job applicant by informing them that completing the assessment is routine procedure for all prospective employees, and should they be hired, the results will be shared with them.

---

 

Most managers use the profiles to help determine which job applicants are best suited for a particular position, and which employees would make the best supervisors, as well as who may need training or coaching to better develop and apply their potential. TVSG can also help you determine the “can do”- “will do” factor – many people have the talents and skills necessary to do the job, but lack the internal desire and motivation to follow through (this is the distinction between talent and emotional stability).

 

This process will improve the retention rate and reduced employee turnover. Our profiles should not be considered “tests” because there are no right and wrong answers; but a person’s judgment responses do reveal his or her strengths and development areas. Our assessments have proven to be astonishingly effective in evaluating individual professional and personal value areas, such as drive, ambition, loyalty, capacity for work, people skills and honesty. In fact, our profiles have been termed “linguistic polygraphs” by several of our clients. Both the polygraph and the value profiles work by measuring emotional responses to questions and phrases. Polygraphs generally reveal whether a person has formerly engaged in dishonest activity, but the value profiles can reveal the degree of a person’s emotional programming and intellectual regard for law, order and authority, which can point to a person’s potential for illegal activity. In addition, our profiles will tell you how much stress a person may be under, how well they are coping with it, and the degree to which they may be accident-prone.

 

---

TVSG offers job benchmarking as well as numerous training modules, including problem-solving, team-building, conflict resolution and leadership. More training modules are added on a regular basis, and we always welcome the opportunity to customize a training module for the special needs of our clients. We also conduct various development workshops. Our basic workshop is designed for new managers and/or others who have been exposed to little or no management training. TVSG’s unique 12-step approach to management and leadership excellence teaches management skills in an organized, progressive format. Content includes planning, organizing, and controlling areas of responsibility (delegating), leading to an “ideal” where all management tasks and functions are balanced and hitting on all cylinders. The main emphasis is on motivation and development of people.

 

For executives and advanced management, we offer the R.I.S.E. profile, which covers all aspects of an organization in four dimensions:

1.       Resonance (the perceived reputation of the company in the marketplace).

2.       Interpersonal (employees and clients),

3.       Systems (financial, legal, and strategic plans), and

4.       Extrinsic (the product or service and the practical productivity factors).

 

We also offer the TVSG “AXCES” Communications Advertising model, used to refine the company’s communications message to its market.  In addition to this, TVSG offers the COMPASS Market Probe with solid success. The COMPASS can be customized for your company, product or service, and will help you gauge the resonance factor you have achieved in your market niche, and give you concrete suggestions on how to improve and increase your market share.

---

Concerning reliability, each axiological assessment has a built-in rank order correlation (Rho) measure indicating the consistency of the responses. If the life and working conditions of the respondent have not changed significantly from one completion to another, the “test-retest” reliability is extremely high.  

The validity of the Robert S. Hartman’s original Hartman Value Profile (HVP) upon which the TVSG parallel forms for special applications are based has been confirmed by extensive research at the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, and at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in New York. The two main sources of validity information are the following.

 

1.       Billie Cannon Elliot, Ph.D., “Factor and Cluster Analyses of The Hartman Value Inventory: A Study of Item Homogeneity and Factorial Invariance for Normative and Ipsative Scales,” a doctorial dissertation presented in the Department of Education at the University of Tennessee, June, 1969.

2.       Leon Pomeroy, Ph.D., The New Science of Axiological Psychology, Rodopi Press, 2005.

 

TVSG is currently engaged in research to produce similar validity studies for all our “special interest” targeted profiles. If you would like further information or if you would like to participate in these statistical studies of our profile results, contact us at http://www.thevaluesourcegroup.com.