Behind the Scene : The KEY behaviors behind VALUE
Buy and Sell versus Value? There is the customer-perceived value concept in marketing or market value in business, assuming that if you buy something a price, you value it at least the price, or you would not buy. Though that’s not as simple as that in reality, it is the way it is looked at based on the fact that you gave power that way. Sometimes it may add much more value to you, and if it does for everybody it may be a really great business! In the extent it does it while generating profit, otherwise it would be a really bad business to do it while destroying value for itself. So in value, there is the captured value, the intrinsic potential for value (for oneself or one’s business) and the global value (the value you create for those who buy and use your products or services, as well as those who indirectly benefit from its existence). For the buyer the question is how to measure the return for ‘value’ acquisition, what to do next to gain value from it, and/or how to use one’s power-to-buy, while for the seller it is to measure the profit thus value the sale leads to (much simpler, isn’t it?).
Invest and Grow versus Value? When you invest in something you expect it to grow, whatever it is in knowledge to grow yourself, in a business to make a profit, in a business to have an impact, in a relationship to create a family, etc. You are in a shareholder-like position: value is the comparison between your investment and an outcome: a potential unrealized value, a profit from realized value (you sell your share, you create wealth for yourself), a recognition from society through marriage and family growth with children which gives you more leverage for having a higher impact, etc. When you invest in knowledge, it is often said it is the best investment your can do for yourself. I’d say YES, unless you don’t use it, or don’t find the opportunity to do so. But to be honest, I’d add: even though you don’t have a use for what you learned, you’ll always feel it’s great when the knowledge you decide to acquire is worth it: the more you understand the world, the more you can achieve within. What you feel here is the growth of you personal value potential, and value potential is nothing else than a promise of an uncaptured value that you might capture in the future that is an additional source to grow the unrealized value of your investment (I created an index to measure it in a business management perspective: I called it the VCmo index). But don’t be a fool, education is a huge market, and corporate education another but with even more highly aware people: be careful when you choose a training or how you want to gain knowledge, because some do that with the purpose to nurture themselves having you work for free (more exactly through paid services that YOU decide to buy) on real business cases of their own interests, sometimes yours. So I would recommend that the best way to learn is always to practice by yourself, at least as an addition. You need to follow your guts and build your mental paths that will best fit to your purpose. But you need and you should buy valuable stuff, where you find the answers to your questions, or even where you find questions that you wouldn’t have imagined easily without: that’s the purpose of a Framework (forget about the IT concept but the comparison, I used it to create a Value Framework based on my experience and findings) as I expect it to be, the one that provides guidance and opportunities to improve as much as an operational solution to build from and within. At least you need to know the rules, and understand how things work, because that’s what drives how decisions can be made. I remember when I was preparing my engineering master’s degree entry concours, having built-in training exercises with solutions included was a great help to prepare! How easy do you think it is to find in your professional life solutions to your questions? I did not write intentionally ‘to find solutions to your problems’ because of another question: have you thought of why you do have a problem to solve? The more the world grows, the more problems it generates because it has found in it a source to ‘create value’: that’s what I call ‘fake value’ or even worse in many cases ‘value destruction’ that only a wrong definition make it lie, even for those who benefit from. Please be aware and make up your mind! Fortunately, there are still great value creation opportunities that are worth it: it’s just become harder to find them. So, get a radar to recognize them or even make them better! That’s what I said to myself when I started, and I’m there to tell you that you can now have it too.
Create and Build versus Value? Another quote I like to read about creation is:
Creation is intelligence having fun
Value creation is a continuous process starting somewhere, say from zero! That way, wherever you are, there is a good chance you made some progress since birth . More seriously, there should be a link between creation and building towards a purpose. This is another interest of having a Framework to know the bricks and how to assemble them together to create value. I like the idea of a bricks game, because you can think of the world this way. It is also the way our mind works: it creates connections between everything we learned or experienced, and tries to put them together. Of course, it is better for you to make a conscious effort to have them work for you, therefore being obsessed with your purpose can only help. And I’m pretty sure your purpose is valuable. How much? How to get there? You need a path, and it is not a surprise that execution is probably the most difficult task: that’s what Operational Value Creation is made of. Once you do have a real and significant source of profitable growth, you have to work to make it sustainable, and you can play with corporate growth. Again, preparation is key, because it will free up your mind and make any decision much easier. Then you have to implement your strategy, and manage a team that does not have the same knowledge as you have. There an operational solution is key (I mean an operational solution based on a relevant framework, which you can assimilate to the organization and management knowledge when you don’t have one!), while settling the foundation for fast-learning value-focused tracks. All you need is to be ready for a little more transparency than what you probably were used to, while it may be limited to the key middle management to start with.
I hope you enjoyed your reading, and may you wish, please add your comment. You’re always welcome to share your thought, whatever.
All the best
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