An Invitation to be a Value Creator
You are part of value creation activities every day, whether you realise it or not. This is an invitation to bring your awareness to these activities and direct your participation in a meaningful way.
When you understand the value you can create for yourself, you tap into agency that shapes your workscape and your future. When you understand the value you can create for others, you build relationships and opportunities that make your contributions matter. Together, these two forms of value creation strengthen your sense of purpose and the impact you can have.
What is value creation
Value creation is the primary aim of any business entity. The things a business creates is expected to have more value than the materials and knowledge that went into it, so they can charge for the act of creating that value for a consumer or customer.
Value that can be created, can be represented in ways that are more than money, though often we attribute a measure of money to say how valuable something is. Value created can be functional; emotional; intellectual; healthful; social; inspirational; cultural and societal as well as financial.
Value creation is not only for organisations and businesses. It’s also for individuals — in whatever they are doing as an employee, as a volunteer, or as a self-employed person.
What makes a person a value-creator is that they have value to contribute, and that through their actions they create value for someone. It can become a virtuous cycle: when you create value for self — then you increase the value you have available to contribute.
Who does value creation
Value creation is part of a broader value exchange that takes place between an organisation and a person or group of people.
Typically, the perspective of value creation is taken as creating value for a customer by providing products and services, and creating value for a shareholder in providing a return on their investment.
Value creation also involves the employees of an organisation who perform actions that can add value to something. Employees contribute value that helps generate value for the organisation, while also creating value for themselves.
Employees are valuable as value creating entities. This is why I encourage individuals to take control and accountability for the value they can create for themselves, and for others.
It starts with a strong understanding of what is value — and as value is in the eye of the beholder — who says what is valuable. For each person, their estimation of what value they get and how valuable those things are, is dynamic and shifts easily with context. For this reason, it is a great skill to be able to fluently define what is valuable and take steps to realise it and to repeat such action as frequently as needed.
Value creation for individuals is a more evolved conversation than the ‘What’s in it for me’ question, particularly because it recognises three things:
- You understand a sense of being valued can come from the things you contribute, not just the things you get.
- You have a responsibility for the creation of value you personally seek – it’s not just up to other people.
- Value you seek can often be tacit, invisible and unexplored. When it’s unexplored, it can lead to conflicts arising from unspoken expectations and unexamined assumptions.
How value creation works
Value creation is an action — typically intentional — that creates or adds value. For the value you want to generate for self or others, you must do something, or engage others in doing something. For example, if you want to create the value of AFFILIATION or BELONGING, you need to do the work of cultivating quality relationships, else you are simply a person amongst strangers.
Value creation can be a flow: a series of actions of interconnected of value elements.
I take my KNOWLEDGE and share it with others in an article or a course (which has now transformed into a piece of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY) which can lead to people knowing more about me and demonstrating what I am capable of (REPUTATION), offering an IDEA or INSIGHT that might lead another person to CLARITY or a CONFIDENT DECISION.
Where you create value
Self-determined individuals hold a mindset that they create value in their workscape which is not limited to where they currently work, or in being employed.
What’s in your workscape, past, present and emerging, is decided by you. As are the places where you can contribute and create value. Though a word of caution, to be truly valuable to others be mindful that value is in the eye of the beholder, so the beholder gets to decide what’s valuable to them, which may or may not be what you are contributing or creating. Best to start with a conversation and agreement about what will be a valuable value exchange.
While visiting the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne (Australia), I saw this amazing collection of photographs of RWH staff doing things ‘outside’ of their day-to-day hospital work. There are amazing examples of how they are contributing value, and creating value for themselves and others, as decided and guided by themselves — not their employer.
How you create value for yourself and others (and manage this process)
The activity of value creation starts with defining what is valuable to the individual or group you are serving. Then taking action to create that, or contribute to the creation of that. Followed by checking that the action being taken is actually generate desired value – to whatever scope of value is significant to those you serve. Check out our Workscape Value Creation Plan method for more detail.
For personal value creation, you take the lead about what actions to take to create desired value for self. You might do this in conjunction with organisations where you work, to utilise their resources and the assistance of colleagues. Your colleagues can also take the lead in their value creation management, for which you might play a contributing role.
As to what actions you take to create desired value – the only limit is your imagination. Here’s some ideas to get creative juices flowing – mindful that acts of value creation depend on context and particular value sought (related VALUE ELEMENTS are in CAPS):
- Ask if you can rotate your role (or part of your role) with someone else to learn about different work and add extra ability to what you are currently doing. VARIETY, FLEXIBILITY
- Pair up with someone else to do a challenging task together and learn from each other. COMPETENCE, MASTERY
- Document the way you do your work (or solved a challenge problem) capturing what happened in story, diagrams and images. Share with someone. REPUTATION, WORKPRODUCT
- Be a peer-mentor to someone; ask someone to be a peer-mentor to you. BELONGING, MASTERY
- Write up an idea (or experiment) concept with some steps on what action you would take to implement it; share this with someone in a decision-making role. REPUTATION, INVENTION, WORKPRODUCT
- Invite someone to give you advice or a testimonial-recommendation to shape future growth or highlight past growth. GROWTH, INSIGHT
- Practice being curious and cognitive flexible by intentionally learning something new and small every day. MINDSET, GROWTH, CAPABILITY
The future advantage of value literacy
Success in your workscape often depends on meeting others ‘needs’ — the needs of colleagues, the boss, followers, family, customers, etc. ‘Needs’ can be synonymous for ‘value’. It’s a necessary skill for the 21st century workscape to become highly literate in recognising and speaking about value; and being mindfully assertively capable of creating value for others.
Value literacy helps people understand what truly matters in the mix of relationships, expectations, and pressures that shape modern work. When someone can recognise what is valuable to others and what is valuable to themselves, they can make wiser decisions about where to focus, how to negotiate, and what to offer. It becomes easier to avoid unnecessary friction, set healthy boundaries, and create contributions that land well. In a changing workscape, the ability to notice and name value can be as important as any technical skill.
And a quick word on Employee Value Propositions
In employer-employee contexts there’s a growing appetite for defining a desirable Employee Value Proposition. Particularly as organisations realise in a post-pandemic world that considerations about what is valuable, have and will continue to shift. A big shift like: Employees want to spend less time at work (and commuting to work), and want more flexible working arrangements about when and where they work, so they have more time and energy for family and other interests. They seek to create different forms of value for themselves than simply gaining money.
With knowledge about your own value creation intentions, you can more effectively get a genuine Employee Value Proposition that’s right for you. Rather than a homogenously created one to fit all employees.
It’s time to move forward and see yourself as a value-creating entity in your workscape, for self and others, for now and for the future.
Author
Helen Palmer, Founder of value(x) hub, has been intentional about contributing and creating value in her workscape over past decades. Being mindful of the value exchanges, helps her choose what work to do and when to decide the work is finished. It’s increased her motivation and made it easier to choose things that are a good fit for her.