For Shapeshifters
Making sense of value in fluid and in-between roles
Shapeshifters are transdisciplinary practitioners whose work often sits between roles, functions, and structures. They help connect strategy to action and ideas to execution, even when their contribution is hard to name.
In organisations and professional ecosystems, shapeshifters tend to do the work that falls between the cracks. They improve how things operate, absorb disruption, and help create coherence across people, processes, and systems.
Their roles may be formal or informal, titled or untitled. The work exists either way. (Learn more about the notion of shapeshifters.)
If this reflects your work, read on!
Why you should care about value
Shapeshifters are often asked to make sense of what an organisation is trying to achieve, even when that intent is fragmented, implicit, or contested. Understanding value helps make that work possible.
When the value (not to be confused with values) an organisation seeks to create is unclear, shapeshifters are left translating strategy into action without a stable reference point. Value literacy provides a way to surface what really matters at the organisational level, and to test whether initiatives, priorities, and trade-offs align with that intent.
Shapeshifters also play a quiet but critical role in helping others work more effectively together. By bringing language and structure to conversations about value, they help colleagues make better sense of priorities, expectations, and trade-offs. This shared understanding reduces friction, improves coordination, and supports collaboration across roles and boundaries.
At the same time, shapeshifters must manage their own balance of contribution and return. Being clear about the value being created for the organisation, for others, and for themselves supports better decisions about where to invest effort, when to step in, and when to step away.
Seen this way, value is not an abstract idea. It becomes a practical anchor for navigating complexity, aligning action, and sustaining meaningful contribution in work that rarely fits a neat box.
How you can use the value(x) approach
- The value(x) approach gives you language, tools, and methods to explore what’s valuable through multiple facets of change — individual, team, organisational and external stakeholders. Here are options for your learning adventures as you uplift your capability in shapeshifting.
Understand
Build your understanding of value(x) thinking and value-based conversations
- Extend your professional practice to include value-based conversations, without confusion with values, with our handy VALUE framework.
- Read the article ‘A Value-based Approach to Shaping a Workscape‘ to gain an overall understanding of taking a value-based approach in a personal workscape. Consider how this might influence your professional practice.
Experience
Develop your own capability in using some value(x) methods
- Get your own set of Workscape Value Elements deck of cards and experience the Value Exchange Ledger™ method for yourself as a foundation for helping others make sense of what value they want to claim, contribute, or create in their workscape. Or engage us for a personal coaching session to guide you through the method.
- Use the Workscape Value Proposition Statement method to clarify the value you can provide as a professional practitioner. This helps you to more easily communicate and negotiate your contribution, and the expectations and boundaries of your practice.
Apply
Use the value(x) tools and methods to strengthen your professional practice
- Learn how to coach individuals in the Workscape Value Exchange Ledger method so you can better support their growth and address performance matters.
- Check out methods and explanations useful to three contexts in our Resource collection: Workscape, Business and Marketplace.
- Consider your potential and actions in influencing organisational conversations about Employee Value Proposition.
- Use the Business Value Elements deck of cards for its vocabulary of value elements as a way to surface what kind of value the organisation is truly trying to achieve. This helps you uncover and better articulate the real strategic intent of change initiatives — especially when it’s unclear or assumed.
- Use the Marketplace Value Elements deck of cards for its vocabulary of value elements to deepen understanding of what is desirable for client/customer/member stakeholders. This supports clearer conversations about what people are actually seeking from products, services, or experiences, and helps challenge assumptions about what will be valued in action.
Bonus: When you combine the Workscape, Business and Marketplace value perspectives, you strengthen your ability to translate between the language of leadership and the work to be done in developing the organisation.