How Do You Create Value?

The future for us is about value. Value goes beyond salary, price, fee and investment. The concept of value can be interpreted on various levels of importance and relevance.

How do you add value to these?

1)    Relationships (both personal and professional)

2)    Profession/Business (enhance your capability, tacit wisdom, and competencies)

3)    Meetings (keep these clear, important and pleasant)

4)    Conversations (make these productive and relevant)

5)    Messages you have to spread (consider Derrick ‘Mr Motivator’ Evans)

6)    Yourself (that’s you, Dear Reader!) and your personal brand, dreams, aspirations and passions

How do you add value to your organization? Are you just doing ‘what you are told to do’? Do you just get by with the necessary and minimum?

What do you think of this popular phrase in companies: ‘You can be clever, but don’t be too clever!’ What is the limitation of this line? In a corporate culture that promotes innovation and creativity, would this belief be useful?

We tend to hold ourselves back, sometimes. It is fine to do that sometime, as we do not want to persistently push ourselves beyond our limits; yet, we will need to, occasionally, challenge those latent parts of our DNA and every fibre of our being. Value what you have, and more; add value to what you do and whom you come into contact with.

In recent years, there is a global movement to enhance the value of brands and organizations. Looking at numerous business and social blogs, I have appreciated the fact that hobbies, home-based businesses, and alternate professions feature highly in the author’s personal branding. People are deriving pleasure from doing things that they enjoy, and find meaning in; after all, the Chinese phrase for business ‘sheng yu’ means ‘living with meaning’.

Having scanned the profiles of my friends and associates on my social media circle, I have learnt that almost all of them have more than one profession and passion. It seems that having a portfolio of professions is the norm to day; if that is a strong indication of our future, it may be time now to rethink and review our skill sets and expertise.

Footnote: Stay sharply tuned to my interview with DAVID GREENFIELD of Elite Bicycles next week; he has an exquisite business and teaching model for customized bike fitting and manufacturing. Tomorrow morning, I will be interviewed for a television documentary and performing, too. Then, I will be off to India to teach a leadership workshop. I hope to chalk in some solid running and strengthening workouts, as it is 28 days to my first double-marathon. By the way, Leadership Lessons from Triathlons is now one year old. Hooray!