I have written here about the importance of knowing your hypothesis of value. Without value there is no way to judge productivity. Without knowing productivity all you are left with is busyness or activity. Often the level of busyness is inversely related to productivity.

It can be challenging to find and articulate value in a congruent way that aligns to mission or goals. There are very few frameworks for how to think about value. Recently, a fellow coach (thank you Shane) pointed me to the Bain Elements of Value. I was blown away…

Here is a high level view of the model;

Bain Pyramid

This seems like a very powerful framework to think about value. In the presentation, the speaker used this framework to discuss other industry leaders as well as give a pretty coherent and rich understanding of where the speaker’s company is and wants to go.

The framework was developed by Eric Almquist at Bain and Company. Here is a short video of Eric discussing the framework;

 

It was presented last September in HBR here HBR Article on Value .  It presents value on a Maslow like hierarchy of needs.The higher on the pyramid you go the more you are engaged with your customer and the more loyal they are. Here is a more detailed view;

Bain Pyramid Detail

Organizations that have shared mindset around formulation and articulation of value have an easier time staying aligned without resorting to command and control. This is because they come up with a coherent and congruent understanding that converges on the mission. Basically a framework like this works as a Rosetta stone so groups can operate independently yet in concert.

So summing up;

  1. Understanding, hypothesizing, and articulating value is very important. It leads to separating out busyness from productivity by allowing good priority setting.
  2. The Bain Elements seem to me an awesome framework to create shared mindset around value. This is being used in major corporations already.
  3. Shared mindset and use of a common value framework can lead to greater alignment and more autonomy at the same time.

What do you think?

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