Creating Value - Brief Intro

Creating value or adding value. What does this mean exactly? These are terms that we hear or read about all the time. Like most of you, during most of my adult life, I heard about added value, either through various readings or through the media. And I was first introduced to the theoretical notion of “added value” during my graduate studies in marketing.

Then, as I occupied various positions as a marketing specialist and after this as a fund raiser, I was able to observe and ponder on how, in every day life, value is created. More interestingly, over the course of my professional career, I have worked for several organisations and have been able to observe how value is destroyed by actions undertaken either strategically by the leaders and managers of the corporation or by day-to-day behaviour of individuals working for these companies.

Following is a very brief, non-in-depth history of the academic origins of the concept. In 1985, Dr. Michael porter, a brilliant Harvard Business School professor introduced a model that allowed managers and business strategists to understand how value is added within corporations.[1] Rest assured, the aim of this text is not to go into a deep analysis on the model proposed by Dr. Porter. Most brilliant people have the ability to take the complex and make it simple. And that’s exactly what Dr. Porter did. (By the way, this is a form of creating value!)

Dr. Porter's work is used mostly by scholars and business strategists and when it was first published, he presented a whole new way of understanding what a firm does to create value. By breaking the company into the different “activities” that a product or a service goes through in any business, Dr. Porter describes how value is added. This is how companies build their competitive advantage.

And this is just how far I will be going about Dr. Porter’s brilliant work. Also, I'm not going to refer to the economical meaning of “added value”. What I want to do is present it so that you can create value in your own life. And once value has been added into your life, you might find it worthwhile to create some into the lives of other and into the organisations that you are a part of.

I will also bring your attention to some observations made through my experience as a parent, which I believe is the single most important task any individual can be given. Rearing children to become responsible adults has been so far one of the single most challenging, yet rewarding endeavour I have ever undertaken. Those of you who have not had the chance or having children can tranfer these notions into your personal relationships or even work life.

Creating value implies choosing the right attitude towards yourself and other people. The right attitude will lead you to say the right words. The right adjectives, if adjectives at all. For example, there are several levels between the following sentences:

- This is Bill.
- This is my friend Bill.
- This is my good friend Bill.
- This is my great friend Bill.
- This is Bill, my best friend.
- This is Bill, my best friend in the whole world.
- This is Bill, the God father of our oldest daughter.
- Etc.

By reading them, you develop a clearer and clearer sense of my appreciation of Bill as well as the type of relationship that we have.

From the foundational positive mental attitude, adding value also demands that we choose the right actions. To fulfill your own destiny and to help others reach their own objectives.
In an attempt to understand how individual attitude and behaviour affects the fait of theses individuals and the organisations they are part of, I have made several observations. I want to share these with you in this blog.

We will begin by offering you a framework used by business strategists to assess situations, establish objectives, develop strategies and evaluate whether or not your strategies have produced the expected results. From there, we will spend some time helping you understand the importance of knowing the direction you are going to and the results you are choosing to achieve.

Other texts will focus on the ways by which we can add value: first how we can create value to ourselves, as without first feeling secure in your own value, we cannot move to the next level and add value to individuals around us and organisations that we are part of. This last section is particularly dear to me as it is the very reason why I decided to start this blog.

I now invite you to look around you. The house you live in, the chair you are sitting in right now, the automobile that you drive or the bus that you take to commute to and from work. Remember the words from Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street" song:

"All of the buildings, all of the cars were once just a dream in somebody's head."

I hope that reading this blog helps you to understand a few of the things that I came to understand myself. Being totally new to blogging, I understand that comments are whar make blogging what blogging is.

Actually, I bagan blogging upon the recommendation of a dear friend. His name is Harry Wakefield and his blog is www.mocoloco.com . It's worth a visit!

[1] PORTER, Michael, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, 1985