What is the
Role of a Leader in Business with Respect to "value" and
"values"?
Businesses can
only create value by understanding the difference between what a client wants
and needs. If a business doesn’t deliver then it’s not creating value but
wasting time, money or effort. If it simply delivers the minimum to satisfy
that may be enough, but it isn’t added value. However by understanding and anticipating
the requirements of time, cost, quality, risk and relationship a business can
add value by offering exactly the right combination of these factors to a
customer who will be impressed both by the outcome and the thinking that will
have gone into it, which shows that the business has really understood the
customer and thus added value.
The challenge
of speaking of values is that they are either so vague that anyone could
subscribe to them without really understanding what they mean or very specific
which could be divisive to people of different age, culture, religion or
education.
For example we
might all agree a value like ‘integrity’ but this can result in many different
behaviours in different circumstances. If we become more specific and say “100%
of the time we speak the full truth” we
risk being unpopular when asked opinions: ‘does this look good on me?’
Values are the code
of affiliation; they seek to establish common ground in the group, team, tribe,
class or party. However they are not fixed and just as we can be simultaneous members
of different social groups, so too can we modify our values according to
context. People tend to like and follow other people who are similar (espouse
similar values) to them.
The role of a
Business Leader is to understand customers sufficient to deliver value and
understand people sufficient for them to identify in him or her their values and
as such see the Business Leader as a valued member of their group, team, tribe,
class or party.
Tim HJ Rogers
Curator
TEDxStHelier
Web:
www.TEDxStHelier.com
Email:
Tim@TEDxStHelier
Mob:
07797762051
