What is Value?

Martin Henley: [00:14:29] So what is value then? Because people can’t define it. You’ve written a book. So you must be able to define it for us.

Mark Carter: [00:14:36] I’ll give you a framework. I work with something you just said there about the search term for marketing. That makes sense too, because marketing is a massive field, right? Then within that, you have context of specialisation, you might have digital marketing, you might have live event marketing, you’ve got SEO. I’m not a marketing specialist, but think about value the same way because I work with value the same way with businesses.

Mark Carter: [00:15:01] The value model and I’ll explain that model for you now is an overarching framework and then we can drill into that to such things as defining your value proposition. Actually I’ll just do recent bodies of work, one of which was helping a business redefine their vision, mission and values. I highlight the fact that when and you look at vision statements, you look at mission statements, what’s common to see are three of the five value elements that I’m going to explain in a minute. Pretty much three of the five value elements are included within any good vision or mission statement. These five overarching elements of value is the overarching framework and then there’s many little tentacles like an octopus that come off from that, that we can add additional context, such as value propositions, such as value and service offerings, a toolkit. I talk about values being value added extras that have got nothing to do with your business, product or service, but everything to do with the manner with which you deliver and create experiences. So Value, here’s my framework, what I’ve learnt to identify and it’s very Aristotelian. I’ve identified five elements of value, and I talk about the model because if I say earth, water, air, and ask you for the next element, what would you say? Earth, water, air. And.

Martin Henley: [00:16:23] Is it fire?

Mark Carter: [00:16:24] There you go. I love that you got it.

Martin Henley: [00:16:26] I was shitting myself. I though I might not know the answer.

Mark Carter: [00:16:30] When I do that live, you get an audience saying fire, everybody knows these. They come from the fourth century Empedocles, Aristotle confirmed it and said, yeah, these coexist. To prove it he burnt a log; the smoke rises into the air, the water bubbling out is water, the liquid bubbling out is water, charcoal falling is earth, the flames the fire but he added the fifth element, the aether for all the other worldly movements. I say that because the five elements of value I’ve identified tie in to these fundamental elements. So here they are tangible value.

Mark Carter: [00:17:08] That is the value language of business is the way I’ve written it in the book. Why? Because it’s measurable, it’s practical. As every report, profit and loss spreadsheet, data that you’re looking at and it’s dollars, percentages, numbers and time. Now, as a learning professional, I also know nursery rhymes help anchor things, so I built my value model as the five elements in the nursery rhyme. So tangible value is like the element of earth because it’s very grounded. Dollars, percentages, numbers and time is the tangible value nursery rhyme. But the metrics that matter are yours and not mine.

Mark Carter: [00:17:50] You got that?

Martin Henley: [00:17:52] I’ve got that. And I’m just wondering how we’re going to … are you going to give us all five?

Mark Carter: [00:17:58] I will give you all five.

Martin Henley: [00:17:59] Okay. You give us all five quickly, because I’ve got like a river of questions, a tsunami of questions for each of these.

Martin Henley: [00:18:07] Okay, second, but water is the universal symbol of emotional states. Water is emotional value. We do a majority of our decision making at a subconscious or emotional level. Daniel Kahneman got a Nobel Prize part of his work is on that field. So stories, senses, personal and unique, like, wow, if you want to add emotional value, these are the four ways how? And then you add a touch of creativity for an extra rrrow. So that’s emotional value, a very different way than building the practical, pragmatic stuff.

Martin Henley: [00:18:44] Service value is the third element and that’s like the element of air because great service is delivered like an airborne Alexa person to person. Muhammad Ali said it well, “service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.”.

Martin Henley: [00:19:02] So service to others is a rent we all pay, focus on solutions and possibilities, others and the environment every day. The trick is to not let short term thinking or profits get in the way.

Martin Henley: [00:19:17] Fourth element Fire. My favourite TEDx Talk is by Robert Waldinger, director of the longest study of adult human development that’s been going on 80 years. John F Kennedy was in that initial cohort and as cliche as it seems, it turns out that what’s the answer to a fulfilling healthy life, love and quality relationships. So relationship value is like the element of fire because quality relationships is the warmth in our world.

Martin Henley: [00:19:46] For relationship ace traits choose your own if you must, but be candid and brave with two common languages kindness and love, because quality, character and value fits together like two hands in gloves. So that’s the element of fire.

Mark Carter: [00:20:04] The fifth element, the aether, the magical element that Aristotle alluded to. And if you’ve a movie buff, I talk about this, it’s like the movie The Fifth Element. Milla Jovovich was the fifth element in that movie. We are each the fifth element because the fifth element with the magical element, we are the aether, we bring personal value and we do that based on our natural perceptions, our natural strengths, our natural gifts. So how, why do and who are the four layers making the total sum of you? And somewhere in that mix lives your values and your perception and ability to add value. That’s the five elements. That’s the value model as an overarching theme.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?