If we’re working hard to deliver what they asked for, why don’t they see our value?
If what we deliver isn’t recognized as valuable, we didn’t deliver business value. Full stop.
ValueSmith connects the work we do to value others can recognize.
Explore the Value Delivery Check
See how to work with Michael
Why value goes unseen
The cost of the work is easy to see. The benefit is harder.
The gap gets worse when what gets delivered isn’t what they expected.
What they asked for, what they wanted, and what they needed can be three different things. And the person asking for the work may not be the person who has to recognize it as valuable.
The pressure is on to deliver what they asked for.
Nothing necessarily tells us to stop. Nothing announces that the problem is wrong, the path is drifting, or the outcome in someone else’s head is different from the one we’re working toward.
You can solve the wrong problem perfectly and still deliver no value while creating a visible loss.
It’s bigger than communication
When value goes unseen, we usually try to communicate better, communicate more often, or explain the work more clearly.
But communication is only part of what someone has to read.
They see what we say. They also see what got done, what changed, what it cost, what moved, what stalled, and what mattered enough to get attention.
All of that shapes whether the work is recognized as valuable.
That’s bigger than communication.
It’s a signal problem.
Value doesn’t become visible because we declare it. It becomes visible through what someone can see, understand, and recognize from the whole picture.
Value is a dialogue, not a declaration.
Before we explain the work better, we have to know we’re doing the work that matters.
We have to solve the right problems
We can solve a lot. We might even be able to solve all of it.
We sure as hell can’t solve it all at once.
Time forces a choice. What matters is choosing where to put our attention.
That means getting three things right:
- the right problem
- the right path
- the right actions
Three things to get right. Five questions to check the connection.
How do we avoid solving the wrong problem perfectly?
The Value Delivery Check is a five-question diagnostic that checks whether the work is set up to deliver value.
About 25 minutes. Three steps.
Get what’s in our heads onto the page. Predict what someone else would make of it. See what someone else makes of it.
The check gives us a read on whether the work is set up to deliver value and where to focus if it isn’t. That’s how we figure out our Best Next Step: the smallest action that unlocks progress.
One check. Multiple ways to run it. No cost. No registration, account, or email. No required sharing.
Explore the Value Delivery Check
Sometimes the situation needs another read
Sometimes we need someone outside the work to read the situation with us.
I bring an outsider’s perspective with insider experience — enough distance to see what may be getting missed, and enough context to understand why it matters.
Sometimes the problem we’re working on changes. We work toward something you can explain, test, decide on, or carry into the next conversation.
Outsider perspective. Insider experience.
See how to work with Michael