Do You Create More Value Than You Take?

Do you create more value than you take? It is the first of three questions I ask every leader, and the other two rest on it. Value creation is easy to define: you bring more to the table than you take away, for your customers, your colleagues and everyone else in your world. The hard part is being honest about which side of that line you are on.

If I asked a room full of leaders, “How many of you are takers?” not one hand would go up. So I don’t ask. I hand out a sheet of paper.

A two-minute exercise that tells the truth

The sheet has a grid on it, six squares by six. People pair up. One is X, the other is O, and they take turns until all 36 squares are full. You score a point for every line you capture from edge to edge, whether it runs across, down or on the diagonal. I tell each person to get as many points as they can, and I give the room about two minutes.

Then I ask for a show of hands. Most people finish with four or five points. Some have seven. Once in a while a pair has nine each, or eleven, and everyone else wants to know how.

They worked together. If one partner takes half the grid and the other takes the other half, both walk away with nine. Most pairs never get there, because somewhere in those two minutes a thought shows up: I’m probably not going to get any more points, so I’ll just block you.

I never call it a game, by the way. I say “find a partner.” I say “complete this activity together.” I use the language of collaboration from start to finish, and when I turn people loose, nearly all of them compete anyway.

Value extractors and value creators

That exercise shows the difference between a value extractor and a value creator, and it starts with how each one sees the table.

A value extractor lives with a scarcity mentality. There is only so much on the table, so I had better get there first and take as much as I can if I want to survive. The trouble is that it doesn’t take many value extractors before there is nothing left on the table. When that happens, the game is over and everybody goes home.

A value creator has an abundance mentality. If we all bring more to the table than we take away, there is a surplus at the end of the day, and everyone who helped create it gets to share in it. The game keeps going because it is sustainable.

In almost every endeavor of life, you will garner more through collaboration than you ever will through competition. I have nothing against competition. It is great fun in games, where somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. But in business and in relationships, you are not trying to create winners and losers.

When I win, I lose

My wife and I are both strong communicators, and every so often we get into what we call a lively conversation. I will say this as humbly as I can: by any objective standard, I win that debate. And every time I win that debate, I lose in life. That is why we have a guest room.

Customer relationships work the same way. Nobody enjoys being on the losing end of one, which is why we have to move beyond transactional business to relationships that are personal. There is one person you should compete against, and that is you: be better today than you were yesterday. Everyone else you compete for. Compete for the customer, for what is in the customer’s best interest. The customer will decide who creates the most value, and that is who they will choose.

What extraction and creation sound like

I use a simple formula. Value extraction is any time I put I, me and my above what is best for us. It is made worse by ego and rivalry, the two things that fuel competition. You can hear it in a conversation where people keep trying to one-up each other, each a little bigger, smarter or wiser than the last person who spoke.

Value creation is when we put we above me. What is best for all of us is ultimately what is best for me, because it lasts. Two things amplify it: ownership, where each of us takes responsibility for our part, and relationship.

I believe we are all designed to create value. That is our hard drive. The problem is that our software is broken. We have all been infiltrated by selfishness, by the attitude of what’s in this for me. And yet we feel good when we do good. Our role as leaders is to turn consumers into creators.

Value creation can be small

CBS News once told the story of a Starbucks barista in Leesburg, Virginia. She had waited on a deaf customer only once. Then she went home, got on the internet and spent about three hours learning enough American Sign Language to take his order. The next time he came in, she handed him a note saying she had been learning ASL so that he could have the same experience as everyone else. He framed the note.

Three hours of her own time to take one coffee order. She did not do it for a tip or because the boss was watching. She was alert, she was in the moment, and she understood that a small act of kindness can have a profound impact. That is what value creation looks like on an ordinary day.

How to answer the question this week

Ask this question every day, of yourself and of the people around you. A few places to start:

• Before a decision, ask which choice will create the greatest value.
• Look at your team. Are you investing in them, or expecting them to give more to meet your needs than you give in return?
• Share what you know. A best practice that stays with one person helps one person. Shared, it causes the harbor to rise for everybody.
• Listen to your own conversations. When you catch yourself trying to one-up someone, you have found a little value extraction.
• Treat every relationship like a bank account, and make more deposits than withdrawals.

When you can answer yes, two more questions are waiting: do you leave a positive wake? and do you solve problems or assign blame? Together, the three questions are what make being Remarkable practical. They come from a field of philosophy most leaders have never heard of, which I explain in Beyond Motivation: A Philosophical Foundation.