All the Right Notes, but not necessarily in the Right Order

I’ve watched it a hundred times: each time I laugh as much as I did the first. But the punchline comes back to me over and over again - it’s a great metaphor for the industry I’ve worked in all my career, and for the key role Value Professionals can play.

When I’m explaining to colleagues, friends and family what I do for a living, the short version is that I align the strategy and goals of our customers with the capabilities of our products and services.

But often I feel like Mr Preview: I have the powerful forces of a symphony orchestra at my disposal, but the sound isn’t quite right: the skill of the conductor comes from putting the notes together in the right order. As often it’s not a question of knowledge or technique : it’s a question of communication, inside our organisation and with our customers. And that can be really tough.

The challenge: we’re technologists, we love our technology. And that makes us forget the most important question: Why should our customer care? We forget that meeting a customer should be like a first date: lots of questions, lots of listening, don’t talk too much about yourself. And if the relationship is going to work long term then we're going to need to maintain that approach.

Last week Frederic Labat shared this article with me from Scott Jeffries: it's a good reflection of my thoughts on where Business Value is heading, and what we as Value professionals must do to continue adding value to our customers and our own organisations. Let me know what you think.