NABC Propositions, Doing Your Best, and Stochastic Sampling

Successful organizations do three things: they create more value than they capture, they optimize for personal fulfillment, and they remain resilient over the long term.

Each week, I share three ideas to help you do the same. This week, I have ideas on value proposition design, what it means to do your best, and methods for gathering organizational insights:

#customervalue

?? NABC helps create stronger value propositions

What’s the best way to write a strong value proposition? I like Marty Neumeier’s Onliness Statement and I know lots of people who use the Value Proposition Canvas. But I think perhaps the Stanford Research Institute’s NABC has them beat. Maybe. Like the others, NABC identifies the specific problem or desire being discussed (Need). Also like the others, it explains the unique methods or solutions proposed to address that need (Approach) along with the advantages or value it brings (Benefits). What makes NABC stand out is its focus on differentiation: the last and final component makes it clear why this solution is different from the alternatives (Competition) and why customers should care.

#personalfulfillment

????♂? Success lies not in deed but in preparation

What does it mean to do your best? Shane Parrish provides an anecdotal answer on a recent episode of the Knowledge Project podcast, and I paraphrase: “My son did poorly on a test he had at school. He was upset. He had done his best, he said, and so expected to have done better. I let it rest for a day or two before I asked what he meant when he said that. Turns out “his best” meant trying really hard on test day between the hours of 10 AM and 11 AM. And so we talked about that. We talked about the elements of doing your best. We talked about preparation.” I love that. Doing your best invariably involves prep work. The seeds to success are planted in the days, weeks, and months leading up to the event.

#businessresilience

?? Stochastic sampling provides better insights

How do you stay up to date with everything that’s happening in your organization? Traditional 1–1s are great but time-consuming, and because they typically involve the same individuals, they can easily lead to blind spots. Skipped 1–1s can help, but there’s still the question of who to talk to and when. Consider the strategy used by Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang: stochastic sampling — a method that relies on a random selection process described by a specific probability distribution. Sounds complicated, I know, but it doesn’t have to be. “Stochasticity” can be achieved using nothing but a random number generator and a set of predefined sampling spots (e.g., departments). Simple, yet insightful.

That’s all for this week.

Until next time: Make it matter.

??

/Andreas

How can we build better organizations? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer for the past 10 years. Each week, I share some of what I’ve learned in a weekly newsletter called WorkMatters. Back issues are marinated before being published to Linkedin three months later. For example: this article was originally published on Friday, Jan 12, 2024. If you are reading this you’re missing out. Subscribe now and get the next issue delivered straight into your inbox. ??