One and half decades back, when I joined my first job – I had a team of 30 sales executives. After every weekly review, my boss would ask me, “what value did you add?” I had absolutely no clue what value I could add because most of them were working for many more years than I was and I was far more “clueless” than they were. I would constantly ask myself this question “how do I add value?”

Fast forward to today, the response to “value add” has become a second nature. The multiple interactions with internal teams, clients, partners, associates – every interaction adds value to me & (fingers crossed) I hope the interaction benefits them. This “value-add” journey has led me to read books, get inspired by stories & movies, listen attentively and observe carefully. But one must ask, is there value to be added in every interaction? Like one of my friends said the other day – whatever is needed for our existence is already there, why then do you seek to constantly re-invent the wheel.

Just a moment back I had a conversation with one of my team members. He told me that the need to “value add” was making his life miserable and stressful. Every excel, every ppt that passed his desk begged him to “value-add”. I come across this phenomenon very often in the corporate world. Trying to add value where there is none to be added – is the biggest culprit for the thousands of unnecessary emails, processes and presentations we have. Perhaps it is also the reason why the “sugar coated customer service” doesn’t get you the response you expected, why the “consultative selling process” doesn’t seem to be working, why the new product doesn’t seem to be having any new takers, etc.

The question we must ask is does this “value –add” make a difference to the final customer / user. If it doesn’t ‘count’, it doesn’t ‘matter’.

At Able Ventures, we are constantly looking at ways that make a difference to our clients’ performance. Every trainer, facilitator in our team is equipped with state of the art tools to understand the need and make a difference. Facilitating another training program vs making a difference in the participant’s life – fine line to cross – but that’s our aim and that’s what makes us who we are.

Do reach out to us to know more on how we can “value-add” to your teams and business. We have impacted business performance by over 36% in a quarter for one of our clients. That’s the value add that we seek to create every day. My email Id- smita@ableventures.in