THE VCW: VALUE CREATION WHEEL®
All of us are ‘Leaders’ because all of us have the capability to solve challenges or contribute with our perspectives for those who have the power to do so (i.e., the Key
Decision Makers).
These challenges might be for example challenges/problems in our organizations, life, groups, or countries.
The VCW-Value Creation Wheel® is an innovation tool for leaders to find reliable solutions to their challenges, support their reasoning, and present arguments for investment decisions.
It is a powerful tool to involve others to gather insights to find reliable and supported solutions.
The great majority of organizational decisions require an investment in terms of Manpower (people), Minute (time) and Money (budget).
The VCW might for example help the Key Decision Makers who have access to the 3Ms resources (e.g., the Board), to take hard investment decisions.
After applying the VCW tool, leaders will have reasoning behind their decisions, and consequently will be able to present a rational for the WHY next to the KDMs.
What is the difference between a Leader and a Key Decision Maker (KDM)?
The KDM is defined as someone who has access to the 3Ms resources (Lages, 2016). Very often, KDMs (e.g. people in the Board) are perceived as Leaders.
If a Leader is not a KDM, it is expected to have the capability to involve/influence KDMs. Quite often “Great Leaders” are recommended to have a clear rational to justify their decisions, gathering enough information to support their challenges, involving others in the problem-solving process, and sharing the options and criteria behind his/her decisions.
The VCW allows providing structured information in a flexible way, being very useful in reducing the risks associated with making resource allocation decisions.
The VCW builds in the power of innovation, cocreation and systematizing collective intelligence, in order to help KDMs and/or leaders to solve a problem/challenge, present the reasoning (i.e., the Why), and consequently find support for the final decisions.
This explains why some companies are now applying the VCW to solve several challenges and develop VCW Innovation Ecosystems inside their own organizations.
Since all of us can be KDMs and/or leaders for our own life, the VCW has also been applied by individuals and organizations for social impact, at the personal level to help people to rethink their professional careers, discover their life purpose and find a job.
In conclusion, the VCW can be used to support “Great Leadership”. By following the VCW path, “Great Leaders” have a tool which might be used to:
- Follow a both agile and structured problem solving process, and allow others to better understand and accept their decisions such as: the Why?, the How?, the What?
- Gather information before solving a challenge, namely start from a wide range of ideas, and consider different pros and cons (criteria/filters) of different options;
- Co-create and incorporate different perspectives into problem-solving, such as opinions from other KDMs, different internal and external stakeholders, skeptics, laggards and the devil’s advocate in the decision making process;
- Share the reasons and support the “Why” of his/her decisions, and this way involving the community.
