The Transformation Needed for CCM: Part 3

7 May, 2025

Part 1: Transformation is a Necessity
Part 2: The Centrality of Value
Part 3: Value Management – the Missing Piece
Part 4: How to do it

Everything we do is under the banner of “Value Management”. It’s what’s needed to truly achieve the transformation needed for the CCM role – and the relationships it’s responsible for – to not only survive, but thrive, in today’s complex world.

But why is transformation needed? And why is “Value Management” the answer?

In this third part, we look at what’s involved with Value Management, and how it’s a complete framework for understanding, measuring and managing value.

So far in this series, we’ve seen the urgent need for transformation in the CCM role.

We’ve seen that whilst value is ultimately all that matters – because it’s the key to effectively responding to complexity – it isn’t in focus where it matters most: in our critical relationships.

But we’ve also seen that value is primarily subjective, and so the first challenge that Value Management needs to meet is in understanding and getting to grips with subjective value.

Understanding subjective value

Let’s return to our Kraljic matrix from Part 2, because it indicates that we already recognize consistent patterns in value – in particular that quadrants are a really powerful and universal tool here:

Here’s one such pattern from Deloitte to illustrate this point – what they call “Business Chemistry” – and whilst it’s talking about personality types, it maps neatly:

(The blue and green quadrants might initially seem less obvious, but Q1 relationships are “non-critical” in significant part because “Guardians” have brought stability, order and rigor to them; and “bottlenecks” are of course absolutely what “Integrators” seek to resolve.)

We’ve then given the quadrants our own more universal labels, reflecting their main focus:

Moving clockwise from the top right: “Purpose” for “Strategic”; “People” for “Bottleneck” (people usually being at the root of bottlenecks); “Methods” that bring the stability, order and rigor here that I just mentioned for “Non-critical”; and finally “Results” for “Leverage”.

We’ve then also fleshed out each quadrant’s distinct and specific values, each of which expands into more precision, e.g. “Visionary”:

Have a real look at this wheel.

Have you ever thought about your organization like this? Your customers? Your partners?

With this structure, though, we can then profile values:

We can identify alignment or mismatches, and clarity here means that potential tensions or even clashes can now be managed – even used to advantage.

Lifecycles can also be tracked. A new product, for example, likely starts in the yellow quadrant, enters an initial take-to-market phase in the green quadrant, before being operationalized (blue) to yield market results (red):

So this structure helps to map, track and often plan for change in value.

But to do these things, we need what we see as a three-stage process of scoping and surfacing Things That Matter, capturing and refining them into Value Codes and then measuring and progressing them.

Stage 1: Things That Matter

So, Things That Matter first, and these are the specific, recognizable and tangible expressions of the underlying values we’ve just seen, applied to the situation and to events.

This is first and foremost the end customer’s values, which shape their Things That Matter, which your organization then responds to with its Things That Matter, shaped by its values… and so on down the value chain.

This interplay is complex – in the true sense of the word we looked at in Part 1 – but talking in terms of “Things That Matter” helps cut through all that by starting to express what value means in practice.

The examples to the right make clear that Things That Matter occupy the middle ground between abstract and actionable – between values and reality:

They’re recognizably about something in practice, but also not immediately “doable”.
They’re a crucial “bridge” between value as a noun – the “thing” in “Things That Matter” – and value as a verb; the subjective “matter” part of the phrase that reflects active valuing (see Part 2 for more on noun vs verb).
This subjectivity is reflected in their different outlooks: towards-the-positive; away-from-the negative; more “neutral” in the middle.

That subjectivity also means that Things That Matter are then largely situation-specific.

But surfacing and expressing them gets straight to the heart of each situation.

Since childhood, we’ve been asked “what’s the matter” as a way to get to the bottom of things.

So it’s a simple, intuitive and engaging phrase.

It’s open, so whatever comes up will be unfiltered and immediately relevant.

And it’s the beginning of that empathy we looked at in Part 2.

But, yes, it’s a beginning.

Because you need to be able to do something with what you surface.

And this means properly capturing it.

Stage 2: Value Coding

Here’s a written up example of a Thing That Matters:

As well as giving clarity, and making it easy to share what’s been surfaced, this detail helps you spot the distinct specific and discrete topics involved:

And these are what make each Thing That Matters measurable, with what we call Value Codes.

Like the Things That Matter, Value Code measures also have a consistent format, and at their heart is the evaluation statements in the middle:

These statements – ideally developed by (or at least with) the front line – objectively ground what this aspect of the Thing That Matters (in this case, Leadership Accountability) looks like in practice.

They show the progression towards what good looks like, with the differences between the statements helping map how to get there.

And they also reveal perception gaps, because whilst the statements are mostly objective, people will absolutely have varying experiences around them.

But when you reach an agreed consensus on where things are at, you can set a target (including its relative priority to other Value Codes), and decide what to do to get there:

So, where does this get us?

Well, here’s our Value Code, now linked back to its Thing That Matters, with the other three Value Codes we saw, and with more examples added-in:

A “network” is therefore built-up of the high-level, primarily subjective Things That Matter on the left…

…distilled down into a set of specific, discrete and primarily objective Value Code measures.

So, we’ve made subjective value measurable and actionable, and that means we can widen the effectiveness of relationship management in our most crucial Q3 and Q4 relationships where subjective value dominates:

Overall, we have a complete value framework:

We’ve “demystified” the structure of values that are constantly shaping value.
We’ve captured the Things That Matter which express those values in context.
And we’ve put in place Value Codes that make value measurable and actionable.

And so it’s this framework of values, the Things That Matter and Value Codes that fills the gap in how we’re currently working:

But to deliver that framework, you need online diagnostics.

Stage 3: Diagnostics to Manage and Measure

Diagnostics are firstly there to factor out values, the Things That Matter and Value Codes, and to then stay on top of any changes there.

And the clarity this provides can then be used to really leverage the other approaches, guiding which are the best use of limited resources at any one time:

But why online diagnostics?

Well, they firstly offer a clear and engaging UI, with labels and descriptions on the left, evaluation statements in the middle (to choose from using slider bars), and then space on the right to enter comments.

Diagnostics also readily provide the kind of rich reporting needed to gain insights: overviews, detail and (crucially) perception gaps.

But you could perhaps do at least some of this with Excel, so it’s scalability – to any number of participants (we’ve seen many hundreds at a time) – that’s perhaps the first unique advantage for online diagnostics.

And it’s crucial.

Because it’s people that give you the bottom-up innovation you need to harness complexity – all from the full perspective of the front line; not just the limited number of people in workshops or in interviews.

Working online is also immediate: there’s no writing-up, processing and collating; it just happens automatically.

It’s secure and discreet – so it’s a safe space to be completely frank – and it’s therefore inclusive of people with key insights that are more naturally introverted.

So, whilst you can make a start with other methods, it’s online diagnostics that are truly transformative.

So that’s what Value Management involves – a complete framework of value, enabled and powered by the technology that drives the complexity it responds to.

But how do you make this all happen?

That’s what we’ll look at in Part 4.