Values

There are two definitions of the word VALUE(S):

• The worth and usefulness of something.
• Principles or standards of behaviour.

As people we all value something. What we value is often something close to our heart (adds value to (y)our life). In most cases it is something in a physical sense (physical sense being the life experiences that you can feel and/or engage). These are often referred to as personal values.

See values below:

• Your job or career growth.
• The time spent or you spend with family.
• The love you experience from your parents or children.
• Religious beliefs or faith of any kind.
• The respect you are shown and given.

All these show the principles that define your own values. If we are to create principles based on the above values, we may end up with the following principles:

• Career driven
• Family orientated
• Loving
• Faithful
• Respectful

However, with the same personal values shown in the above example, there are possibilities of another person having different principles:

• Capital driven
• Visiting loved ones
• Loves being loved (selfish)
• Churchgoer
• Seeks power

This is where behaviour on the definition of values comes in: behaviour is a critical part of creating a visible and reviewable case of your principles and your personal values. While the expected outcome of your personal values may be the same or similar, it is your actual behaviour which determines how people perceive you. However, this does not conclude a final outcome or that people will see you in the same light. This relationship between principles, behaviour and personal values demonstrates that in order to have personal values you will need principles that will be visible through behaviour.

See the diagram below:

This relationship showcases how the gears interact with one another, indicating to us that whenever one moves the other two will move also. As a person your principles are affected by the physical environment, which changes your perception and alters your behaviour. The exact same thing happens when you change your principles or behaviour.

The public view of your principles

Your principles are visible to other people based on your behaviour. Meaning how you have defined your physical value may be seen differently by others based on your behaviour. Using the example above, the first person may be viewed as more pleasant and good, while the second person may be more arrogant and selfish. As much as they both share the same physical value, be that as it may; how they intend to achieve the outcome is or could be completely different from one another.

“Your values aren’t what is important in nature, but rather what is important to you. So, it matters not what you eat or have; it will be your principles and behaviour that say who you are. This is exactly how a business operates. How much money it makes and what products it makes bears no significant relevance in the importance of the value and experience offered to its clients.”

Klaas Ramo Molapisi | Strategy and Development Leader

Business Value

In business terms, business value refers to the concepts that guide your business. However, this does not address business value in depth. What does value truly mean for your business?

Similarly, to your personal values, a business relies heavily on principles to determine the direction on three key parts:

• Brand
• Business
• Market

In a business, our values define what we care about or why we do what we do. This creates a vision and sets us on a mission to achieve this vision. In a business, again, we will take our principles as values, our behaviour as the mission, and our physical value as the vision. We will then add our key parts of the business direction to the equation to complete the diagram below.

Let’s create a scenario that will show how this relationship applies in a real-life environment.

megaPay (a fintech business)

The values

• Transform payment challenges for local communities (Primary)
• Create impactful technological solutions in local communities.
• Grow the use of technology in local communities.

The vision

Become a leading efficient online payment solutions provider in townships and rural areas.

In our scenario we can now see the values which now have outlined the vision. Since our values are noticeably clear and aimed at impacting local communities’ challenges with payments. We will now make clear the payment challenges that exist in townships and rural areas with the points below:

The problem

• Trust towards online payments (lack thereof)
• Internet access and speed challenges
• Knowledge about online payments
• No automated recurring payment and management of transactions for locally operating businesses

Our mission will create an overview looking at the key parts of direction to address these problems which by default will form our vision from our values.

The mission

• Brand: Grow trust of online payments technology usage and safety
• Business: Develop easy to use, cheaper, mobile friendly products
• Market: Associate with social societies, property owners, and taxi owners to build a network and payment communities

“It’s easy to assume that the mission is the strategy when it is in fact an overview of the strategy, and the strategy is an approach and action taken to accomplish the overview.” Our insights on Digital Transformation & Sustainable Outcome need your Strategy provide more insights on this”

Klaas Ramo Molapisi | Strategy and Development Leader

In summary, with clear values – our business was able to establish a direction and create a mission to achieve our vision. While on our vision we aim to be a leading service provider, which will ultimately be determined by the people we serve. Alluding to the fact that all of that isn’t necessarily up to us as a business, BUT our clients/customers. However, with our plan we believe this will be the outcome.