How do we create value in a constantly changing world?

Everything has a price, they say. Whether you go to supermarkets, restaurants, salons, or in the office of a client, you will find price tags, menus, signage, contracts ‒ some label or document that indicates the price of what you're purchasing. That's how business works – a simple exchange of goods or services…but is it really that simple? Not really.

Over the past few decades, the market has dramatically changed and been disrupted more times than we can count. While the transaction of exchanging goods and services for a cost remains, how businesses thrive in a highly competitive environment is more difficult than ever before.

Customer value or the 'perception' of what a product or service is worth has evolved – and it continues to change all the time, which is why being deeply attuned to stakeholder wants, needs, and desires is so critical.

In the world of consumer goods, personal goals, values, advocacies, desired experiences, and principles play a huge part in anyone's purchase decision ‒ they must believe the 'value' offered is worth the asking price.

American businessman and investor Warren Buffet says that "price is what you pay, value is what you get". However, in the business to business professional services, the definition of value is a lot more complex because what is being sold is intangible.

As the line between physical and digital continue to blur with new technologies on the rise, how will the value of products and services be redefined?

Value is in the eyes of the beholder

Too often, businesses fail to understand that a low price alone will not drive sales. It depends on how they connect with their clients/customers.

Forbes Magazine says that value pricing is, in part, emanating from our ability to do endless comparison shopping online, in which prices move depending on who's selling and what the customer wants. In other words, the 'pull' factor of consumers wanting value for their specific situation forces vendors to create value-propositions – not simply a cost-plus-margin formula.

Strategyzer's Value Propositions Canvas suggests that to have a good value proposition, there should be a clear connection between what matters to clients and how the business' products and services can address them. Otherwise, they may look for a different organisation that will match their needs and help solve their problems.

More than the actual product or service itself, the real value that businesses deliver is the way they engage with stakeholders – the thoughtfulness, the effort to reach out and understand where they are coming from, and actually doing something to help them.

Businesses that put the time and effort into identifying a client or customer's underserved need and then translate that into new products and services, are the ones that will thrive in a competitively-charged landscape.

Digital enables the value

The tech world was early to value pricing, even generating their own acronym: SaaS, or Software as a Service. Whether you're using desktop computers, cloud storage or specialist applications for accounting and payroll etc., there are myriad services and pricing offers that anticipate perception of value and create a monthly subscription to fulfil it. The value lies in the use of the applications – not in owning the software.

Then the entertainment industry followed. When you subscribe to Netflix or Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Prime, you are no longer owning the CD, film or TV episode, rather you are given access to the content for a monthly fee.

This reconstructs 'value.' Music and film companies used to rely on selling units of their goods (CDs and DVDs), or renting them (VHS tapes and DVDs) for a night or a week. This was mainly done through retail outlets.

But given that digital music and film is merely bytes in a file that can be downloaded, sent, and shared, the entertainment business model needed to adapt to the technology platforms. And in doing so, they spawned streaming services – e.g. Spotify, Netflix, Apple Music, Apple TV, Amazon, Disney+, SoundCloud – that have redefined value and how to charge for it. In 2021, Spotify has 158 million subscribers and Netflix has 209 million subscriptions.

Other industries have seen this success and explored ways to create similar value. In the commercial world – e.g. planes, vans, fleet cars, trucks, and computer systems – there have long been 'wet leases', where businesses see value in the use of assets, not in owning them. What is new about subscription is the use of the value model in the consumer market to individuals.

Some of the world's biggest car brands such as Volvo, Ford, Porsche, and Mercedes Benz are developing subscriptions where the company retains all of the overheads of owning a car – down to registration, insurance and new tyres – and the subscriber pays a monthly fee to use it.

The value of an idea

Value pricing is a more complex model ‒ there's no one formula to follow.

Knowledge, ideas and experiences are intangible. How do you put a value on intangibility given so many variables? In the words of Professor John M. Rathwell of Cornell University: "Goods are produced, services are performed."

In the commercial world, where you can make a judgement call on a tangible product and decide if it's worth paying the premium; in professional services, purchase decisions rely on the pervade of promises and selling the expectation of what is to be delivered.

You can't walk on the actual bridge before it's built, prior to deciding who wins the bid to build it. Luckily, thanks to technology, 3D printing, digital modelling and virtual reality, we can perceive the value that is promised.

Which brings us back to the crux of value-pricing – how to delight the client in a way that gives them confidence to pay a premium for the value promised. Although there is no magical formula, there is a simple truth. The better you understand your client, the easier it will be to give them the value they expect, for a price you'll appreciate.

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There are thousands of different potato varieties. Thousands. Walking through the local supermarket, this fact is hard to imagine. We are often offered a very limited selection: the humble Russet, the rosy Desiree, perhaps the buttery Kipfler. And while it’s all well and good to dish up these staple spuds, the reason for this lack of diversity reaches far beyond the dinner table. It reaches our workplaces.

While the 20th century spawned many new ways of operating, a result of industrialisation, one of these is the tendency towards uniformity. Monoculture farming involves the production of one type of crop or stock, as opposed to polyculture farming, or more traditional farming, which includes a variety of crop or stock varieties in the one location.

But potatoes aside, the trend towards uniformity in the 20th century is visible in many places, not just farmland. Many workplaces have fostered homogeneity in thought and behaviour, where those who do not work in the same way as the majority are weeded out, even if unintentionally.

What we now know, is that a lack of diversity can breed groupthink and is bad business.

While we are seeing a great deal of progress, with more women and people of colour appointed in leadership positions and businesses becoming more welcoming for the LGBTQI+ community, neurodivergent people are often overlooked.

Research from EY suggests that in the US, neurodivergent people make up to 20 per cent of the population, and 85 per cent of them are facing unemployment or underemployment. That’s a huge amount of untapped talent and potential.

Although neurodivergent people are a minority, organisations like SAP, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Microsoft, and Deloitte, among others, are quickly realising the benefits of designing inclusive workplaces that nurture the unique perspectives of neurodivergent people.

There is still a long way to go before neurodiversity is truly embraced. A large number of neurodivergent people are unemployed and struggling. Even if some do have jobs, many are afraid to disclose their conditions at work because of the stereotypes and stigmas. If anything, we are just at the tip of the iceberg.

So, how can we build workplaces that are neuro-inclusive and why is it worth it?

What is neurodiversity?

Neurodiversity refers to the virtually infinite neurocognitive variability within the human population and includes people with autism, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and alexithymia and dyspraxia.

Within the workplace, neuro-inclusivity is about recognising this variability and how valuable it can be, and acknowledging that different neurological perspectives bring different ways of thinking to the challenges that businesses face.

The exclusion of neurodivergent people from workplaces has often been a result of failing to adjust. Neurodivergence has been viewed as a hurdle because it requires design effort, collaboration, and adjustments. Steve Silberman in NeuroTribes suggests that: Neurodivergent people do not suffer from disability, they suffer from difficulties created by a society that fails to accommodate cognitive differences. We all have more to gain if we open our minds to understanding these and designing differently.

Building resilience

Monoculture practice is not accidental – there are plenty of benefits achieved by uniformity. Selecting one crop that will thrive best in the local environment enables high productivity and efficiency. Specialisation leads to maximum yield, higher return on investment, and makes for a process that is easier to manage and predict.

But there’s a flip side. Monocultures introduce certain risks. What if the singular crop falls prey to pest infestation? Or if the environmental needs of the particular crop are not met due to climactic variability?

It’s the same in the workplace. As the trials of the 21st century continue to mount, it’s becoming apparent that we need to be open to changing the way we approach new challenges. Resilience in the face of change and adaptability are not items on a wish list, they are now essential to how we manage change.

Employing people who are neurodivergent can encourage new ways of thinking and, as many businesses are experiencing, it’s really good for the bottom line.

Neurodivergent people often have a unique approach to challenges, which allows businesses to create more well-rounded solutions. Sometimes, it’s the neurodivergent person who is most likely to ask novel questions, identify hidden discrepancies, or think outside the box.

Planting only one type of spud in our fields tends to leave us less resilient to changes. If something goes wrong, we are unable to change tack, unable to draw on divergent strengths, unable to adapt effectively to unforeseen challenges.

And this idea isn’t merely hypothetical. After hiring 100 neurodivergent people through its new recruitment process, EY found that "these employees often excel in lateral thinking, problem solving and creativity". Hewlett Packard’s neurodivergent software testers observed that many projects always seemed to go into crisis mode before launch. They questioned the corporate acceptance of the chaos and helped successfully redesign HP’s software launch process.

Furthermore, employers are finding that meeting the challenge of embedding neurodivergent people within the workplace produces learning opportunities for everyone involved.

A neurodivergent person may have communication difficulties, meaning their leaders and colleagues may need to learn alternative ways of communicating. While, like any kind of change, it may be difficult at first, it can confer many benefits.

People will learn to express themselves more clearly or more concisely. People will learn to make fewer assumptions when communicating. Perhaps people will learn to use alternative communication methods rather than always relying on the spoken word. These learnings will generalise, improving the overall capacity of a team to communicate, both internally and with clients.

Designing for a neurodiverse workplace

Today, it’s readily acknowledged that workspace accessibility is essential, whether it’s in regard to people who are blind, deaf or have physical disabilities. As a result, workspaces are now designed to accommodate various requirements: wheelchair accessibility, ergonomic considerations and workplace aids are all common examples of this shift.

But what are we doing to accommodate people who have acoustic or light sensitivities? What about people who find it incredibly difficult to focus in an open plan office? Or people who are exhausted, rather than energised, by working in group settings or activity-based workplaces? Ensuring neuro-inclusivity in workplace design requires a more nuanced approach.

If you want a resilient workplace – make it a neuro-inclusive one

Neuro-inclusivity starts with getting the right people at the table. The approach to creating inclusive environments often involves a designer, or an engineer, but it’s crucial to ensure that neurodivergent people are given the opportunity to share their lived experience.

Neurodivergent people are often more acutely aware of their environments, as their brains don’t automatically filter out the flickering light or humming air-conditioner. They are more likely to be able to identify the irritant that others may not be consciously aware of. These irritants may be contributing to a reduction in comfort and thus a reduction in productivity generally.

Listening to the needs of neurodivergent people helps to identify other specialist expertise required to create inclusive workspaces. Organisational design considerations, behavioural psychology, human factors engineering, and change management are all important factors, but defining what accessibility means to a neurodivergent person is the first step if these approaches are to produce effective results.

Creating a safe space

While consulting with neurodivergent people to understand their specific needs seems like a no brainer when it comes to creating more inclusive workplaces, it’s also crucial to acknowledge that many forms of neurodiversity are still heavily stigmatised.

The reality is that many neurodivergent cognitive perspectives are misunderstood. Neurotypical folk tend to think that autistic people are male maths geniuses, people with ADHD are hyperactive, or that people with OCD are painstakingly distracted by nonconformity.

Here’s the truth: there is more than one type of ADHD and the lesser known types are often overlooked, particularly in women. OCD is not just about being obsessively tidy or clean, it often comes from unwanted thoughts and fears. Every autistic person’s strengths and support needs are different, they don’t necessarily excel in maths – some are more proficient in arts or sciences. The spectrum is broad and the neurodivergent population includes people of all genders, sexualities, cultural backgrounds and ages, working in every type of profession and organisation.

Coming to terms with these misunderstandings requires creating a safe space, where neurodivergent people can turn up genuinely and offer their insight without fear of being categorised, underestimated or overlooked for opportunities. In doing so, businesses and leaders will be able to have a deeper understanding about their people and create a workplace environment where people of different neurotypes can unleash their full potentials.

As cultural change catalyst Verna Myers said: “Diversity is inviting us to the party, inclusion is asking us to dance.”

It’s one thing to tick the diversity box by employing neurodivergent people, it’s another issue entirely to allow those employees to participate authentically and flourish in an organisation. And if we don’t invite neurodivergent people to dance, we may never discover the unique moves they’ve been perfecting for quite some time.