Introduction: A Simple Lens for a Complex Business

In any modern business, complexity comes quickly. Teams scale, tools multiply, priorities shift. Data flows in every direction. Dashboards light up. Meetings expand. We put metrics in place to measure activities and progress. But with all that motion, in the context of business it’s surprisingly easy to lose sight of something essential: what actually creates value. It’s easy to engage in, and even measure, activity that consumes time and energy without creating a corresponding gain. Sometimes, these efforts even reduce overall business value.

Across roles and industries, most people want to make a meaningful contribution. But without a shared understanding of what “value” really means, time and effort can be poured into activity that seems productive yet doesn’t move the business forward in a lasting way.

This article offers a simple method to sharpen focus.

A simple test which can be performed at every level of the organization. A test against two clear outcomes, both measurable, both meaningful.

This article offers a practical lens for identifying and creating value in a way that aligns everyone, not just with strategy, but with each other.

It’s built on a simple idea:

All meaningful value creation in business reduces to two forms: brand equity and profit.

These two outcomes aren’t abstract. They are specific, measurable, and universally relevant, whether you’re leading a business unit, building a product, managing operations, delivering against expectations, or designing customer experiences.

More importantly, these two outcomes provide a way to align intention with impact. They offer individuals, teams, and leaders a shared compass, a way to assess whether an action, project, or initiative will create traction that benefits the whole.

And when embedded into the day-to-day rhythm of a business, this lens becomes more than a decision filter. It becomes part of the culture, quietly reinforcing unity, enabling autonomy, and helping everyone contribute in ways that truly matter to the business.

 

 

 

The Two Values That Define Business Traction

Traction isn’t a universal metric, it’s a context-sensitive test. For a product team, it might mean customer engagement, acquisition, or retention. For operations, depending on the function, it could be improved process efficiency, revenue collection, or delivery of contracted services. For leadership, traction might show up in market share growth or internal alignment. The common thread is this: every person in the business has a way to ask, “Is what I’m doing moving us forward?”

And when we examine what forward looks like across departments, products, and strategies, we consistently find two outcomes at the core:

• Brand Equity, the trust, relevance, and preference a business earns in the minds of customers and stakeholders. It builds loyalty, reduces acquisition costs, and strengthens word-of-mouth momentum.
• Profit, the value retained through smart pricing, efficient delivery, scalable systems, or high-leverage models. It supports reinvestment, resilience, and long-term sustainability.

These two outcomes give traction its shape. They make progress measurable and direction meaningful. Because they’re broad enough to apply everywhere, they form a shared language across roles, a common driver.

Many types of value are created in a business. Starting with customer value, at the foundation of both brand equity and profit is customer value, solving something important, helping someone succeed, making something easier. That’s the value that each of us wants a product to deliver, it’s foundational. But value often emerges not only from core product features but also from supporting actions. For example, consistently accurate invoicing doesn’t change a product’s function, but it improves the customer experience significantly. The business benefits through reduced average debtor days and lower admin load, and the customer gains clarity and ease through uncomplicated process. That, too, creates traction.

 

Strategy Defines the Direction. Traction Drives the Movement.

Every role in the business has its own version of forward, of value. Strategy gives that direction coherence, but traction keeps it real. That’s what makes this model so practical. It enables individuals to act with autonomy within their context or role while contributing to clearly understood outcomes. With practice, alignment turns from an idea into a habit, and from there into a part of culture.

Traction can also come from strategic plays, such as loss leaders or brand-building initiatives, and the model remains flexible. As long as an activity supports either brand equity or profit, it contributes meaningfully to the whole. Take a loss leader, for example: a free vulnerability assessment might be offered as part of a broader managed security solution. While the tool itself isn’t monetized, it opens the door to paid services, generating profit and reinforcing brand trust.

This is what makes the two-value model powerful: it unifies without constraining, and it focuses without narrowing. It offers a way to move forward — in the same direction, together.

 

From Five Categories to Two Drivers: Aligning with Business Theory

Many business frameworks, especially those taught in formal management training, describe value creation across multiple stakeholder categories. This reflects the richness and complexity of modern organizations, where different types of value interact across time, teams, and priorities. So a natural question arises: does reducing the lens to two categories still capture everything that matters?

The five most commonly referenced categories are:

• Customer Value – solving real problems and meeting meaningful needs
• Shareholder Value – increasing company worth and investor confidence
• Employee and Partner Value – building fair, reliable, and rewarding working relationships
• Societal or Environmental Value – contributing positively to the broader community and ecosystem
• Strategic or Competitive Value – positioning the business for long-term resilience and differentiation

Each offers a distinct perspective on value, and each plays a role in shaping the business.

The two-value lens doesn’t discard these perspectives, it organizes them. It connects them to a shared set of drivers that are consistent, actionable, and measurable in daily work: brand equity and profit.

• When a business earns customer trust or societal goodwill, it builds brand equity.
• When it generates profitable revenue or improves efficiency or pricing, it generates profit.
• When it retains talent, strengthens partnerships, or attracts investors, it signals strength in one or both of these areas.

This method makes it applicable stakeholder theory practically applicable, by linking abstract categories to outcomes that guide real decisions. And because this test can be used at any level, in any role, it offers a practical way to align daily work with long-term value.

 

Shareholder Value as an Expression of Belief

Shareholder value often appears as a primary business goal. But more precisely, it reflects belief: the market’s confidence that the business can grow its brand and profit over time.

The two-value lens turns this belief into something actionable. It focuses attention on what the business can actually earn and sustain, through its products, services, and delivery. In this way, shareholder value is not a separate pursuit, it’s a byproduct of brand strength and sustainable profitability.

 

Internal Value and Business Value

Value is also created internally, as teams support each other and coordinate delivery. But not all internal value translates into business value.

The two-value lens helps clarify:

Will this internal activity contribute to brand equity or profit once it reaches the market?

For example, if one department takes on another’s work to fill a gap, it may seem helpful. But if the effort doesn't support timely delivery, efficiency, or customer trust, it may not serve the business. In such cases, the better path might be to reassess the structure or capability rather than preserve it by default.

This clarity improves collaboration. It gives every team a common purpose and a consistent way to support one another in ways that contribute meaningfully to the whole.

 

Calibrating Value: Effort vs. Frequency

Even high-value activities can lose impact if repeated too frequently or without proportional return. The two-value lens helps calibrate:

• How often should this task be done?
• How much effort should it receive?
• At what point does repetition no longer create traction?

For example:

• A monthly stock count protects profit through inventory accuracy.
• A weekly count, if conditions haven’t changed, may consume time without added value.
• A sales forecast at quarter start supports strategy.
• Daily updates may confuse direction or create noise.

This approach helps tune the rhythm and intensity of work to its real contribution. It’s not just about doing valuable things, it’s about doing them in ways that sustain momentum.

Alignment in Action: Culture, Clarity, and Collective Success

In dynamic business environments, opportunities emerge, timelines shift, and resources are often limited. Perfect symmetry across every project isn’t the norm, but shared clarity helps teams make consistent, effective choices. That’s where the two-value lens becomes a powerful cultural tool.

It gives each person a way to understand how their work contributes to something larger, not by enforcing alignment, but by illuminating it. When individuals and teams use the same lens to guide decisions, coordination improves without needing control. Each team moves in a way that reflects its context but aims in the same direction.

The question becomes practical:

“Does this help build trust, preference, or resilience? Does it improve our ability to operate effectively and sustainably?”

Whether prioritizing tasks, shaping customer interactions, or responding to requests from another department, this lens ensures actions are rooted in what matters to the business.

It also provides a way to evaluate decisions across roles. A support agent focused on service quality, a developer improving system scalability, and a marketer refining positioning are all creating traction, even if their work looks very different. The value is aligned.

Because the model supports autonomy, it also supports agility. Teams can respond quickly, shift focus, and make trade-offs based on capacity, without losing sight of purpose. And when multiple options exist, the lens helps clarify which path offers greater impact.

It also creates a natural safeguard against unproductive work. In many organizations, well-intentioned people sometimes engage in activities designed primarily for visibility, status reports, check-ins, dashboards, or meetings that appear productive but don’t materially advance the business. This is often referred to as visibility theatre.

The two-value lens makes this visible. It offers a simple, respectful filter:

How does this contribute to brand equity or profit?

If the answer isn’t clear, the activity can be rethought, reshaped, or retired. Over time, the model shifts energy away from performative work and toward efforts that create real momentum. Conversations about value become a source of clarity, not conflict. They help teams tune their work to what the business actually needs.

This doesn’t require rigid tracking or over-analysis. Just asking the question builds alignment. And while allocating precise priority between projects requires deeper evaluation, a topic I’ll cover in a future article, this model already offers a reliable foundation. It aligns daily effort with long-term success.

As this approach becomes embedded, it strengthens culture from the inside out. Teams begin to share intent without constant recalibration. People feel trusted to make decisions within their context. And progress builds, not through mandates, but through mutual clarity.

In this kind of environment, traction becomes cultural. Forward movement becomes something the entire business participates in, together. A sense of progress, of winning, of success is a highly motivating influence in a business.

Operational Insight: Recognizing High-Impact Work

In the day-to-day operations of any business, activity is constant. Reports are generated, meetings held, tools launched, campaigns deployed, and internal processes followed or maintained. But activity alone doesn’t move a business forward, only traction does.

The two-value lens provides a simple operational test:

Is this work measurably contributing to brand equity or profit?

This question turns abstract alignment into practical navigation. It helps teams assess effort versus impact, identify high-leverage activities, and fine-tune operational focus, without disrupting autonomy or momentum.

 

Operational Patterns That Benefit from This Lens:

Dashboards and Reporting

Metrics aren’t valuable by default. Their value lies in the decisions they inform and the behaviours they drive. The two-value lens encourages teams to prioritize actionable data: indicators that reflect customer trust, delivery effectiveness, pricing efficiency, or brand engagement. Reporting becomes sharper, cleaner, and more relevant to forward movement.

 

Meetings and Reviews

Recurring meetings often consume hours without driving change. When reframed around value outcomes, “What traction have we gained?” or “What do we need to adjust to improve delivery or trust?”, reviews shift from routine check-ins to decision points. Time spent together becomes a multiplier, not a drain.

In some cases, this simply means rethinking format. For instance, when a meeting exists only to provide feedback to management, rather than enabling collaboration between team members, it might work better as a scheduled drop-in during a fixed window, rather than holding the entire team for the duration. 

 

Campaigns and Customer Interactions

Initiatives aimed at visibility, retention, or engagement gain real power when their impact on brand equity is made explicit. Are we building preference? Reinforcing trust? Creating emotional resonance that improves loyalty or reduces churn? The two-value lens makes this connection intentional.

 

Tools and Automation

Every system in use — from billing engines to CRM tools — should enable efficiency, accuracy, or scale. The lens encourages regular review:

Is this tool still serving the outcomes it was chosen for?

Is it saving time? Improving customer experience? Increasing throughput or clarity?

Or is it simply a legacy artifact?

 

Internal Processes

Processes can quietly become rituals. The two-value model prompts teams to ask: Is this process still delivering business value? Could we simplify, shorten, or reassign it to unlock more profit or reduce customer friction?

In many cases, inefficiencies early in a process create downstream impacts. Identifying and resolving these can unlock disproportionate value — a small change upstream can free up capacity or remove confusion further down the line.

 

Moving from Busyness to Business Value

This lens doesn’t just trim excess. It sharpens purpose. It clarifies how work at every level supports the business itself — not just an internal function or stakeholder expectation.

The effect is cumulative: fewer wasted cycles, more deliberate momentum, and operational discipline that feels enabling, not constraining. It creates room for smarter prioritization, clearer resource deployment, and faster course correction when needed.

And over time, it builds a shared reflex:

Not “What are we doing?” but “What are we delivering?”

That shift, from activity to traction, is what competitive advantage is made of.

 

 

Decision Simplicity: How to Use the Model Without Resistance

In high-stakes scenarios, such as entering a new market or expanding operations into a new country, rigorous methodologies like the Stanford Decision Quality (DQ) framework offer indispensable structure. These frameworks are designed to manage uncertainty, align stakeholders, and surface the best available options through disciplined thinking. They are crucial when the decision carries long-term consequences and complex interdependencies.

But most business decisions aren’t like that.

For daily choices, where the stakes are lower, timelines are tighter, and decision fatigue is real, those same frameworks can feel overwhelming. If applied too broadly, they risk creating paralysis or being skipped entirely. That’s where the two-value lens proves its strength.

It provides a fast, consistent test that works without friction:

“Is this likely to strengthen our brand or improve our profit?”

Because it’s simple and intuitive, it becomes usable not just in strategy rooms, but in meetings, projects, one-on-ones, and daily priorities. A team lead can use it to assess a proposed feature. A department head can weigh investment trade-offs. A frontline staff member can shape their approach to a customer conversation. Wherever it’s applied, it clarifies traction and aligns effort with business value.

This approach doesn’t rely on control, it invites participation. It supports autonomy by offering direction without prescribing tactics. Teams don’t need to wait for formal alignment, they begin creating it, by using the same lens to guide decisions.

Leaders can support adoption through simple habits:

• In team reviews: “Which of our initiatives most clearly support brand equity or profit?”
• In prioritization: “If we could only do one of these three, which delivers the most traction?”
• In coaching: “How does your work contribute to brand strength or operational resilience?”

Because the model is light to carry, it doesn’t add weight to operations. It fits into existing rhythms, no new templates or systems required. Just shared focus, common language, and practical clarity.

And because the lens connects individual initiative to business outcomes, it helps build cultural momentum. People feel trusted to make good decisions, and confident in doing so, not because every action is pre-approved, but because the value behind each action is visible.

When clarity is shared, movement accelerates.

When work creates traction, motivation becomes natural.

The two-value lens strengthens this connection, not through control, but through meaning. It makes decisions faster, better aligned, and easier to own.

Conclusion: Turning Clarity Into Motion

In business, clarity is more than helpful, it’s catalytic. It unlocks better decisions, stronger alignment, and faster progress. But in most organizations, clarity must be built. It doesn’t arrive by accident.

That’s what the two-value lens offers.

It gives teams a way to build clarity into daily work without slowing things down. A way to spot traction, make trade-offs, and move forward, together, always aligned in purpose. It connects people to outcomes, and outcomes to meaning.

This isn’t just a filter for evaluating ideas. It’s a framework for progress.

• Use it in conversations.
• Test it in meetings.
• Apply it when reviewing dashboards, resourcing projects, or revisiting internal processes.

Start small. Start where you are. One question is all it takes:

“Is this strengthening our brand or improving our profit?”

From there, clarity compounds. Momentum builds. And instead of requiring top-down control, the business begins to steer itself—through shared understanding, not just shared systems.

When clarity is built in, progress becomes natural.