VQ | Value Quotient

Resharing these roles before we close off the application process in a week. Please share with anyone you think might be interested or a good fit!

Come work with us! 📣   We are looking for a few more people to come and help us deliver fantastic outcomes for clients! If you enjoy solving unique and challenging problems and finding solutions that push into new territory then one of these roles may be perfect for you.   The job description outlines some of the aspects of the role and a bit of a steer on what a well suited candidate might look like, but there is no pre-cut mould here. We are open to various backgrounds and levels of experience. We work remotely at the moment and are open to candidates from across Australia, however the current team are based in Brisbane.   Please reach out for a chat if you want to know more.

I am re-reading through the excellent "Wellbeing in Brief" from Katherine Trebeck and Warwick Smith as part of some of our research. Given a few recent conversations I have had on wellbeing concepts, there is a particular part of the briefings that I thought would be worth sharing (for those that won't go and read the full set of briefings):   This primer on what wellbeing is, the different uses of the concept, and a summary definition that can be applied to thinking about wellbeing at the societal level...   ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ "The idea of wellbeing can be taken to mean different things. For example, some people use it to describe personal wellbeing, others to describe community wellbeing, and others still to describe societal wellbeing. For some, subjective reports of various aspects of personal wellbeing are the most empowering way of measuring wellbeing, whereas others say there are too many challenges and limitations associated with this approach and so argue for augmenting it with objective measures across a wider – multidimensional – suite of areas. Some argue that health in its broadest sense is a good proxy for wellbeing – or that human needs (or capabilities) offers a decent basis to understand the source of wellbeing. Others might argue that these are problematic in that they effectively prioritise people over nature and are short term.   Mostly, these different meanings – whether societal or individual wellbeing, or whether subjective or objective – are compatible. However, sometimes their prescriptions for change gravitate to either helping individuals cope with prevailing circumstances (as is often the case for proponents of individual subjective wellbeing) or attending to those circumstances themselves (which is where the wellbeing economy agenda sits). While not wanting to claim any particular mandate, the understanding we bring to this discussion is that wellbeing is about quality of life, in all its dimensions, for all people, now and into the future and this needs to be pursued within planetary boundaries and with consideration for all life." ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾   Those interested should go and read the whole series (and the supporting Wellbeing Economy Alliance briefing papers).   https://lnkd.in/gY34KKrD   I do have a particular interest in trying to unpack the concept of 'quality of life' a bit further, but perhaps a topic for another post. 

💡 Leadership is our core competency 💡   As we get VQ | Value Quotient off the ground we have been working through ways to ensure that we stick to our values and our shared mission, and ways to hold each other accountable for the right actions and behaviours. One of the processes we are using is to establish operating principles that summarise these concepts into succinct statements that transparently document what we are all about.   We are up to 30 principles at the moment which is definitely too many and we are trying to consolidate down to something more manageable, but there has been one principle in particular that has been resonating really well and so we thought it was worth sharing here. ◾ ◾ Principle 19: Leadership is our core competency ◾ ◾ We take the privilege to do what we do for a living seriously. As consultants, problems solvers and thinkers, everything we do involves leading. We lead clients, stakeholders, each other, ourselves, and the community. “Before you are a leader, success is about growing yourself, when you become a leader, success is all about growing others” - Jack Welch Our core business is growing others, and therefore our core competency is leadership. ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾

🛒 Cart before the horse? 🐎 (Another post explaining some of what VQ is all about…) Skipping to the measurement of value and impact without doing the appropriate foundational work leads to poor analysis, limited insights, and wasted effort and resources. Let us paint a familiar scenario. An organisation decides to go to market to procure a consultant to help with measuring the impact of their actual or proposed activity - whether at the project, program or organisation level. They have good intent, and genuinely want to use the work to develop understanding, learn from what they are doing, and be able to communicate their impact internally and externally. After procurement, the consultant starts to ask background questions. Does the organisation have an established impact focussed strategy? Has an organisation-wide impact framework been developed? Who is the audience of the work? Has a logic or framework been developed for the specific initiative? What were the objectives of the initiative? What data has been collected? Who has been consulted? When the answers are light on detail, the consultant continues to press on with delivering their scope of work. There is a fixed budget and timeframe. The outputs are high-level assumption based estimates, informed by limited data and insights, and poorly aligned to the broader strategic direction of the organisation. The learnings are limited, and the whole process does nothing to move the client forward in terms of their maturity around value and impact. The work serves the initial purpose poorly, and then sits on a shelf collecting dust. What is the alternative??? Start by laying the right foundational understanding and constructs to build out value and impact maturity over time. Consider things such as: ▪ What is our value / impact context? Do we understand our relevant market, sector, geography, and key stakeholders? Do we understanding what truly matters, to whom it matters, and what our role is in the broader coordination of outcomes for society? ▪ What is our impact ambition? What are we all about? How does this translate into our mission and broader strategy? ▪ What are our resulting objectives and KPIs? How do these cascade across the organisation? How do they align to frameworks relevant to our broader stakeholder landscape? (e.g. Measuring What Matters, SDGs etc.) ▪ What processes and tools do we have in place to embed all of the above in our day to day operations? ▪ What data can be collected to measure our impact at relevant levels? Do our people have the right capability to navigate and implement these considerations? While not all of the above needs to be solved, progressing in these areas leaves behind ongoing uplift in the capability of an organisation to navigate impact and value. There is still a time and place for one off reports, but we would love to see more organisations looking to lay the right foundations first.

⚡Stepping outside of our discipline⚡ (Another post explaining some of what VQ is all about...) We, as society, as practitioners, as organisations, have access to a lot more insight than we commonly apply when navigating value and impact. If we look to some of the rich learnings from disciplines such as biology, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology or philosophy - there is a lot that could be adopted to improve what we do. A couple of examples that have resonated recently… 🌀 Starting in psychology, studies show that self-perception of socio-economic status is a much better indicator of wellbeing than actual socio-economic status. This would indicate that it matters more for our quality of life who we compare ourselves to, than how well off we actually are. 💙 Staying in psychology, several studies have shown that people with many physical disabilities do not rate their own wellbeing significantly lower than the broader population and do not seem to experience much permanent reduction in the enjoyment of life (despite the existence of objective barriers and difficulties). 🎆 Shifting to neuroscience, studies have explored the concept of awe! Awe expands our sense of time and changes our perception of how we are occupying our time on our world. The experience of awe affects the default mode network - the part of the brain that gets caught up in self-referential thinking (thinking about ourselves). When we experience awe, activity in this part of our brain subsides - reducing stress and anxiety. An outstanding sporting feat, a beautiful sunrise or a great work of art can all inspire awe and affect us in this way. 📖 And a final example from philosophy, there exists a wealth of insight on agent-relative value (things important to the individual) vs agent-neutral value (what ought to be desired by everyone) which is useful to assist with navigating the tensions between subjective individual wellbeing vs objective societal wellbeing. We don't pretend to have all the answers, but we do have the intent to better connect our work with these types of insights, and to not be limited by current definitions of leading practice.

❔ What would a high VQ look like? ❔   We have had a bit of fun over the last few weeks - (maybe too much posting…), lots of engagement and conversations with interesting people. This question has been posed by a couple of people and it stirred some really thoughtful conversations, so we thought it would be a good one to put here in a post.   If VQ (value quotient) has a loose definition along the lines of: the capability of an organisation for understanding and navigating value (and by extension their impact) - then what does good look like? What are the characteristics of high VQ?   Having named our organisation VQ, we obviously have a few thoughts (and a reminder that when we talk value here - we define it in a broad and holistic way).   We are in the process of drafting up a more formal set of thoughts on this, but the initial thinking below is what came up when having discussions on this topic.   🔹 A broader understand of value embedded across the organisation - from mission statement to strategy, communication approaches to employee value proposition, and importantly across objectives and KPIs.   🔹 A strong understanding of the value context of the organisation - the market, sector, geography, key stakeholders. An understanding of what truly matters, to whom it matters, and what our role is in the broader coordination of outcomes for society.   🔹 The concept of impact being broader than harm minimisation and social licence, but truly having an advancement focussed and impact led imperative to business activity.   🔹 A set of processes, tools and ways of working that match the above so that these broader concepts of impact and value are truly a focus of day to day activities.   🔸 A stretch goal: having both internal and external value measures part of the same conversation so that decisions are properly informed (e.g. being able to properly understand the connection between financial success and impact - hat tip here to Shared Value Project).   We can surely refine and build on this over time, but also keen to hear any thoughts from others.

A potential for better inclusion of wellbeing measures in CBA.

There is very rarely a correct answer… (another post in a series trying to explain some of what VQ is all about)   We would suggest that instead, there exists a most appropriate answer…   Or even more likely, a set of most appropriate interpretations... for a given context, time and place, based on a methodology with a set of underlying parameters, assumptions and inputs, and based on work undertaken in a limited timeframe with restricted resources.   One of the key issues we run into when navigating work in the impact space is a combination of false rigour and intellectual dishonesty. Opaque and tenuous assumptions, assuming away key risks, hiding limitations and challenges, and the presentation of outputs as fact with misleading representations of accuracy. And this is a particularly big issue when the audience of the work are not practitioners and don't understand the details of a given methodology.   Acknowledging and owning the true rigour of work undertaken is the ethical and brave approach. Lean into the grey and the nuance, and be transparent in everything that is done.   Image semi-relevant: a literal black box.