Your Contextual Value

Last week, a trip to the doctor led me to reflect on how one can provide their maximum and unique value. This week, I'm thinking about how the value that one brings depends heavily on the situation.

Your value can be context dependent, which means that the more that you are aware of your context, and the more you intentionally curate your context, the more value you might be able to bring.

When I talk about "value" here, I mean broadly something that you have to offer. Going back to the doctor appointment example from last week, if I was in her shoes, I would be able to provide effectively zero value. There's nothing I could say to a patient that would help them make informed choices about their health because I don't have the knowledge to do so (though I could always default to what our corpsmen told us in the Marine Corps: drink water, take Motrin, and change your socks).

I talked about value with a lawyer friend of mine over lunch (dangerous business based on how much attorneys charge, but this was a pro bono conversation). I asked him about the scenarios that allow him to provide his maximum value, and he asked a thoughtful clarifying question: did I mean max value for him or did I mean max value for his clients?

For purposes of this concept, his specific answers matter less than the question itself (similar to my back and forth with the physician). His question reveals an important point: the value you can bring depends heavily on the situation, including who is measuring the value.

Let's take start with the easy items. No matter who the attorney is or what type of client they are working for, there is less value in the type of purely administrative work that could be delegated, outsourced, or automated. Provided those items could be delegated, outsourced, or automated without a reduction in the quality of the work, it would likely be better for all parties if the attorney was focused on other items that they need certain training and experience to be able to handle.

But what about business development? Here, there's likely a shift in value depending on which party you are considering. The attorney has to spend time developing relationships with potential and existing clients, even if that time can't be charged to any particular client. Since the attorney is selling their own services, they are indeed uniquely positioned to deliver that value — they may in fact be the only person who can actually provide that particular value. And business development probably has minimal, if any, value to existing clients, who are only paying the attorney to work on that client's matters.

These may seem like obvious observations, and perhaps they are. But sometimes it's the obvious that lulls us into complacency.

If context matters, then it matters for us to be intentional about context. If you don't feel like you are particularly well-suited for a job or task, it could be that it's not a job or task that taps into your unique ability to provide value.

Of course, sometimes we don't have a choice, and you just have to get the thing done regardless of whether you're the right person for it. But to the extent you do have agency over that choice, it's worth thinking about how you can design things to tap into everything you bring to the table.

(Now that I think about it, was that lunch with my lawyer friend pro bono advice? If I get a bill in the mail from him for the time spent eating, I suppose the upside is that I'll know exactly how much value he provides.)