Acknowledgement and apologies to Stephen Covey.* ‘Value-maximizing´ is just another phrase until and unless it is applied to the ultimate challenge facing the corporation´s chief executive and everyone else in firm: to significantly narrow the chasm between company present value and full, achievable value.

That´s right, closing the 50-plus percent performance shortfall that as a practical matter plagues ALL companies, suppressing their value while threatening independence, even continuity.

1.

Total, Visceral Intolerance of Value Destruction

‘Value-maximizing´ begins with unyielding opposition to the recognized snakebit project, activity or expenditure. The fully value-maximizing executive goes further, actively seeks out hidden circumstances where value is being destroyed on a daily basis, compared to optimal performance.

Such an attitude and action represents a stark contrast to the sorry spectre of plodding corporate lifers who have been taught by underperformers before them to just ‘let sleeping dogs lie´—that is, to keep quiet until the extent of the value destruction becomes so massive that the charade is no longer possible.

But today, that lifer finds himself terminated early, as it eventually becomes apparent to all (except the lifer) that HE is a major walking, talking source of corporate value destruction.

2.

Insulating the Daily Agenda From Non- Value Distractions

This relates to No. 1, above, since the true value-maximizer regularly purges his schedule of all of those corporate activities that are always touted by their champions as ‘essential´ but cannot be directly linked to significant value improvement over the next 180 days.

Underlying assumption: if an activity cannot be proven as creating substantial value, the opposite is probably true. That symposium on evolutionary changes in the corporate culture? Other obtuse themes that seem to have no purpose except to create the illusion that marginal staffers are making good use of their time? The value-maximizer cuts out the non-essential, so that his company can thrive, not merely survive.

3.

Suffer No Fools: Internal

Of course, no one actually enjoys being around those company process-gerbils who are easily enthralled by the minutiae of obtuse rules, charts and procedures of marginal worth since solid value creation is totally unknown to them, and always will be.

The value-maximizing executive is absolutely intolerant when it comes to dealing with these walking-talking sources of value destruction, doing whatever he can to eliminate the role of these parasitic employees from any role in the company´s existence.

*Covey, Stephen R., The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1992.
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