THREEFirst—Identify the “Whats” That Are Truly Valuable

“Price is what you pay.Value is what you get.”

–Warren Buffett

HAVING MADE THE decision to rethink your “whats” and use them as your unit of analysis, you’re now ready to begin the process of identifying and examining their desired outcomes, and judging how to improve their performance. To start, you need to determine which “whats” are truly generating high value for your company.

Just to be clear, when I describe a given “what” as having “high value,” I mean that it is contributing to overall performance or differentiating your company from its rivals in some significant way. For example, ship-product might be a high-value “what” in your company because its outstanding performance sets ...

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