Why strategic success depends on more than just market share or margins

Most organisations are under pressure to deliver more — more growth, more efficiency, more innovation. But in the race to compete, something vital is often overlooked: the nature of the value being created.

Are you truly delivering something new and meaningful — or simply refining what already exists? As disruption accelerates and boundaries blur, the ability to rethink what value means — and how it’s created — has become one of the most important leadership skills of our time.

The value illusion

For decades, value creation has been equated with financial performance — revenue growth, shareholder returns, market share. These are important. But they’re outcomes, not causes. When we fixate on these lagging indicators, we risk missing what’s shifting beneath the surface: the needs, behaviours, and possibilities shaping tomorrow’s demand.

Many organisations are investing heavily to preserve relevance in saturated, hyper-competitive markets — improving what’s already there, cutting costs, tweaking processes. But when competition intensifies and margins shrink, the question becomes: are we truly creating value, or just defending it?

Seeing value through a new lens

At VALPEO, we look at value through a different lens — one grounded in human complexity, not just market mechanics. Our framework, the © Transformative Value Framework (TVF), reveals that value is not one-dimensional. People and organisations operate at different levels of complexity, and the value they can create is shaped by their capacity to think, lead, and evolve at those levels in the ever-evolving business landscape.

Some leaders excel at operational clarity — making things work better. Others operate at a more strategic level — envisioning and executing future possibilities. The challenge is that strategies often require a level of thinking that organisations (and their leaders) haven’t yet matured into. And that’s where execution breaks down — not due to poor intent, but because the complexity of the strategy exceeds the complexity of the organisation.

Most organisations try to solve future problems with past-level thinking — unaware that the real constraint isn’t the quality of the plan, but the capacity of the people behind it. That’s why our work focuses not just on the strategy itself, but on the evolution of the leadership required to deliver it.

The strategy gap

Traditional frameworks assume that a well-designed strategy will be well-executed. But that only holds when the complexity of the strategy matches the capability of the people charged with leading it.

In our experience, failure isn’t about resistance or resources — it’s about resonance. If the cognitive load of a strategy exceeds what the organisation can hold, execution falters. Leaders revert to the familiar. Ambition quietly contracts.

That’s why transformation isn’t a matter of cascading plans — it’s about elevating perspective.

It’s the ideas that matter. And this is where most strategies fall short. Putting ideas into action requires a mindset shift and organisational alignment.
Jason Hunter – INSEAD | Blue Ocean Strategy Expert

At our upcoming executive seminar, we explore how this plays out using tools like the “As Is” Strategy Canvas and the Pioneer-Migrator-Settler Map. These help leaders see where their strategy is rooted in the past — and where their future value lies waiting.

This is where Blue Ocean Strategy complements the © Transformative Value Framework so powerfully. Rather than fighting for share in crowded markets, Blue Ocean invites leaders to redefine the rules — to create uncontested market space, where differentiation and low cost are no longer trade-offs.

The human side of strategic innovation

But strategy doesn’t live on a slide. It lives in people.

If your leadership is locked in incremental thinking, your strategy will reflect that. If your teams are overwhelmed by operational firefighting, they’ll never see the horizon. This is why leadership evolution must go hand-in-hand with strategic reinvention.

At the seminar, we bring this to life through the Six Paths Framework, the ERRC Grid, and the © Transformative Value Framework — not just as tools for value innovation, but as catalysts for personal and organisational evolution.

From market value to systemic value

Today, leaders are asked to create more than market value. They’re increasingly accountable for how their organisations impact broader systems — ecosystems, societies, generations. Organisations that create systemic value — not just transactional or operational — are those whose leaders have evolved their sense-making to navigate broader complexity.

This is where value becomes transformative, not just efficient. And it’s where leadership matures from being a role of accountability to a role of consequence. As we often remind clients: “You can only lead to the edge of your perspective. Expand that, and you expand what’s possible.”

So — what value are you really creating?

If your answer to this question feels vague or incomplete, that’s not a weakness. It’s an invitation — to step back, think deeper, and reframe how you lead. This isn’t just a seminar. It’s a shift in how you see the role of leadership in shaping strategy — and the role of strategy in shaping society. Together, we’ll explore how to unlock new opportunity by aligning the value you seek with the complexity you can lead.

Join us for  Creating Value from Within in a Disruptive World — a two-day experience that blends the principles of Blue Ocean Strategy with the depth of VALPEO’s ©Transformative Value Framework.