Value Creation by Customer Value Foundation

Nuisance Value: Value Creation or Value

Destruction?

Nuisance Value: value, importance, or usefulness arising from a

capacity to annoy, frustrate, harass, or injure … Merriam-Webster

dictionary

I’m sure that you are all familiar with how pearls are formed. An

irritant, (could be a grain of sand), works its way inside the oyster and

begins to irritate the soft inside, similar to us having a splinter. The

oyster, in order to protect itself, begins to form layers around the

irritant, out of the same material as its shell. The oyster keeps adding

layers and layers and the result is often a beautiful, perfectly formed

pearl.

Perhaps we should take a lesson from the simple oyster. Sometimes

we are plagued with irritants from the outside (inside too). Somehow

these things work their way into our psyche and they begin to annoy

us and bother us. It may be the tiniest thing, something that others

may not even notice, but for us, boy, are they irritating. We may think

that we are able to ignore them and they will ‘go away’ but most of the

times they remain, and sometimes even begin to grow and grow until

they can be ignored no longer. (Irritants and Pearls from andie33 in

Meandering thru Life, November 15, 2010)

Maybe we should just deal with them the way that an oyster does. It

takes work to turn an irritant into a beautiful pearl, but once the pearl is

formed, the oyster can live with it inside its shell. We need to turn

those sharp, piercing annoyances into something smooth and round

and certainly something that we can then live with in peace.

Sometimes we cannot rid ourselves of the problem. Sometimes we

have to face it, work with it and transform it. And then, the product is

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something that we can be proud of. The oyster is different after the

pearl is formed, and so are we. It doesn’t happen overnight, it is a

process, but one that yields a beautiful result.

Sunanda Ghosh, who is VP of Sales at Sage, my Publisher said in a

Sage meeting with me that she wasn’t really part of the meeting, and

wondered why she was there. ‘Nuisance Value’ that’s why I’m here.

This got me thinking. Was nuisance value bad or good? Does it create

value or not. Sunanda always had a view point, and mostly she had

good ideas in her view point. She was enthusiastic, and it showed in

her point of view. She clearly was creating value.

I have two clients in the agri input field. Both giants. One of the

companies’ executives insisted they could not do anything new

because it was the selling season. The other one wanted the

engagement because it was the selling season and what they learnt

about creating value would help them sell more.

You might have a customer who is a nuisance value, but he can help

you develop a pearl of a service.

When I look at nuisance value, I think of the Aam Aaadmi Party (AAP),

the Indian phenomenon which could blossom or fizzle out. AAP came

to power in Delhi because of the nuisance value they created for the

incumbent government. The AAP destroyed value for the incumbent

and got elected itself by promising creation of value for the ordinary

citizen. For the Voter, this nuisance held out the chance of true Value

Creation. So AAP was voted in much to the surprise of all political

pundits, and market researchers.

But after they came into power, they continued their nuisance value

ways, and continued agitation, in spite of being the governing party.

This nuisance value is veering towards value destruction in the worst

possible way. The citizen is not getting the government’s attention (its

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attention is on agitation). Transport is being curtailed (a value

destroyer for working people). 3-4000 police people are being

deployed to safeguard the agitators. True nuisance value and value

destruction.

"Interesting philosophy," Richard Rorty writes in Contingency, Irony

and Solidarity, " is rarely an examination of the pros and cons of a

thesis. Usually it is, implicitly or explicitly, a contest between an

entrenched vocabulary which has become a nuisance and a half-

formed new vocabulary which vaguely promises great things...it [the

half-formed new vocabulary] says things like, 'try thinking of it this

way'— or more specifically, 'try to ignore the apparently futile

traditional philosophical questions by substituting the following new

and possibly interesting questions.'"

Nuisance Value is good as long as it leads to Value Creation. Let it not

become a value destroyer.

Your comments are welcome.

Call at (+91) 9971288580

Gautam Mahajan, President-Customer Value Foundation

M: +91 9810060368

Tel: 11-26831226, Fax: 11-26929055

email: mahajan@customervaluefoundation.com

website: http://www.customervaluefoundation.com

Customer Value Foundation (CVF) helps companies to Create Value and profit by

Creating Value for the customers, employee and for each person working with the

companies.

Total Customer Value Management (Total CVM) focuses the entire company and its

Value Creation by Customer Value Foundation

employees on Creating Value for the customer, thereby increasing Customer Value and

Shareholder Wealth.