And how my Pyramid of Value approach emerged.

My lesson came after three straight eighty-hour weeks of workshop preparation.

First, here’s a little background.

I was part of a senior team at my consulting firm. The client was a well-known, big-name brand. My firm staffed me because of my extensive expertise (10 years) facilitating workshops.

The pressure was on to make a stellar first impression with a glitzy, strategic workshop.

Now, back to the day of the workshop.

I prepared for every possible angle. My approach: go “all-in.” I pulled out all the stops and left nothing to chance for this two-day workshop.

• Scripts for all workshop team members to follow.
• Extensive printed materials to run interactive sessions.
• Detailed agenda along with timing and facilitator guidance.
• Six rehearsals to prepare the workshop team to run their part.
  

I lived by the motto that I would make my own luck by being fully prepared for any situation.

But by the end of the first half of the workshop, I knew my efforts had missed the mark.

Half of the materials weren’t needed. The flow of the conversation pivoted within the first hour and put us on a new path. Everything went off script.

We ended the workshop in the afternoon of day 1 to regroup.

My ego, deflated, plummeted back to earth.

Here is where I went wrong: I mistook my perfect output as a guarantee for outcomes.

My expertise kept me from seeing a key truth.

I tied the successful workshop outcome to the:

• polish of the materials
• effort in the preparation
• “wow” factor of one, big, impressive show
• image of perfect workshop execution in my “expert” mind
  

I neglected the most important mantra of all: you don’t know what’s needed to get to a desired outcome beforehand.

Outcomes are a lagging result, and you can’t predict them ahead of time. Assume what you do is valuable before it delights your consumer, and you have a delusion.

Many of us confuse output for outcomes.

Just because we target customers and aim to solve their needs does not mean what we produce will hit the target. With creative, complex, and uncertain work, you don’t know if it is valuable until it gets used and becomes useful. And here’s the hard truth: most of our great ideas fall well short of achieving value as defined like this.

We don’t know what will work before it does.

Getting married to your efforts applies your focus to the wrong target. This is the trap I fell into with my grand, over-the-top workshop.

And it led me to my crucial lesson.

How my thinking evolved to embrace the unknown.

Creative work has no certain path to a positive outcome.

My workshop is proof of this. I focused on delighting the customer throughout the preparation. My entire team aimed at this goal, and we acted with undeserved confidence.

I believed with reckless abandon in my instincts, my expertise, my ideas.

But they fell flat.

So, a key question remained: what is a better way to deal with outcome uncertainty?

I needed a way to run smaller experiments. These experiments must be cheap and validated fast with my customer.

And I needed to take the learning from each experiment and feed it into the next set. This introduces iteration into the equation. I also had to avoid creating a rigid, comprehensive, up-front plan. Instead, I needed to plan light, take a step, learn, and use data to emerge the path.

Taking many small steps and learning along the way addresses the uncertainty. And it reduces the risk of each step.

But one more aspect remained.

True, I needed to run small experiments without fear. But then, I would have to throw away my darling ideas without mercy if they didn’t work.

Letting go of my initial assumptions, my ideas, when faulty was not an easy task. Thinking you are an expert in anything causes you to fall in love with your ideas. Humility and experience aren’t instant friends.

I had to admit I didn’t know the answer upfront—a tough but crucial lesson.

This truth was a hard pill to swallow.

But it was the driving force behind what I now describe as the Pyramid of Value.

The Pyramid of Value Approach to Pursue Uncertain Outcomes

You’ve heard the statement, “We should minimize output and maximize outcomes.”

But how? What can guide our efforts?

Back to my failed workshop, I produced much more output than required. And I now know I should take smaller steps, test each with the customer, learn from the feedback, and toss bad ideas. This felt foundational.

These lessons led me to devise the Pyramid of Value. 

This structured framework now guides my approach to achieving the desired outcomes, with each layer representing a critical step in the process.

The base represents my uncertain actions to get to the right output to produce the desired outcome. And I need a wide base to create a strong pyramid.

The base needed:

• Many small steps
• Rapid customer feedback
• Integration of learning to iterate
• Ruthless killing of bad ideas without remorse
  

The top of the pyramid is the output — the good ideas that are borne out of the foundation beneath. Only a few ideas survive. The survivors represent the right output.

Too narrow of a base or too wide of a base could be a problem. Balance is key to produce a strong pyramid — the path to produce successful outcomes.

I felt the Pyramid of Value solved a crucial piece to the puzzle of outcome orientation.

Now, I needed to apply this concept.

How I now approach all uncertain outcomes.

My failed workshop gave me the Pyramid of Value.

I now apply this technique to all my workshops.

1. We outline the goals of the workshop.
2. We create a rough outline of what we “think” we need to do.
3. We have many small workshops to experiment to interim goalposts.
4. We iterate after each workshop based on learnings.
5. We throw out approaches without delay if they don’t work.
6. We reach our workshop goals on a non-linear, unpredictable path.
   

This has completely transformed the workshop process for me, my team, and my clients. It produces less stress. And it results in better outcomes. Dare I say, “Good outcomes are more predictable.”

The best part?

Turns out,med this works for any creative, uncertain, complex quest for outcome, for example:

• Software products
• Organizational change
• Building a desirable organizational culture
• Writing articles, books, and other public content
  

I finally have a method for getting to outcomes with as few outputs as possible.

I no longer let the quest for more of my ideas to be good distract me from the beauty of enough.

The path to outcomes does not have to have a thick fog obscuring it. The Pyramid of Value provides a method to clear the mist. It reveals a way to emerge a path to outcomes.

Now, all I have left to do is convince management not to pressure me to create a big, detailed plan upfront and chase every idea as if it is right.

But that’s a story for another time.

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