Chapter: Introduction to the Delta Model

From Experiences to Transformation Offerings, Part One

This post begins a series comprising a chapter I’m now tentatively entitling “From Experiences to Transformation Offerings”, which will finally go through the Delta Model that I developed this spring in response to the feedback I received here on Substack. (Thanks again!)

In my (updated) outline this chapter immediately follows the “Staging Transformative Experiences”, which incorporates the three recent posts on the Levels of Experience, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. I originally intended these all to be one chapter, but it got too big. And this still needs some sort of introduction (a big example, perhaps?), but I hate doing those so instead just dove into the deep end.

Do provide your feedback through the link at the end. It is always appreciated! To answer the second question you might to look back at the first chapter on the Progression of Economic Value.

Joe

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The Delta Model

The four levels of experiences introduced in the last chapter – memorable, meaningful, transporting, and transformative – form the basis of what is perhaps the key framework for understanding transformations as a distinct economic offering, and thereby creating greater economic value for your enterprise by supplying the ultimate value for customers: aspirational change.

I call it the Delta Model, for the Greek uppercase letter delta – ∆ – is the universal symbol for change. Well, universal in math and science, anyway. When taking handwritten notes, I have long substituted X for the word “experience” and ∆ for “transformation”. That uppercase delta is particularly easy to write, for it’s simply a triangle, slightly taller than it is wide. In most fonts the right side of the triangle is thicker than the other two lines to present better visual balance, and to understand it as a letter, not a triangle.

So delta is not only a particularly apt name for a transformation framework, its form is particularly apt for multiple levels – a hierarchy – of experiences and transformations together.

The Delta Model comprises three segments, the bottom of which represents the economic offering of experiences. As emphasized a number of times, these must be memorable in order to be considered a distinct economic offering, then many memorable experiences can then rise to the level of being meaningful, and many meaningful experiences can become transporting.

And of course many experiences – transporting, meaningful, and memorable – can become transformative when they change the customer in some impactful way. Notice how transformative experiences rise above the bottom segment of the Delta to become part of the middle segment, which represents transformations as a distinct economic offering. Then there is one type of transformation so significant, so life-altering, so unlike the rest that it warrants its own segment. These are metamorphic transformations, those that transform us at our core, changing who we are by achieving aspirations for large-scale, wholesale change in identity, as we saw in the upper right quadrant of the Types of Aspirations model in Chapter 4.

The middle segment of the Delta Model represents transformations as a distinct economic offering

I signify the nature of this highest level of transformation by placing “∆ Core Identity” in the top segment, and that segment is itself a delta symbol atop the Delta Model. To be clear, metamorphic transformations are indeed special, but they are still transformations, not a sixth economic offering. Below them in the middle segment are the other non-core transformations that result from cultivation, ambition, and refinement aspirations.

I’ll explore both the middle and top segments of the Delta Model further after first discussing how to ensure transformative experiences become distinct transformation offerings.

Transformations as a Distinct Economic Offering

As the fifth and final economic offering, in Chapter 1 I wrote about the three economic distinctions of transformations that distinguish them from mere experiences. To explore them further, transformations are first effectual. They make an impact on the aspirant that effects the desired result, achieving an aspiration.

Transformations are effectual

Sometimes the effectual outcome arises from one, proverbial life-changing experience, often by serendipity. As an illustration, I once spoke to the annual conference of the American Alliance of Museums, largely consisting of curators and managers. I asked the hundreds of attendees for a raise of hands of those who worked in the museum world today because of an experience they had in a museum when they were young. About 40% raised their hands. I’ve often used this anecdote when working with clients in all manner of immersive experiences, themed attractions, and the like to assert that they, too, have sparked many kids and not a few adults to join art, attractions, and other experience businesses as artists, designers, and creators. Not to mention those who gained lifelong avocations for gardening, history, science, and so many other subjects because of experiences as a kid or adult.

In the vast share of cases, however, it’s not one transformative experience but a series of experiences that an aspirant undergoes to effect, over time, the outcome desired. That’s why the middle segment of the Delta Model, representing transformations as a distinct economic offering, is so much greater than the single transformative experience level. And why the economic function of transformations is not to change, modify, or regenerate, but to guide. At the risk of overkill, it’s crucial to understand that the overarching task of a transformation guider in guiding transformations is to guide – to come alongside customers and do everything you can to lead, steer, direct, encourage, urge, persuade, cajole, and anything else required to foster aspirants along the path they desire, and pay you to achieve.

Second, transformations are individual. Whether individual people (consumers or employees), individual organizations, individual businesses, or individual communities (as discussed in Chapter 4), customers are the aspirants, and aspirants are the customers. They are the transformers (never, ethically speaking, transformees). They are the ones who effect their own aspirations. With transformations again, the customer IS the product. You are the guide.

You must therefore get very individual with each aspirant.