Preparation, Part Two
Continue reading the opening of the book
This post continues the three-part publication of the Preparation, Part One that set the stage for the book, quickly delineated the Progression of Economic Value, and introduced the next shift into the Transformation Economy.
Part Two shows you how the book will enable you to embrace the forthcoming Transformation Economy in outline form, going through each chapter and what you will learn there, and concludes by discussing the opportunity that awaits.
Explore!
Joe
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Embracing the Transformation Economy
In working with clients on going beyond goods & services, I’ve often taken a team on a learning excursion to get them to experience some of the best (and a few of the worst) experience stagers as consumers. On such expeditions they don’t just see but viscerally feel the increasing desire for experiences over things, enabling them to comprehend and empathize with their own customers (even B2B customers) and see the greater value that could be created by staging experiences for them. So in this book, I want you to better comprehend and sympathize with customers and see the greater value that can be created by guiding transformations for them.
I want you to not just understand but viscerally feel the shift
My intention is for you to not just understand but viscerally feel the shift into the Transformation Economy and the great opportunity that it entails for you and your business. To that end:
Chapter 1: Getting into the Transformation Business
In chapter 1 you will grasp the Progression of Economic Value and learn that the economic function of the fifth and final offering is guiding. Just as you extract commodities, make goods, deliver services, and stage experiences, you guide transformations. You will also learn that the key reason transformations create more economic value than any other offering is that they generate time well invested. Customers—properly called aspirants—invest their time in your transformations, under your guidance, which pays them dividends far into the future as they become a “new you.” Moreover, you are what you charge for, and so economically, being in the transformation business means charging for the demonstrated outcomes your customers achieve.
Chapter 2: Fostering Human Flourishing
In chapter 2 you will learn the end purpose of guiding transformations: helping your aspirants flourish. For any and all businesses, fostering human flourishing is the reason for being; consciously or unconsciously, that’s why customers buy from you, because they want to better their lives. By guiding people across one or more spheres of transformation—health & well-being, wealth & prosperity, knowledge & wisdom, and purpose & meaning—you take them to higher and higher levels of flourishing, with profit the measure of how well they benefit from your offerings.
Chapter 3: Understanding Aspirants and Aspirations
Chapter 3 begins by making the point that all transformation is identity change—that aspirants desire to go from X to Y. You’ll discover the categories of aspirants—whether people, organizations, businesses, or communities—and what catalyzes their need for transformation. You will also learn about the types of aspiration—that sometimes it is for wholesale metamorphosis, while at other times it’s to cultivate some new aspect of identity, refine an existing aspect, or attain a large-scale ambition.
Chapter 4: Shifting from Experiences to Transformations
In chapter 4, recognizing that transformations build atop experiences, you will learn how to go beyond merely memorable experiences to highly meaningful, deeply transporting, and, finally, truly transformative ones. You can turn any experience into a transformative one through what I call encapsulation—the crux of guiding—by surrounding it with three activities: preparation beforehand, reflection afterward, and integration on an ongoing basis.
Chapter 5: Staging Transformative Experiences
Chapter 5 will broaden your thinking on transformative experiences, showing how you can become a transformation guider by successfully staging experiences that are cohesive, robust, personal, and dramatic. Each one of these elements represents a set of ideas, principles, and frameworks—including a framework for creating the Transformation Journey for each aspirant—that enable you to heighten the level of your transformative experiences.
Chapter 6: Creating Transformation Offerings
In chapter 6 you will delve deeper to learn how to turn transformative experiences into full-on transformation offerings via what I call the Delta model. This chapter extends the lessons of the previous three to show you how to guide aspirants depending on the type of transformation required to achieve their aspirations. You will further understand the four roles of transformation guides and each one’s best use: alchemist, expert, coach, and counselor.
Chapter 7: Guiding Transformations
Finally, chapter 7 brings it all together and includes key lessons that will enable you to turn your enterprise into a premier transformation guider, beginning with the three essential phases of guiding: diagnosis, encapsulated experiences, and follow-through. These phases are encapsulation writ large, enabling you to discover each individual’s aspiration and then design the set of experiences that helps them achieve it—and sustain it through time. You will further learn different ways of charging for change. Doing so will put you economically in the business of this fifth and final economic offering, completing your shift into becoming a transformation guider.
Each chapter deepens your understanding of transformations and how to create and guide them in your business, enabling you to not only compete but thrive in the emerging Transformation Economy.
Seizing the Opportunity
No matter where you are on the progression or what you offer, there’s opportunity in this new economy.
