The framework
Dynamic Value Management is a leadership system for continuously maximizing stakeholder value in the face of change. Its starting proposition is that leadership should not maximize individual management functions in isolation; it should maximize the value delivered to stakeholders. Specialized management capabilities are essential, but their recommendations can compete. DVM makes leadership’s responsibility to integrate them explicit.
Value depends on the stakeholders an organization exists to serve. Customers, owners, employees, citizens, beneficiaries, partners, and others may have different expectations. Public agencies must also fulfill statutory obligations; private and nonprofit organizations face their own combinations of commitments.
DVM does not presume all stakeholder interests can be satisfied equally. It requires leadership to identify the relevant interests before evaluating tradeoffs.
1
A Current State Assessment (CSA) establishes a shared understanding of what the organization does, what its stakeholders expect, and what it is obligated to do. These three considerations clarify whose value is at stake, the results the organization currently delivers, and the constraints within which leadership operates.
What it does
What stakeholders expect
What it is obligated to do
2
Determine which outcomes matter most to stakeholders and what additional value might be created by alternative approaches.
Examine the money, people, time, information, technology, and organizational capacity available, and the opportunity costs of committing them.
Determine the risks appropriate to each decision within the organization’s risk-appetite range and applicable limits. The goal is not simply to minimize risk, which can also mean forgoing opportunity.
The goal is not to split the difference, but to identify the greatest overall value.
The Three R’s are interdependent. More ambitious results may require additional resources or different risk acceptance; a different combination may create more stakeholder value than any original functional recommendation.
3
Higher leadership establishes direction, priorities, expectations, and delegated decision boundaries.
Those closer to implementation bring operational knowledge, emerging risks, opportunities, and proposed adjustments to leadership.
Within delegated authority, peers across functions jointly resolve tradeoffs for enterprise value, not merely their own functional priorities. Only issues they cannot resolve or that exceed their authority go upward for resolution or revised guidance.
This is more than coordination: it places integrated decisions with those who have the relevant knowledge and authority while maintaining accountability to higher leadership.
Dynamic Value Management did not emerge from a textbook. It grew out of decades of experience in military operations, federal executive leadership, management consulting, and board governance.
Throughout my career, I repeatedly saw capable leaders and well-managed organizations struggle with the same challenge: integrating the results they sought, the resources they had available, and the risks they were prepared to accept.
During 21 years in the U.S. Air Force, including service as a C-130 navigator and operational commander, I learned the importance of balancing Results Sought, Resources Available, and Risks Acceptable as circumstances changed. Effective leadership required clear direction, timely feedback, and coordination across organizational boundaries.
My work in the 1990s, including a 1997 Price Waterhouse presentation titled Maximizing Value in Installation Management, helped shape my thinking about organizational value. The central insight was that success must be measured by results valued by stakeholders—not simply financial performance or operational efficiency.
During 13 years on the Pentagon Federal Credit Union Board of Directors, I helped introduce enterprise risk management and chaired the Risk and Compliance Committee. That experience reinforced the importance of considering risk alongside organizational objectives and resource decisions.
As Chief Financial Officer at the Departments of Labor and Education, and in senior leadership at USAID, I saw how established management processes could function well individually while remaining poorly integrated. At Education, for example, executive meetings effectively communicated information, but much of the meaningful cross-functional coordination occurred informally.
That experience reinforced a critical distinction: meetings communicate information; governance integrates information into better leadership decisions.
These experiences contributed to a leadership framework built around stakeholder value, the Three R’s—Results Sought, Resources Available, and Risks Acceptable—and Three-Directional Governance.
DVM brings these principles together to help leaders continuously maximize stakeholder value in the face of change.
Stakeholder expectations, resources, opportunities, technologies, and risks continually change. DVM calls for ongoing reassessment rather than waiting for annual planning cycles. Strategic plans, budgets, performance measures, and risk assessments support this process; none replaces leadership judgment.
DVM does not replace financial management, strategic planning, performance management, enterprise risk management, or other established disciplines. It relies on their expertise and execution capabilities. Its distinct role is to integrate their contributions into decisions that maximize stakeholder value.