Implementing a best practice is a proven way to give your organization a distinctive competitive advantage. However, contrary to popular belief, you can’t forklift another company’s best practice and make it your own. It doesn’t work that way. The only way to get the full benefit of a best practice is to create your own. Imitate someone else’s isn’t going to give your company a true advantage.

Just because a company’s best practice gives them a distinctive competitive advantage, doesn’t mean that same best practice will work in your company. A best practice is an optimized process that maximizes results within the constraints and confines of a specific organization. Best practices are based on your processes, culture, value and strategy.

There is more to a best practice than what meets the eye. Think of a best practice as an iceberg. You see the tip of it above the water, but what you don’t see is its massive support system underwater. Also don’t think of a best practice as a free-standing activity.  A best practice is a process that’s highly dependent on your company’s internal systems and operational nuances. Because best practices are comprised of idiosyncratic interdependent processes, it’s impossible achieve a high level of success by plucking a best practice out of a company and plopping it into your company.

To obtain a true competitive advantage a best practice has to be based on your company’s culture, strengths, weaknesses and operations.  It’s the process of building a best practice from scratch that makes it a competitive benefit for your company. Not copying someone else’s.

When building a best practice a company needs to analyze, assess and optimize the processes that comprise it. Building a best practice based on your company’s operations is what creates your competitive edge. A best practice is the result of your strategy being realized by optimizing your operations. That’s something that can’t be achieved through a copy and paste.

A week ago, I read a very insightful post on BNET (http://www.bnet.com) by Margaret Heffernan entitled “Why Every Leader Needs a Third Opinion” (http://blogs.bnet.com/management/?p=1664&tag=nl.e713). In her post, Ms Heffernan states that leaders are bright people, with an abundance of experience and expertise. She goes on to say if leaders don’t continually grow, expand and develop their skill sets, especially in light of the turbulent, uncharted waters of today’s business environment, they will become ineffective. To help leaders maintain their skills and abilities, Ms Heffernan urges them to cultivate a network of advisors and mentors who are outside of their company’s technical and managerial teams.

According to Heffernan, leaders need help “replenishing their stores of expertise.” She cites Saj-Nicole Joni, a well known executive coach, who argues that leaders need advice from third parties who are unbiased, outside the industry, and has the leader’s (and the company’s) best interest at heart. The type of advice leaders need isn’t necessarily tactical in nature, rather it’s strategic; the kind of advice that helps leaders to insightfully and profoundly plan the future of their company.

I couldn’t agree more with Heffernan and Joni – great leaders have always looked for advice and guidance outside of their inner circle. However, those leaders who are secure enough with themselves to seek outside advice are a rare breed. All too often, when leaders undertake an organizational transformation they don’t seek external advice. After all, it’s their company, and they know all the warts. Why bring in an outsider to tell them what they already know? So for whatever reason – pride, embarrassment, stubbornness, or mistrust very few organizations solicit “third party” opinions during an organizational transformation.

It’s unfortunate that more companies don’t seek outside help for strategic initiatives. It would help them to avoid the pitfalls of group-think, “yes-people,” unidentified snags, hidden agendas, and corporate myopia and hyperopia. While a company may experience these pitfalls when a high-profile, high-risk and extremely critical project is undertaken, the real reason a company needs a third opinion before starting a strategic initiative is because strategic initiatives are based on what leaders forecast – not on what they know. So in reality companies about to embark on a transformational change don’t bring in outsiders to tell them what they know, but to help them forecast.

It’s not a sign of weakness to seek outside counsel, especially when a strategic is at stake. Because of its heavy cost and disruptive nature, there is nothing more critical than organizational change, so you need to use every resource at your disposal. That includes an external, unbiased advisor who cares about your company, and who will demand honest answers to hard questions. Third parties help leaders understand, calculate and contemplate consequences. After all, assessing risk is as much of a part of business as is vision.

In a typical organizational restructuring, companies create a vision, assess risks, write a plan and muster the troops behind the battle cry. Unfortunately, many times the company’s leadership operates from a parochial, unilateral or uninformed perspective. They think they have all the right answers. But in reality, they only know what they know, and they don’t know what they don’t know. To help leaders see the bigger picture, beyond their own limited reality and insight, a third-party opinion is essential to successful organizational reform.

Because signs are pointing to an economic turnaround, companies are assessing if they have the strategy and organizational structure to take advantage of the situation.

While the business news networks are all shouting an economic recovery is finally underway, but I’m finding executives haven’t totally bought into the turn-around theory yet. During the past several weeks I have been noticing a marked difference in executives’ attitude toward the economy. Their attitude has gone from gloomy to tentatively hopeful.  On one hand, they see signs of a recovery, but on the other hand, they know below the sheen of the economic good news, pitfalls could be lurking. Pitfalls they can’t afford to step in. Executives are a smart but cautious group. They know moving quickly in an upturning economy gives them a first-mover advantage, but they also know that moving too quickly could be disastrous if they have the wrong strategy.

In a recovering economy, a first mover strategy can reap huge benefits for a company. Provided the move is executed properly. To benefit from a first-mover tactic a company has to have the right strategy, the right organizational structure and the right processes.

The economic downturn has forced many companies into a defensive position of preserving revenue streams and cutting expenses. As the economy improves, companies can take a more offensive posture. To take a more aggressive offensive posture, companies need to make sure their strategies, business plans and operations are properly aligned.

So what does all this have to do with organizational change? Plenty!

If a company’s strategy, business plan or operational processes aren’t configured to take advantage of a first-mover strategy in a new economy, they have to reconfigure them through an organizational change.

How about your company? Are your strategies, plans and operations optimally aligned to move forward and succeed in the new economy? It’s a different world than it was two years ago. Unless you have used the recent downtime to reassess your strategy, understand the new economy and realign your resources, your company won’t be ready to compete as we break out into the next great business up cycle.

To learn more about how we can help you align your people, processes and resources to give you a first-mover advantage visit our website at http://www.knowledgecapitaladvisors.com

Why are you waiting?

During the past several months I have delivered several sales presentations to organizations about the services Knowledge Capital Advisors can offer them. While they all agree our process improvement services would help them increase their productivity and profitability, they all stop short of signing on the dotted line. The poor economy has companies in a defensive position. They are only willing to invest in services and products for two reasons. Either the services or products will 1) generate incremental revenue by enhancing top-line growth, or 2) reduce expenses. Companies are not willing to spend money on services or products they perceive to be an expense – even if those products and services have a proven ROI.

I found it perplexing that a company would hesitate to invest in products and services that would increase their bottom line by giving them more effective and efficient processes. Then it dawned on me. The reason they are reluctant change is the same reason people are reluctant to change. Because of the economy companies feel it’s safer to hunker down and play defense than to play offense.

While they are willing to make “easy” adjustments; cutting hours, reducing marketing costs, and limit spending on new equipment they are resistant to make fundamental changes in their workflow and processes, even though they could become more competitive and efficient.

What’s most perplexing is that companies have more cash on hand than any time since the 1954. This means the money is there for investments, but the mentality to invest in the future isn’t there. When did we become a risk adverse nation?

I would argue it’s the perfect time for companies to reinvent themselves. Companies should change the adage, “Buy when there’s blood in the streets” to “Transform while the economy is slow.” If companies need to retool and optimize their employees, processes, strategies and communications when the economy is lagging because the price of services and products is cheap. Retooling now is not only economical, but it will put them in a perfect position to excel when the economy turns around. If they wait until the economy rebounds, the demand for retooling products and services will cause a spike in costs. By transforming themselves now, companies will be three steps ahead of their competition by getting a better ROI and will be able to take advantage of a first-mover strategy when the economy improves.

Now is the perfect time for a company to invest in its future by transforming itself; while many think it’s a contrarian maneuver to invest during a down economy, It’s the smart, forward-looking thing to do.

What do you think?

I’m going to take a detour from talking about organizational transformation in this post, and instead talk about a process my company is going through.

My business partner and I where brainstorming the other day about tag lines for our business that would be compelling, catchy and give people a sense of what we do. Our current tag line, “Your Success is Our Passion” fits most of our criteria, but we feel it doesn’t’ convey what we have to offer companies. Changing to a new tagline is a risky proposition because your company’s brand and identity will be tied to that single phrase.

A company’s tagline should be something you can say when asked, “What does your company do?” When we were brainstorming for a more explicit company tagline, my business partner and I tried to use various versions of our current tagline, “Your Success is Our Passion”, but nothing seemed to stick; everything we came up sounded ordinary and contrived.

Then one day as we were talking about all the services we can offer a client, such as measuring team decision-making capability, identifying the informal network, communication flow mapping, business coaching and process improvement; in other words, everything a company needs to do to improve and become more competitive — out of the blue a tag line came to us: “We Fix Stupid”. Regardless of what Ron White says, we can fix stupid.

We realize it’s an in-your-face expression, but if you stop and think about it – how many times have you said or heard someone say –“that was a stupid decision”, ”that’s a stupid process”, or “how could they have been so stupid”. Now, we’re not making a value judgment, per se, with our tagline, but what we are doing is talking about the elephant that’s in the room. Yes, stupid may be a harsh, condescending word, full of implication, but let’s face it – it’s the word people use in frustration. But in the end, isn’t “stupid” what we need to fix in an organization, and don’t you fix “stupid” with good judgment, good communications, good planning and good processes? So by improving a company’s judgment making capability we are fixing “stupid”.  By improving a company’s breakdown in communication and process ineffectiveness we are fixing “stupid. And finally, by coaching and creating a culture in your company that is based competencies, trust and collaborative planning we are fixing “STUPID”.

I’ve been reading two books during the past couple of weeks, “Awaken the Giant Within” by Tony Robbins and “What the Dog Saw” by Malcolm Gladwell. Whenever I read a book, I read it with an eye towards lessons or insight I can use in organizational change. Robbins’ book is full of insight; Gladwell’s has its moments. These disparities of insight stem from the difference in construction and intent of the two books. Robbins wrote his book as a roadmap for helping individuals change; whereas, Glaswell’s book is a collection of his previously published articles. This makes Gladwell’s book somewhat disjointed in its flow. But what really sets the two books apart is how Gladwell does a great job presenting information, but fails to connect the stories with any insightful takeaways. So while there are a lot of “that’s interesting” moments, there aren’t many “ah ha” moments in his book. He merely tells a bunch of interesting, but loosely coupled stories that leaves you with an “interesting story, but so what?” feeling. Robbins, on the other hand, overwhelms you with insight. His stories are designed to give insight (and action plans) that leads to transformational change.

That being said, there are two essays in Gladwell’s book that are worth reading and thinking about with respect to the process of organizational change. These essays are “The Pitchman” about Ron Popeil and “What the Dog Saw” about Cesar Millian.

In the “Pitchman”, Popeil’s major premise is that — first and foremost, the product has to be the star. The way I related this to organizational change is that the purpose for organizational change has to be the star. The purpose for change is everything. If people don’t understand the purpose for change, change will not occur. Therefore in the initial stages of change, everything has to focus on the purpose of the change.

Popiel goes on to say about the products he sells, “You have to explain the invention to customers – not once or twice, but three or four times, with a different twist each time. You have to show them how it works and why it works…then tell them precisely how it fits into their routine and finally, sell them on the paradoxical fact that, revolutionary as it is, it’s not that hard to use.” Think about that statement. It embodies how change needs to be introduced, and “sold”. Change, like any product you use, is an entity that needs to be understood, and accepted before it can be used.  This means there needs to be a process of for introducing and explaining change (one that I think goes well beyond the classical “communication plan”). This quote by Popiel helped me understand that introducing a change is as much of a process as actually undertaking a change. It may even be more important, because if you can’t get people to accept the concept of change, they will never undertake a change. The procedure for introducing change is a multi-step progression that includes: explaining the change many times in many different ways, getting others to believe in the reason for the change, understanding the change and acknowledging it, then showing how it fits into employees’ routine, and that it will not be as hard to undertake the change as they perceive.

The second essay from Gladwell’s book that struck a chord for me with respect to organizational change was “What the Dog Saw”. I’ve seen the show the Dog Whisperer a few times, and knew Cesar Millian had a special touch with dogs, but I never understood how he did it. I always thought it was because he somehow became the alpha dog, but I wasn’t sure how he achieved that status. This essay helped me understand how Millian uses “presence” and “phasing” as his “hidden” secrets to be a Dog Whisperer. I never considered how important “presence” and “phasing” are in instilling confidence and “controlling” a situation. Leading a complex change requires many skills; listening being the foremost, but also people need to see their leaders as confident (not arrogant) before they will follow them  – no one follows an indecisive wimp.

When a person has “presence” they project a sense of being that others perceive as a calming, confident certainty. A person with presence fills the room in a way that makes you take note. When a person truly has presence most people can sense it; however, it’s “phasing” that leads to “presence”.  (I’m paraphrase from Gladwell); Phasing is a combination of posture and gesture. Great communicators know how to match their phasing with their communicative intent. So the secret to Millan is his ability to phase – to communicate with the dogs in the language of posture and gesture. Likewise, one of the “secrets” of a leader is their ability to phase – to synchronize their posture with their intentions. Don’t ever underestimate subtle symbolic gestures. People are far more subliminally perceptive than you can ever imagine.

Phasing is a skill organizational change agents need to develop – they need to learn that the delivery of a message is as important as its content. If you want to motivate a group to bring about a substantive organizational change you have to be sincere, act with the organization’s best interest at heart, listen well, use phasing and establish a sense of presence — because all eyes will be on you. The symbolism of your actions and movements can enhance or destroy your message and intent.

In my last couple of postings I talked about assessments and profiles, and specifically about the Hartman Value Profile. Profiles and assessments give valuable insight into a person’s being. However, when it’s time for action, and an organization needs to transform, having insight into people is useful, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough because there isn’t any action associated with insight. Organizational change is a team sport, based on actions gained through insight and planning. To transform an organization the people in the organization have to believe in the transformation, and act to make the transformation happen. So how do you get people to buy-in and act?

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of books about change, including “Influencer; the Power to Change Anything” by Patterson, et al; “Awaken the Giant Within” by Robbins, “The Magic of Believing” by Bristol; “Managing the Dynamics of Change” by Jellison; and “The Three Laws of Performance” by Zaffron and Logan. Even though each of these books approaches change from a different perspective, they each contribute vital pieces of insight and action into the mosaic of the change process.

In the book, “The Three Laws of Performance” the authors stated something that I thought was very profound, and made me re-evaluate my perception of people’s reaction to change. According to Zaffron and Logan the first law of performance says, “How people perform correlates to how the situation occurs to them”. In other words, people believe they are always acting appropriately to a situation, and don’t perceive themselves as ever acting irrationally. In their mind, a person acts rationally and normally to every situation. But because we don’t completely share other people’s perceptions of a situation, their actions may appear to be irrational to us. Therefore, because we don’t understand their perspective, we think they are acting irrationally, and we ask ourselves, “Why are they doing that?” Conversely, if we saw the world through their eyes, their actions would appear rational and normal.

The First Law of Performance really drove home the point that a lot of the resistance, misperceptions and misunderstandings around change are the result of people not having the same view of the situation. Even bright, cooperative, well-meaning team players are going to see each situation differently, and it’s the degree of difference that can lead to conflict or disagreement.

Because I now understand that people don’t act irrationally (in their mind), I also understand that people don’t fight change because they are malicious, but because they are seeing the change process differently than I am. Armed with that understanding I need to make it my responsibility to see the change from their perspective as well as my own. I need to understand their point of view because they may have valid points that I wasn’t able to consider from my vantage point. Once I understand their perspective, I am better able to communicate with them on a deeper level, and together we can construct a more thorough change process taking into consideration everyone’s perspective — which will ultimately will lead to a stronger, more successful change management plan.

Since being introduced to the Hartman Value Profile, I’ve been doing extensive research on profiles and assessments. There are an incredible number of assessments out there – far too many to mention. In general, there appears to be six major categories into which 90% of all the profiles and assessments fall.

These are:

1. Skill-Set Competency Tests
2. IQ Tests
3. Emotional Balance Assessments
4. Career Orientation Assessments
5. Personality Profiles
6. Decision-Making/Judgment Capacity Profiles

In recent months, I have taken the Hartman Value Profile, the Harrison Assessment, and an assessment based on Freud’s personality model as modified by Michael Maccoby. While I don’t agree 100% with what these assessments told me about myself (especially the Maccoby assessment), I did find the outcomes interesting. They gave me interesting insight into myself – but more importantly into the world of assessments.

Actually, over my career I’ve been psychologically poked, prodded and probed an enormous number of times. It seemed like every job I took the company had an assessment they gave me to make sure I wasn’t a wacko. It’s amazing I was hired after they saw my results…..

After seeing the results of the three assessments I recently took, I’ve come to the conclusion that no single assessment by itself can give a total comprehensive picture of a person. People are too complex, and too multi-dimensional to be neatly categorized and pigeon-holed by any single assessment. To get a complete profile of a person you need to administer a battery of assessments. However, that’s not to say an individual assessment doesn’t have merit, or can’t provide valuable insight – because it can. You just need to be aware of its strengths and weaknesses and what it’s assessing.

In addition to studying assessments, I’ve also been talking to people about their experiences with profiles and assessments. It seems like almost everyone has taken some kind of profile during their life. What’s interesting is the vast majority of people believe the assessment they took “nailed” them (I heard that phrase a lot). A few (10%-15%) people said the assessment was mostly correct, and less than 5% said the results weren’t even close to how they perceive themselves. (I realize there’s huge margin of error in my research because it’s all anecdotal, but I think the ratios are pretty accurate.)

Because so many people believe the assessment they took accurately described them, I have to wonder -are assessments that good at pinpointing people, or is there some form of suggestion at play, or is it a combination of both? By “suggestion” I mean that if you have never thought about certain aspects of yourself before, and then after taking an assessment you’re told, “this is you”, you might have a tendency to believe it and project it as being you – especially if it describes traits about you that you’d like to have. So my big question about assessment is; do the results really describe who you are, or do you just perceive the results to describe you? Since perception is reality, I’m not sure it matters.

The reason assessments are administered is to understand the content of a person. There are three reasons why I like the Hartman Value Profile for understanding the content of a person. First, it can’t be gamed. Because of its structure, it’s highly unlikely you can manipulate the outcomes of the Hartman Value Profile. So the results from the Hartman Value Profile really describe the person being assessed. The second reason I like it is because it describes “why” a person makes the decisions they do. Understanding why a person does things gives a huge amount of insight into them. And third reason is because it measures judgment capacity, and like they say, “Without good judgment, nothing else matters”.

In my last post I introduced the Hartman Value Profile. In this post I want to talk about what it means to you, and why you need to use it.

Throughout history, new eras have continually emerged as a natural, sequential progression from the current “age”. At the risk of over simplification: Hunter/Gathers gave way to the Agrarian Age; which in turn led to the Age of Reason; which was replaced by the Industrial Revolution; which brought about the Information Age.  I believe the Information Age is about to yield to a new era.

I’ve heard the next era described as the Knowledge Era or even as the Connected Era. While these labels describe a natural transition from the Information Age, I don’t feel they are a profound enough paradigm shift. One of the characteristics of a new era is that it builds on the innovations and tools of the previous era(s), but at the same time, profoundly morphs itself into a true paradigm shift.

As the Information Age has progressed, technology has transitioned from an “end” to a “means”. People are now using technology as a tool and in many cases as a tool to reconnect with their social fabric. This change is evident by the popularity of texting, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and the plethora of social media applications. I believe the next Era we are about to experience is going to be the Era of Humanism. The Era of Humanism will reconnect the humanistic nature of people using all the skills and tools of past Eras.

So what does all this have to do with the Hartman Value Profile? One of the major characteristics of an Era shift is the change in the nature of work.  From the tracking skills of the Hunter/Gathers; the tilling of the soil in the Agrarian Age; to the lone proprietor designing, building and selling their works; to the line worker defined by division of labor utilizing a single skill to perform a single task; to the knowledge worker assembling information from data – in every Era, the skill sets needed to survive and succeed have changed from the previous Era.

We are moving from Information Age in which the skills of using and manipulating technology were paramount to a Humanistic Era where judgment and decision-making skills will reign supreme. During the Information Age it was all about having the skills to use technology; degrees gave way to certifications, education to training. Human interaction was secondary to typing, mouse movements and spreadsheet pivot tables.

As we move out of the Information Age, the right brain will replace the left-brain as the dominant lobe. It will no longer be enough to “do” and quantify. In the Humanistic Era we have to “create” and qualify.

The Industrial Era and the Information Age have teamed up in one peculiar way which has led to an interesting dilemma, and that is the dilemma of “choice”. Today, we have more choices than at any time in our history. Choices mean we must make decisions and making a decision means we have to take action and action leads to consequences. That means evaluative judgment, a concept Robert Hartman defined as cognition beyond thinking, will be become a critical skill set in the Age of Humanism.

People have had to exercise judgment throughout the millennium, but what is different now is that because of our tight interconnectedness, the poor judgment of a few impacts the masses.  In the past, if a person didn’t have the good judgment to avoid a saber tooth tiger or a tar pit, well, their poor judgment didn’t impact a large number of people. But today, because of technological advances, we are all directly and indirectly connected. Recent history is riddled with examples of how the poor judgment of few has impacted the many – Enron, Bernie Madoff, subprime loans, AIG, the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, just to name a few.

So why is the Hartman Value Profile important? Because no other tool; not an IQ test, a personality test or a behavioral test can do what the Hartman Value Profile is able to, and that is – with scientific certainty, measure a person’s capacity for making good judgments and decisions. Evaluative judgment and good solid decision-making are going to be the most sought after employee skills in the next Era. Without good solid judgment, nothing else matters.

In my next post I’ll talk about how the Hartman Value Profile assesses a person’s (or team’s) judgment capacity.

I am always looking for methodologies and tools that will help me make organizational transformations smoother and more effective. About four months ago I was introduced to an incredible tool called the Hartman Value Profile (HVP). I’m impressed with the Hartman Value Profile for several reasons: 1) it’s an easy assessment for a person to take, 2) it can’t be gamed and 3) it’s scary accurate. While the input and output of the HVP are very straight forward, the concepts and science behind it are very complex. For this reason I’m going to devote my next several blog posting to the Hartman Value Profile.

The best way to start explaining what the HVP does is to put it in context with other assessment tools. The world of assessment tools are categorized in the following clusters:

1. IQ Tests
2. Emotional Balance Tests (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
3. Personality Profiles (Myers-Briggs)
4. Judgment/Decision-Making Capacity (Hartman Value Profile)

So the Hartman Value Profile measures a person’s or team’s capacity for good judgment – something none of these other tests do. Said another way, the HVP quantifies (and to a degree, qualifies) the decision-making judgment capacity of people and teams. This is an incredibly powerful concept.

When you apply the knowledge of how judgment decisions are made in an organizational transformation the success rate of that transformation skyrockets because now you understand “why”.

But the Hartman Value Judgment has implications far beyond organizational transformation and even beyond the workplace. If you understand why a person makes certain decisions or acts in a certain way then you can begin to understand the rationality behind their actions. I once read that no one makes an irrational decision. While a decision or action may seem irrational to you and your perspective, from their perspective, what they did was totally rational. Once you understand the “why” behind a person’s judgment capacity you can use the knowledge to better work with and communicate with that person.

It’s amazing what you learn about yourself, your colleagues or a team from spending 15 minute taking the Hartman Value Profile. Especially, since you never answer any personal questions – all you do is rank items based on how you feel about them. I am so impressed with the power of this assessment that I spent last week becoming certified in it. Even though the assessment is simple to take, and there is absolutely no way to game it. While the assessment itself is simple, the science behind it is incredibly complex. And I deliberately used the word “science”.

You can find loads of information on the Hartman Value Profile on the Internet, so I’ll only give a broad brush background on it here. The Hartman Value Profile was developed by Robert Hartman in the mid-1900s. “….Hartman was a logician and philosopher. His primary field of study was scientific axiology and he is known as the original theorist of the science of value. His axiology is the basis of the Hartman Value Inventory which is used in psychology to measure the character of an individual” (Wikipedia). In 1973, Hartman’s work was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The assessment has been thoroughly validated by a variety of methods and institutions, so it isn’t snake-oil. The HVP has been validated using “concurrent validation” where outcomes from the HVP were correlated to the outcomes of other reputable and highly proven psychological tests that measure comparable behavioral patterns. Another validation study was done using a process called “construct validation”. This validation used a factor analysis to determine if the HVP does what it says it does – and yes it does. Beyond these two validations the HVP has also been validated by reputable researchers using strict scientific methodologies under the following areas: 1) cross-cultural validity, 2) clinical validity, 3) normative validity and 4) biomedical validity.

That’s all well and good you’re saying, but tell me more about what it does….ah, for that you’re going to have to read my next post. In this post I just wanted to set the stage and introduce the Hartman Value Profile, next time I’ll explain more about what it does.