Your Greatest Business Strategy May Already Be on Your Payroll
### Why Developing Valuable Players May Be the Most Overlooked Growth Strategy in Business
By Rayna Fort | Founder, EVP Performance
Businesses spend an extraordinary amount of time developing strategies for growth.
We analyze marketing. Pricing. Competition. Technology. Customer acquisition. Expansion. Expenses. New revenue streams.
We build strategic plans. Forecasts. Dashboards. Presentations.
Sometimes they're even color-coded, professionally bound, and impressive enough that nobody wants to write on them.
But eventually, someone has to actually do the work.
That's where the Players come in.
After years of leading businesses, managing multi-unit operations, developing teams, studying performance, and implementing more new initiatives than I could possibly count, I've become convinced of something:
One of the greatest business strategies available to an organization may already be on its payroll.
Its people.
More specifically, the right people—developed, empowered, accountable, and connected to the performance of the business.
I call them Valuable Players.
And they are the reason I created EVP.
## Great Strategy Still Needs Someone to Execute It
I love strategy.
Give me a struggling business, its numbers, its people, and a whiteboard, and I'm probably going to have a very good day.
But I've also learned that even the best strategy has a limitation:
It cannot execute itself.
We can create a brilliant marketing campaign, but someone has to convert the leads.
We can invest in technology, but someone has to use it effectively.
We can build a customer experience strategy, but someone has to deliver that experience when an actual customer walks through the door.
We can develop the perfect sales process, but eventually a human being has to have a conversation with another human being.
And we can create the most beautiful strategic plan in the world.
Color-coded. Professionally bound. Perhaps even laminated for dramatic effect.
Eventually, someone has to actually do it.
That's why I believe the conversation about business performance has to include more than strategy.
It has to include the Players responsible for bringing that strategy to life.
## Employees and Valuable Players Aren't Necessarily the Same Thing
Every Valuable Player is an employee.
But not every employee is automatically a Valuable Player.
And I don't mean that negatively.
A Valuable Player is developed through a combination of the person they bring to the organization and the environment the organization creates around them.
Talent matters.
Character matters.
Work ethic matters.
But so do leadership, expectations, training, accountability, communication, and opportunity.
I've watched people step into roles and become far more capable than they initially believed they could be.
I've watched employees discover strengths they didn't know they had.
I've watched people become leaders because someone finally expected them to lead.
And I've watched teams transform when individuals stopped seeing their responsibilities as a list of tasks and started understanding how their actions affected the entire business.
That's when an employee begins becoming something more.
A Valuable Player understands their impact.
They understand why their role exists.
They know what is expected of them.
They take ownership of their performance.
They contribute to the people around them.
And they recognize that what they do—or don't do—has an effect beyond their individual position.
That is valuable.
## Empowerment Isn't the Absence of Accountability
The word empowerment gets used frequently in business.
Sometimes so frequently that I'm not entirely sure we all mean the same thing anymore.
For me, empowering people has never meant lowering expectations, avoiding difficult conversations, or telling everyone they're doing wonderfully regardless of the results.
Quite the opposite.
People tend to rise when they understand what they're responsible for, why it matters, and what great performance actually looks like.
Empowerment requires clarity.
If I expect someone to own a result, they need to understand the result.
If I want them to make decisions, they need enough knowledge to make good ones.
If I'm going to hold them accountable to a KPI, they need to understand how their actions influence that KPI.
And if I expect a manager to lead a team, I need to make sure I've actually taught them how to lead one.
That last one sounds obvious.
Business has nevertheless found many creative ways to promote someone on Friday and expect them to understand leadership by Monday.
Leadership takes development.
So does sales.
So does communication.
So does decision-making.
So does becoming a Valuable Player.
## Sometimes the Opportunity Is Already in the Building
Throughout my career, I've walked into businesses where the instinct was to look outside the organization for the solution.
We need someone stronger.
We need a better salesperson.
We need another manager.
Sometimes that's exactly right. Recruiting the right talent can completely change a business.
But before looking outside, I also like to ask:
Who is already here?
Who has potential that hasn't been developed?
Who understands the customer better than anyone else?
Who naturally influences the team?
Who consistently takes ownership?
Who sees problems and brings solutions?
Who asks good questions?
Who wants more responsibility?
Who is quietly performing at a high level without making much noise about it?
Because sometimes the next great leader isn't responding to your job posting.
They're already working for you.
They just haven't been developed yet.
## The Players Usually Know More Than We Think
One of the most valuable things a leader can do is listen to the people closest to the work.
They know where customers get frustrated.
They know which processes make sense on paper but become unnecessarily complicated in practice.
They know what questions customers ask repeatedly.
They know where time is being wasted.
They often know which initiatives are working long before the monthly report tells us.
Every business has systems.
The interesting question is whether they're the systems leadership designed—or the ones people quietly created because they needed a way to actually get the job done.
That doesn't mean every employee suggestion should become company strategy.
It does mean there is enormous business intelligence sitting inside organizations that leaders sometimes overlook.
Valuable Players don't just execute the business. They can help us understand it.
## Performance Is a Partnership
I believe businesses have responsibilities to their people.
And people have responsibilities to the businesses that employ them.
The organization has a responsibility to provide direction, expectations, leadership, tools, development, and honest feedback.
The Player has a responsibility to bring effort, accountability, curiosity, discipline, and ownership.
Neither side can do the other's job.
You can provide exceptional training to someone who refuses to apply it.
You can hire an incredibly motivated person and place them in an environment with no direction.
Neither scenario produces Peak Performance.
But when the right Player meets the right environment, something powerful happens.
People stop simply completing tasks.
They start creating impact.
## What Happens When People Understand Their Impact?
I've seen what happens when people begin connecting their everyday actions to business performance.
Sales conversations become more intentional.
Managers start coaching instead of simply putting out fires.
Teams begin understanding the why behind the KPIs.
Customer experiences become more consistent.
People start identifying opportunities instead of waiting to be told what to do.
And perhaps most importantly, accountability starts becoming less about “Did you do what I told you?” and more about “Did we accomplish what we set out to accomplish?”
That's a very different conversation.
It shifts people from task completion to performance ownership.
And that shift can change a business.
## Your People Are Part of Your Growth Strategy
When leaders think about growth, we naturally think outward.
More customers.
More locations.
More leads.
More revenue.
More market share.
But sustainable growth also requires us to look inward.
Do we have the Players capable of supporting where we're trying to go?
Are we developing them?
Do they understand the vision?
Do they understand the numbers?
Have we clearly defined what great performance looks like?
Are our managers equipped to develop the people underneath them?
Are we recognizing potential before we automatically start recruiting outside the organization?
And maybe the most important question:
Do our people understand the value they create?
Because when they do, their relationship with their work changes.
## Why EVP Exists
EVP stands for Empowering Valuable Players.
The philosophy behind it is simple:
Businesses reach Peak Performance when the right Players understand their value, their impact, and their responsibility for results.
EVP isn't about telling people they're valuable simply because they occupy a position.
It's about helping businesses identify, develop, empower, and retain people who create value.
It's also about giving those Players the systems, leadership, strategy, and accountability necessary to perform.
Because the greatest strategy in the world isn't particularly useful sitting in a binder.
Someone has to believe in it.
Someone has to understand it.
Someone has to execute it.
Someone has to measure whether it's working.
And someone has to be willing to adjust when—inevitably—customers, competitors, employees, technology, and the economy fail to behave exactly according to our strategic plan.
They have an irritating habit of doing that.
That's business.
And that's why we need Valuable Players.
Before your organization looks for the next big strategy, the next big initiative, or even the next great hire, take another look at the people already around you.
You may discover that one of your greatest opportunities for growth isn't something you need to buy, build, or acquire.
It may already be on your payroll.
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### About the Author
Rayna Fort is the Founder of EVP Performance — Empowering Valuable Players for Peak Performance. With extensive experience in multi-unit operations, business strategy, sales development, recruiting, and leadership development, Rayna works with business owners and organizations to identify performance opportunities, develop stronger leaders and teams, and turn business strategy into measurable execution.
EVP Performance
Empowering Valuable Players for Peak Performance.
