An accountant who doesn’t understand that one of their most important VFPs is securing the value of company’s assets (money, property, materials and goods), will keep asset records as a formality and you will not be able to keep track of the actual condition of your assets. If a lawyer does not understand that his VFP is legal security of the company, he will not take the initiative to check over every agreement, to ensure that the company has sound employment contracts, and financial liability agreements for its employees. Instead, he will simply draft and check over the contracts that come his way, while legal security will be rest upon the shoulders of those who “stick their nose” into everyone’s business, i.e. the top executives.

"A Valuable Final Product something that can be exchanged with other activities in return for support. The support usually adds up to food, clothing, shelter, money, tolerance and cooperation (goodwill)". [4]

Give your employees a clear understanding of the VFP you expect from them and they will either greatly enhance their performance or refuse to do the work. Don't be surprised if you get a letter of resignation from an employee after you’ve defined his VPF. Perhaps, he never intended to produce this particular product, and the executive’s expectations were in vain. This rarely happens, as most people like working with awareness, purpose, and want to produce something truly valuable. Perhaps not everybody will like this, but what does that matter? There are lots of successful people who could work in your company.

When formulating a VFP, note that it should be: actual results of completed work, an item (perceived by the senses), should always be fully complete, and, above all, valuable to the company. The last thing to remember, before giving a person their VFP, is you must have a clear understanding of what exactly you want to get from him.

Try to formulate the VFPs for various employees that work near you and then watch what they are actually working on. For many of the posts, you will easily name their product but for some could be unclear. If you’re finding it difficult to formulate these VFPs, I can assure you that your employees are even less clear on what should their work results. It’s not at all surprising that most HR managers believe that their product is "hired employees", while executives expect them to provide "productive employees". While advertising specialists believe their product is creating a "memorable advertisement" rather than, "people who walk into the store as a result of the advertisement".

A VFP is applied to a particular position, but can also be applied to projects, a task or an order. It’s quite appropriate to accurately define the VFP of a task you assign. Defining a VFP will result in less “almost dones” from your employees. Good production in any field starts with a clear understanding of the result that needs to be obtained.

A professional in a specialized field, such as a chef or painter, can easily tell you their VFP. They would even be surprised you asked them about it. While with executives, you will often find that instead of their product, they list the actions they perform. Department heads will confidently tell you that their products are, "well-organized work", "high performance" or even "ensuring employees are provided with everything they need to do their jobs”. But that is not it! The VFP of an executive is what his entire department produces.

Take a crew of house painters as an example. A foreman will plan, assign tasks, ensure that the work gets done, coordinate the actions of the team with other departments, and perform many other functions. This activity is the "doingness". The VFP of a worker in his crew is obvious: painted walls. He has several workers who produce this VFP and he, as manager, is running the activity. His own VFP is the VFP of all the workers as a whole, i.e. the VFP of the whole crew. Once this is understood, it is not difficult to formulate his VFP as, "professional quality painting jobs completed on time". The foreman’s customers are expecting this product and willingly pay specifically for that. If a foreman can't get that VFP through executive actions, such as orders or assigning tasks, he simply picks up a brush and begins to paint the walls himself. He could at least achieve the crew’s VFP in that fashion.

In a similar vein, if the head of a company cannot get the company’s VFP produced through executive means, he rolls up the sleeves and finds customers, makes sales, creates advertisements, handles unhappy customers, etc. He does all this because he is responsible for the VFP of the company as a whole. Executives, as a rule, are responsible people, and, quite often, experts in the area they manage. Unfortunately, their expertise thwarts their ability to be good executives, and instead of learning and using management tools, they do the work of their juniors. It may seem very responsible to take the initiative and show an employee how to do the work. But in that moment when the executive demonstrates his wall-painting mastery, nobody is doing the job of the executive… Usually, an executive can replace his juniors, but not vice versa.

Imagine the foreman of a crew of a couple dozen painters, and, instead of ensuring productive and well-coordinated work, he personally takes a brush to the wall. Good control of workers can significantly increase the crew’s performance, compared to simply being an extra pair of hands. A competent sales manager with five salespeople in his department can significantly increase the sales volume if he plans the work out, sets targets, supervises the work, corrects errors, and demands results rather than personally closing the sales.

If you understand this principle, you can even determine whether the person you want to hire would make a good executive. Just ask him what he thinks his VFP as an executive is, and find out how well he understands the tools he should use as an executive to produce that product.

If you are the owner or the CEO of a company, your product is the VFP of your entire company. And that helps assess your own performance. For example, my main VFP as the founder of Visotsky Consulting is management tools implemented in our clients’ enterprises. If my company implements them correctly, it leads to the expansion of their businesses, which means that I produce my product. If my company takes on a project and does not accomplish that result, I have not produced the VFP.

Determining the VFP of your business is quite simple. It's the specific product or service for which your customers pay you money. If the business deals with window manufacturing and installation, the CEO’s VFP can be stated as, "windows of high-quality manufactured and installed". Of course, you need to clearly understand what the client is paying you money for. As an example, what do customers pay money for at a restaurant? Delicious food, atmosphere, speedy service, and a convenient location. Look at several restaurants, and you will find that they have completely different VFPs. There are restaurants that boast famous dishes where clients will travel great distances and reserve a table months prior just to eat there. There are restaurants known for their special ambiance, and restaurants where you expect to eat quickly.

Even in a relatively successful business, sometimes the executive does not understand the VFP of the company, and, therefore, his own VFP. Two years ago, I visited a restaurant that served Russian cuisine about 6 miles outside a small Russian town. The restaurant was unique because they grew their own delicious vegetables and herbs, and the interior of the restaurant consisted of separate rooms that emulated the rooms of an ordinary residential house from the Soviet period. No two rooms looked the same and each guest was greeted by the waiter who acted as the owner of the house. Having dinner there was more like visiting the house of your hospitable friends rather than a restaurant. Even though I’d eaten in many Russian restaurants, I'd never tasted such delicious Russian cuisine. That restaurant became extremely popular and well known in the city, and generated a decent income for its owner. After several years of business success, the owner decided to expand the business and opened a restaurant in a resort town by the sea. She invested all her savings in this new restaurant that was completely different from the original. It had neither its own vegetable garden nor the unique rooms. She transferred the chef and the best waiters to the new restaurant, and within a year she experienced nothing but losses. Moreover, the lack of attention to running the first restaurant, loss of qualified staff, and cutting operating expenses resulted in a significant decline of the business.