The Idea to Value System
Navigate the messy middle of work — and turn ideas into real value
Idea → Value: A System for Navigating the Messy Middle of Work
Most work is clear at the beginning.
And most work is visible at the end.
The complexity lives in the middle — where investment turns into activity, creativity is applied, and cost quietly accumulates long before value appears.
Idea → Value is a practical system for making that middle visible — so ideas at work move with intention and lead somewhere worth going.
What This Course Is
This is a 4.5-hour video course with a companion workbook, designed to help you understand how work actually moves from idea to outcome.
It is not:
- a leadership programme
- a delivery methodology
- a productivity system
It is:
- a sense-making system for how work moves through organisations
- a shared language for seeing where cost accumulates
- a practical way to shape investment, activity, and action
You can apply it to:
- product and service development
- organisational improvement
- change initiatives
- enablement and technology work
- experiments and learning
The Core Idea
Everything between idea and value is cost — unless it is deliberately shaped.
Idea → Value makes this visible through a simple, honest flow:
Idea → Investment → Activity Sets → Creative Action → Ship → Value
When this flow is visible, you can:
- make clearer decisions earlier
- reduce wasted effort
- distinguish motion from progress
- use creativity and learning intentionally
What You’ll Learn
Across 26 practical principles, you’ll learn how to:
- clarify what kind of value an idea is meant to create
- decide what deserves investment — and what doesn’t
- design activity so it leads somewhere useful
- apply creativity as intelligent action under constraint
- treat learning and experimentation as legitimate forms of value
- reduce friction between teams, decisions, and delivery
Each principle is designed to be applied to real work, not studied in isolation.
How the Course Is Structured
The course is organised around six connected lenses, each offering a different perspective on the messy middle:
Seeing the Whole — value, cost, and the system you’re in
Clarity Lens — deciding what deserves attention
Alignment Lens — connecting investment, activity, and value
Action Lens — turning alignment into movement
Measuring Success — metrics, risk, and real progress
Improvement Lens — learning as a way of working
You don’t need to complete this linearly.
Most people dip in, apply one principle, notice the effect — and return.
What’s Included
🎥 Video Lessons
- 4.5 hours of calm, fireside-style teaching
- Real stories and real organisational examples
- Designed to pause, reflect, and apply
📘 Companion Workbook
- 90 pages of models, prompts, and space to think
- A standalone tool for adapting the system to your context
Together, these are designed to be used and revisited, not completed once.
If you prefer the workbook on its own, you can purchase it separately.
Who This Is For
Idea → Value is for people inside work who want to understand it more clearly.
It’s useful if you:
- work with ideas that need to become outcomes
- feel busy but want clearer signals of progress
- want better conversations about priorities and value
- care about making work calmer, clearer, and more humane
You don’t need a leadership title.
You just need work that matters.
How People Use Idea → Value
Most people start small.
They use the system to:
- make sense of one initiative
- untangle a piece of demand
- understand where effort is being invested
- redesign how a team directs attention
Over time, clarity compounds — and decisions become steadier.
This Is Not
- a motivational programme
- a transformation rollout
- a framework to deploy wholesale
- something you “finish” in a weekend
It is a thinking system you return to whenever work becomes complex.
About Rob Lambert
Rob Lambert is the founder of Cultivated, a modern library exploring how ideas become value in human systems.
His work spans organisational design, communication, creativity, and learning, grounded in experience as a media communication scientist and former VP of Engineering and HR.
Rob works as a thinking partner to leaders and organisations, helping them see where clarity breaks down—and how better systems of thinking, communication, and action allow value to emerge.
Course curriculum
Turn ideas into outcomes people actually value.
A practical course with 4.5 hours of video lessons and a downloadable workbook, helping you create clarity, alignment, and flow as work moves from idea to delivery.
These are principles, not prescriptions — designed to be adapted to real work, real teams, and real constraints.
Included Materials
- 4.5 hours of video lessons
- Full downloadable Idea to Value Workbook
- Practical exercises and reflection questions
- Lifetime access + future updates
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1Module 1 - Introduction
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2Cluster 1 - Seeing the whole
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3Cluster 2 - Clarity Lens
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4Cluster 3 - Alignment Lens
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5Cluster 4 - Action Lens
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6Cluster 5 - Feedback and Measures
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7Cluster 6 - Improvement Lens
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8Close Out
Refund Policy
Refund Policy – Digital Products
We want you to be happy with your purchase. If you’re not satisfied, you can request a full refund within 30 days of your purchase by emailing products@cultivatedmanagement.com
Refunds are issued via your original payment method.
See the Cultivated Returns policy