How Ideas Become Knowledge, and Knowledge Becomes Value
In this newsletter, I explore the idea of Circuits of Knowledge — the feedback loops running through every stage of the Idea → Value system. When these circuits are completed, knowledge forms, capability grows, and value increases. When they’re broken, teams repeat the same patterns year after year.
How Ideas Become Knowledge, and Knowledge Becomes Value
Hey,
I hope you are safe and well. Things are festive here at Lambert Towers. The kids are excited about Christmas and I’m preparing a keynote talk at a university on the 2nd of January around creativity in the workplace. Might need to pace myself on New Year’s Eve.
I’ve also launched a limited series called Video Notes to accompany this Meeting Notes newsletter — short “explainer” videos about creativity, leadership, learning and more, using the wallpaper method of clean visuals and clear thinking.
You can find them via the Video Notes tag or on my LinkedIn feed. After the New Year I’ll move to three videos a week.
For those new to the Meeting Notes newsletter, welcome, I’m Rob, ChiefKnowledge Circuit Officer at Cultivated Management. This newsletter is about mastering the art of communication and creativity - and cultivating a bright future of work.
Circuits of Knowledge
In today’s newsletter, I want to introduce a concept that sits quietly at the heart of theIdea → Value system: Circuits of Knowledge.
Idea → Value is a brilliant delivery model and improvement lens, but it is an even more powerful learning system. And like all learning systems, it runs on one essential mechanism:
Feedback that completes a circuit.
Without feedback, delivery is guesswork. Without acting on feedback, learning is an illusion and misguided. Without these circuits — large and small — neither the system nor we can improve.
Once you see the model through this lens, everything becomes clearer. It's why there are more lessons in the "Improvement Lens" than any of the others.
The Idea to Value System with clusters of focus and principles
Circuits of Knowledge Are Everywhere in Idea → Value
It’s easy to imagine Idea → Value as a linear pipeline:
Idea → Investment → Activity → Action → Ship → Value
But in practice, it behaves more like a network of circuits.
Feedback loops exist:
Across the whole system
Within each stage
Between stages
Inside everyday moments of work
Inside team communication
Inside personal habits and behaviours
Wherever feedback is present and acted on, knowledge forms. Where feedback is missing, the system stalls. Learning cannot happen.
Well-considered improvement becomes almost impossible.
This is why some teams feel alive, sharp, and improving…while others feel like they’re repeating the same year ten times.
Every Stage Has Its Own Feedback Circuit
Let’s walk the circuits inside each part of Idea → Value.
1. Idea → Investment
Every new idea coming into the system is feedback from reality:
A problem observed — or an opportunity spotted
A customer, staff, or market insight
Data patterns showing potential
Compliance, regulation, or business enablement
An experiment we want to run
A frustration or inefficiency inside the team
Ideas are feedback. We generate them by observing, noticing (a Leadership Superpower), and paying attention.
Investment decisions are how we act on that feedback — how we allocate time, energy, attention, and money.
Circuit:insight → decision → clarity and direction over what we’re doing
2. Investment → Activity Set
We turn these nebulous ideas into an activity set — the work we think we need to bring it to life.
But as soon as we plan, reality pushes back:
Constraints surface
Requirements evolve
Further clarity emerges
Risks show themselves
Dependencies appear
Alignment happens (or does not)
Planning is full of micro-feedback loops. If we respond to them, the plan strengthens. If we ignore them, the plan becomes fantasy (and I've seen my fair share of these).
And crucially: we learn far more once we move into action. Action reveals whether our thinking is sound.
(In the video series I explain that the gap between idea and action is where we do planning, plotting and aligning – a useful activity, but it should not cause delays. Getting into action is essential to bring these plans to life).
Circuit:plans → adjustment → more alignment
3. Activity → Creative Action
Action is where the most valuable learning happens. Work-in-progress and creative action gives constant signals:
Our delivery approach isn’t quite right
The activity set is incomplete (it almost always is)
The thing we’re building behaves differently than we expected
We uncover assumptions we didn’t know we held
We see where understanding or alignment is missing
We get crucial feedback from customers and stakeholders
The team reflect and adapt
Craft is feedback. It shows you what is true inside your system of work — and that can be uncomfortable but incredibly informative.
Build more (and better) feedback into their working practices
Own the outcomes, not blame
Pay attention and correct course
A complete circuit = knowledge formation = capability growth (of people plus the system). And the whole system accelerates.
Feedback is everywhere, but learning only happens when we act on it.
Idea → Value is full of feedback opportunities — from the first spark of an idea to the real outcome after shipping.
Every stage can teach us something. Every friction point can refine judgement and improve decision making. Every unexpected result can strengthen capability.
But only if we complete the circuit.
Feedback → Action → Knowledge → Better Value. That’s the engine. That's the hidden power. That's how we get better every day.
The idea to value system
Go deeper into the craft of delivering value with the Idea → Value System — choose the workbook alone or the full workbook + video course for a richer learning journey.
This week's CSP Video is a short reflection on being vulnerable and sharing - something that came to me whilst watching the Lionesses (England Women's Football team) at St Mary's stadium Southampton - and the tiny three piece band.
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