Business excellence is based on a belief in how value is created in an organisation. Value is created through a cycle of interdependence involving all stakeholders and focused on satisfying customers. All stakeholders have something to contribute and something to gain. The cycle does not function effectively and may even break down if a stakeholder puts in too little or takes out too much.

The Value Cycle runs as a thread throughout business excellence but can be lost in the complexity of the models and language used in its implementation. This is a common criticism raised by users of business excellence models and associated tools and techniques.

Performance Leadership has been developed specifically to address these issues and moves the 'theoretical' principles of business excellence into a practical, results lead approach built on the experiences of leading practitioners and that is progressively implemented based on the needs, developing experience and priorities of users.