Lesson 59: Understand the Definition of “Value-adding”

Creating more value for your employer than it costs to keep you is just the beginning. That is more of a “break even” way to think about your job. Instead, think about how your net value to the company is the difference between the money they can make off of you and your cost to them. The higher the profit margin on you, the more valuable you are to the organization.

Lesson 58: What about Passion?

Employees and students often ask where the “passion” is in this definition of jobs. After all, they say, if I’m passionate about the job, isn’t it more likely that I’ll be more interested, happier, and do better work?

Lesson 57: You Are Part of Money Making Mechanisms

Your value to any organization is as a potential asset that is worth more than your cost to the organization. For most business organizations, their simple goal is to make money by providing a service or product. For political organizations, it is to raise money to gain power (and oftentimes to use their power to raise money…

Lesson 56: Who Is Leveraging Whom – Mergers and Acquisitions?

Now let’s return to the example of Rupert Murdoch, who seems to have overpaid for a newspaper and two sports teams.

Murdoch is doing the equivalent of the consulting firm leveraging Corinne, only using companies rather than people. Plus, his end game is different. To understand why he would pay an additional $2 billion for the Wall Street Journal, we need to analyze past deals.

Lesson 55: Who Is Leveraging Whom – Employers or Employees?

Now let’s return to one of our examples in the previous Lesson and take a closer look.

Corinne, our 26-year-old MBA graduate, is thrilled with her $180,000 salary. Not only is it well above the average of her graduating class, it will help her pay down her $120,000 MBA debt more quickly. On top of all this, she will work for one of the premier firms and get great experience across multiple industries. So, we know what she’s getting from the deal, and on its surface, it sounds pretty good.

Lesson 54: Leverage: The Physics of Business

Let’s consider a few case studies:

Corinne, a 26-year-old MBA graduate from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, received a starting job offer of $180,000 at one of New York’s leading consulting firms. This is about three times what her roommates who did not go to graduate school are making. Who in their right mind would pay a 26-year-old $180K?

Lesson 53: Your Value Is in What You Do

At this point, many career advice books suggest that you take an inventory of what you bring to the world of work in order to figure out what you have and what is unique to you. Many career coaching books will tell you to list your skills, abilities, the disciplines that you are expert in…

Lesson 52: Dreams versus Assets

Most of us think about pursuing our dreams, as well we should. Dreams are powerful motivators. Equally important to consider is the reality that results from pursuing the dream. Once you have your unique assets in place, what are the chances for success?

Lesson 51: You are a Unique Bundle of Assets

You are a unique human being. No one else is even close. No one thinks or sings or laughs or even gets mad like you. Your many talents, the variety of your life experiences, and your range of emotions make you one-of-a-kind.