http://awakeningcenter.blogspot.com/2017/08/one-word-plastics.html

Join a Growth Industry

This 1967 lesson in “The Graduate” remains relevant today. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Live a Great Life

Establish your priorities for life. What is negotiable or non-negotiable? How much is incremental income, wealth and financial security worth to you and your family?

Invest

The opportunity to own your own firm is greater today than ever before. Entrepreneurship is a high risk/high reward option. It requires a financial investment. Internet partners are ready to provide most support services. Licensing and franchising provide other options. Niche products and services have a global market.

Trade-offs

How many hours? Physical risks? Work the firm’s top priority every minute? Firm risks – seasonality, stability, leverage, industry risk, start-up. Serve as a representative for a group? Grey ethics, whatever it takes? Consultant, gig worker, cross-team, project member.

Profession

Degree(s), time, cost, intern, resident, trainee, junior, dues, investment, licensed, certified, valued, next best option for firms, international outsourcing, AI outsourcing.

Talent

The very best of the best. Creative, sports, intellectual, selling, persuading, appearance, arts, counselling, investing. Ability to leverage business wins. Ability to monetize output broadly.

Managing

Managing the conflicts between people and tasks. Great managers are well compensated for buffering between these contrasting forces. Adequate managers “get by” or are demoted in competitive industries.

Analysis

STEM skills applied are highly valued today. Specialized “analyst” skills. Technocracy. Problem-solving in unstructured situations. Choosing the right tool to structure the situation so that a decision is clear. Analysis applied to large value deals, decisions, contracts and acquisitions. Strategic choices, competitive advantage, sustainable moats, value extraction.

Sales

Customers have choices. They value quality, speed, flexibility, features, price, ease of doing business, risk reduction and personal relationships (QSFVIP). Great salespeople are well compensated for connecting a firm’s value proposition to customers in a sticky fashion. They play the game in 3 dimensions: firm, customer and salesperson. Commissioned sales and agent models. New business acquisition.

Influence/Politics

Communications skills. Relationship skills. Influence skills. Negotiating skills. Political relationships applied – internally and externally.

“Rent” from Specific Skills, Knowledge, or Relations

Industry, firm, profession, language, international, expert, technical, customer, regulator, supplier, or consultant knowledge, understanding, influence. A combination of skills required for a role. Holding a position in the firm.

Responsibility

Raise your hand. Manager. Project manager. Project member. Value added leader for new products, customer markets, structures and processes. Line manager in a measurable success role. Resource manager for broadly defined suppliers, customers or staff resources. Second level or higher management role responsible for results largely beyond your control.

Leadership

A mythical beast. Charisma. IQ. Confidence. Elite education and experience. Progressive successful role. General management ability to lead multiple functions, teams, divisions, geographies, product lines without being an expert. Social status and ease.

Summary

We live in a complex world of many firms, products and services competing for the attention of consumers. Firms employ people to make sales and profits. Firms employ people who they believe provide them with the greatest “marginal product of labor”, the greatest value added. Firms pay as little as they can. Their interest is to employ labor for less than their marginal value added and capture the difference. Set your moral limits. Work on your own. Determine the best path to be a value-added resource. Pick an industry. Pick a profession. Exploit your own extreme talents, sales, influence, specific knowledge, analysis, responsibility or general management abilities. No one has ALL of these skills. You have some talents. Leverage your talents.

I started writing this article thinking about the ratio of incomes of large firm CEOs to shop floor/outsourced workers. It has risen from 20X to 300X to 2,000X through time. Beginning with “essential workers” as the baseline, somewhere between the effective $10/hour minimum wage, and the $20/hour median income, others earn incomes in the US many times above the median. What incremental value do they provide to their firms or to society? in “order of magnitude” terms, I think that hours and flexibility are worth 50%. Professional, management, analysis, sales, influence and specific knowledge add 100% each, or 250% in combination. “Higher level” responsibility and leadership skills add another 200-300% of added value, reaching a combined 500-600% premium above median incomes (IMHO).

Historian Will Durant emphasized the need for all civilizations to incentivize their most talented individuals to engage in the work that coheres and advances their lives. First, political unity, commitment and loyalty. Second, material progress. Our society must be attractive and deeply engage the top 20%, 10%, 5%, and 1%. Does this require a 5X income advantage? 20X? 200X? 2,000X?

We currently live in a “winner takes all” society that is comfortable with 1,000X discrepancies between the winners and the workers. Is this required to incentivize the “best and the brightest” to work hard to provide incremental value for society? I think not. This is a political choice we have accepted since Reagan. Our society is incredibly productive because it is comprised of productive and highly educated individuals. The political choice of how much the most successful people retain is a separate issue.