Back in San Francisco I worked with a rockstar associate.
This guy would crank all night.
Be in all the details.
Leave rapid fire, all over it sounding voicemails.
15 years later he’s a middling senior-ish banker.
Bullet Points Aren’t The Job
When I was the Business Unit Manager (yes, BUM, aka staffer) at Goldman…
I got the inside scoop on what the business is really about.
In that one year by far I learned more about the banking business than the rest combined.
Stepping back from the day-to-day of being a banker…
I was responsible for managing bankers seeing clearly what was valued.
“Bankers Aren’t Valued For Efforts…”
One of the BULs (Business Unit Leader, aka group head) said to me.
At first it was a shocking idea.
I’d been working 80-100+ hour workweeks my entire career.
And now he was saying that isn’t valued.
“Nope.”
“What’s valued is the value created in those hours.”
Companies Aren’t Valued On Efforts
Many people talk up how hard they work.
They’re grinding it out.
Hustling.
Doing everything they can.
Most achieve little.
“Don’t confuse activity with achievement,” said coach Wooden.
Sure they get some busy-ness done.
They fire out some emails and move some bullet points around but little value is created.
“A factory worker can move tires from one side of the factory to the other,” my BUL said…
“But no value is created until those tires are bolted to a sold vehicle.”
CEOs Aren’t Valued For Hours Worked
Companies aren’t valued on how many hours the CEO works.
Nor every employee combined.
They’re valued the same way bankers are…
On revenues.
Or otherwise things that advance the vehicle forward.
Many bankers never get this.
Even plenty of smart Harvard Business School types miss this.
They run around talking like they’re earning a grade for class participation…
When, in the end, all that matters to how you’re valued is what you produce.
Models Of Value
In my Do What You Want books and in my Rainmaking Bankers Masterclass I lay out a unique way of looking at your career.
Instead of seeing it as a job title…
e.g. Being the Senior Vice President of Tire Moving Around.
You see your role through four models of value: Resource. Soldier. Phone. And MVP.
It’s a little out there as a framework, but it hones in on what matters most to being valued…
Your sources of value.
Here’s 8 mins from the Rainmaking Bankers Masterclass on being someone of deep unique value:
P.S. You can listen to previously published tracks from this Masterclass here.