Spice Up Your Value
Joe Kwon ?????
Transcend statistics, increase belonging, and unlock higher performance ? Everybody Thrives Academy ? Author of "Unlock Your Executive Presence" ? Keynote speaker ? Podcast host
Perhaps it's my copious consumption of science fiction, but every once in a while an article about robots and AI replacing humans freaks me out! Technology moves faster than ethics and faster still than government, so I'm not holding my breath for a job savior. In the past, manufacturing jobs have been a common casualty of technology, but increasingly even knowledge workers such as lawyers are on the chopping block. Please, hold your applause! It hurts my feelings. :p
My nightmare is to end up like this guy, with two "Efficiency" hawks perched across the table.
Question: "What would you say... you do here?"
Answer: "I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS!!!"
"But wait, Joe, I make professional judgments that a computer is not qualified to make. Or wait, the quality I deliver from my years of learning X craft cannot be easily replicated by a non-human."
To which I would say, you are probably right. And I hope you continue to be right for the foreseeable future. However, history shows us that perceived value can change drastically. During the Middle Ages peppercorns were worth more than gold. In fact, peppercorns were accepted as legal currency, like a ducat. l love the sound of that word. Say it with me, "ducat." But seriously, even today the Dutch have an expression, "pepeduur," which means "pepper expensive" and is used to describe something very pricey.
Pepper and other spices played an early role in the success of what many consider the first multinational corporation - Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or as it is known in the English-speaking world, the Dutch East India company. It was the first company to issue stock, which was traded in Amsterdam in the first open-air stock market. The VOC monogram was possibly the first globally-recognized corporate logo, stamped on various corporate items ranging from cannons to coins. Based on feedback from a Dutch colleague, I should note that the VOC's historical accomplishments are accompanied by criticisms surrounding the company's commercial monopoly, business practices and social impacts.
At its height, the VOC was the most valuable company in history - when adjusted to today's dollars it was worth $7.4 trillion dollars. In comparison, in early 2017, one of, if not the most valuable companies in the world, Apple, has a market capitalization of around $700 billion dollars. The pepper in our pantry must not have gotten the memo because while spices are not cheap, they certainly aren't worth their weight in gold anymore.
So what can lessons can we learn from the humble peppercorn, which went from local spice, to empire builder, to sale item at the local grocery?
Lesson #1. Value is not fixed, but temporary. This is the most important lesson. Your value can change at any moment. There are market forces outside your control that can drastically influence the way your services are valued. This may seem obvious, but if you really stop and think about this, it is a sobering fact.
"So what are some of the factors that might affect the value of my services?"
Lesson #2. New is valuable. Do your services address a new and growing need?
Lesson #3. Rare is valuable. How easy is it to find someone or something (e.g., a robot or program) to do your work?
Lesson #4. Pleasing is valuable. In what way do your services improve life for customers, your boss and the company?
Lesson #5. In demand is valuable. Just being rare does not create value if no one wants what you have to offer. But when something is rare, coupled with high demand, the price people are willing to pay skyrockets.
So while we can't stop progress or technology, we can take some time to think deeply about how our own value is generated. We can take steps to grow in a way that generates more value. This might include learning new skills or shifting roles or industries. As an advanced tactic, we can perceive trends as they are happening, anticipate new areas of value and position ourselves to take advantage ahead of time. I will spare you the fantastic, but fantastically overused Wayne Gretzy quote. Instead, I'll leave you with this...
What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others?
It's the gift of anticipation. And I'm a good servant. I'm better than good. I'm the best. I'm the perfect servant.
I know when they'll be hungry and the food is ready. I know when they'll be tired and the bed is turned down. I know it before they know it themselves.
~Mrs. Wilson, from the movie Gosford Park
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7 年I shall try to weave ducats into my conversation today, or maybe even throw in a fabulous doubloon! Thank you for this interesting viewpoint Joe; I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I didn't know much about pepper but knew a fair bit about salt; how it was taxed to raise money for the monarchy and, at the banqueting table, the more powerful/influential you were, the closer you sat to the "Great Salt."
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7 年You forgot to add that some humans look better in Hawaiian shirts than computers do.
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7 年Fun read, thank you Joe. I agree that the AI fold into average jobs is frightening to some degree.
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7 年Great perspective on staying ahead of the curve. Thanks for writing, Joe.
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7 年Thx Joe, enjoyed the read and some Dutch background. Of course the VOC was a "good" and yet painful part of the Dutch history. But besides from that, the definition of value is linked to time. It is the combination of time, people, technology and data. The only constant in value is change. So is change the only value which will survive time? Yes it is, if we can't adobt to what markets, people or even our planet is demanding we are doomed to fail. As to the modern age, don't be freaked out by AI, fintech etc... It will, if we can adobt in the right way, bring us prosperity on a global scale. But of course we need the context to be set. Global political situation and the attached "pains" are the biggest contraints in value (change). Governments only look as far as their years they sit in the big chair. In The Netherlands for instance 4 years. But change is constant so the whole political system is questionnable. Can you embrace the value of change if you can't look further than 4 maybe 8 years? Bringing it to the micro level, the person whithin the system. Same story if you can't adapt your mindset and still think the old world is the way it should work, you are most likely to be alone at some point, stuck in an never changing ideology. It links to your point about anticipation. Change is anticipation of what was created in the past and needs to be adjusted to fit the future. Pepper is a funny illustration but it could also have been Nokia, Kodak, physical shops versus online shops, banks versus small agile internet banks etc... They all were missing the point in time where they had to change for the future in order to survice. Conclusion: Embrace change and anticipate or you will have a "dark" future ahead...