Company of Rogue Academics – How to manage a career journey using principles of business strategy
Date: May 11, 2016
Name: Company of Rogue Academics – How to manage a career journey using principles of business strategy
Presenters: Kevin Eng, and Grace Lee
.. Hosted by Dr. Grace Lee, Company of Rogue Academics invites Kevin Eng, the former electrical engineer, to share his journey of pursuing his music career. Grace Lee will share her business principles to help young leaders find the right assets to drive their business growth. In this presentation, young leaders will discover their professional values and develop their business to the top.
Interview with Music Guest
Kevin Eng was an electrical engineer. He involved with many massive government projects. Until one day, Eng left his secure job and began his life of musician. His courage to make this important step of his life motivated many young leaders.
Eng mentions he has a strong fundamental of music background because his parents encouraged him to involve with music when he was young. The main reason he went into engineering is because of financial stability. He gave himself 12 years in engineering to accomplish his goal. After 12 years, Eng changed his life direction and decided to approach his passion of music for his life career.
Grace Lee asks Eng how he communicates his change to others. Eng believes it takes time to fill his commitment, so he tells everyone he is on a break, especially to his father. He worked out a 2 year business plan to clarify his direction with his family.
Many people discover Eng from word of mouth. Eng believes word of mouth takes patience, but it is worth it. Eng indicates the only fear during this transition is the fear of regret. By leaving the stable behind, he needs to stay motivated. Currently, Eng does not expect to get back into engineering. He overcomes the fear by having 6 months of income in advance. He updates his plan on where he expects to go next. In addition, he has accepted himself to be flexible.
“I really enjoy my work and have found my perfect fit”
Eng provides an advice for young leaders to deal the pressure on parents. As long as parents know there is a plan in place, they will understand the change. Most parents are concerned about the finance, so the plan must illustrate how the business looks in the next 5 years. Young leaders need to shape.
The fear of shame can be overwhelmed for young leaders. They need to exhaust all the possibilities first. If not, they need to keep exploring. Eng encourages young leaders to keep working and pursue their passion after work for the first couple of years.
Eng has completed the Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto degree. Eng mentions it is not necessary to have this degree to become a musician. Eng believes the logic and math skills from engineering have helped him in his music career. Many people assume the transition will waste the initial investment, but there are a lot of transitional skills, such as people skills, that can be beneficial. The courage comes from momentum of starting small. Eng finds happiness from building his career from the start. At first, Eng only mentions his change to his family and close friends. He was afraid. If he had the opportunity to change, he would have told everyone so they can help him along the way.
Business strategies in career management from Grace Lee
Lee believes there are 3 stages of people in business: grinders, minders and finders. The higher the stage, the cost and value in business go up. In business, there are 5 important elements to have growth and change.
- Vision
- Skills
- Incentive
- Resources
- Action plan
Lee believes without vision, there will be confusion. Without out skills, there will be anxiety. Without incentive, there will be gradual change. Without resources, there will be frustration and without action plan, it will have false start.
Business Valuation Framework
Lee introduces the asset value model. Young leaders can evaluate their asset value by looking at their profit and times it by their industry multiplier. The profit is their net income, which is historical and measurable. Profits can be found in Balance Sheet, cash and retained earnings. Intangible assets also drive income. The industry multiplier means future profit. The multiplier includes the ratio of the total population over the employed subset.
Many people or companies only concentrate on profit and not multiplier because profit is measureable and actionable. Many people do not know how to measure the multiplier. In addition, they have short term pressure on performance.
Lee believes management looks for profit and investors or analysts look over multipliers. Therefore, people who have interest in the multiplier will want to invest in leaders, yet people who have interest in profit will look for management, not leadership. Both profit and multiplier are different language, but young leaders need to be bilingual. Based on the affect, when leaders are increasing both profit and multiplier, they can quadruple their value.
“Empower, inspiring”
Lee introduces her Valuation Framework. The framework has 3 different levels.
- Growth component
- Industry benchmark
- Risk component
A majority of people compares themselves to the industry, and they often stay at the industry benchmark. In order to move up to growth component, Lee indicates they need to take these 5 steps.
Step #1: Culture, talent, and capability
Step #2: Innovation: system with products
Step #3: Product extension
Step #4: Channel extension
Step #5: Scale the brand
However, they will fall into the risk component level if they fail these 5 factors
Factor #1: Cost control
Factor #2: Revenue management
Factor #3: Asset management
Factor #4: Liabilities management
Factor #5: External factors: political, economic, social
When young leaders manage to control factor 2, 3 and 4, business can be profitable without their presence, which means they have built a sustainable system.
Lee wants young leaders to understand that there are 3 tings that do not make organizations great. The first thing is great people because great people can be sucked into a lousy organization. The second thing is great purpose because many organization set out to make the world better but later die. The last thing is efficiency because people can be efficient at doing things that do not work.
Lee shares her top 10 ways to work on the business.
- Aspire to build an organization where people love coming to work
- Maintain an outward focus on how to better serve customers
- Work on personal transformation before organizational transformation
- Communicate values and vision
- Hold yourself and others to high standards
- Experiment, evaluate, and adapt
- Practice transparency with kindness
- Connect with other leaders and industry experts
- Overflow with gratitude
- Make a profit
“Great organizations have leaders who work on the business, not just in it”