Value vs. (e)valuation
In software and in inner work, the question often arises, what is my personal or corporate value? Value is individually perceived. People and companies with good self esteem value themselves and the work that they do. They often believe they are providing a valuable service with their work and feel good about their contributions.
Valuation, on the other hand, is determined by the market. This is true of a company valuation or a personal evaluation within the company or community.
The difference between these two concepts is really important for people to understand, especially when they are out in the world. An (e)valuation is provided by outside people or groups and is an assessment of a person or company’s value to them, the community or the market.
Let me provide an example. A student in a class works hard, attends class and studies. They have a good self-image and understand that they are an intrinsically valuable human being. They write, what they think is a great paper, and the teacher returns it with a grade of “C”. The student freaks out. They go to meet with the teacher and tell the teacher everything they have been doing to be a great student in the class. Although sympathetic, the teacher stands by their grade and provides the student with tips on how the teacher would like to see future papers. The student leaves in disgust.
The student then has a few choices.
- Be right about it, continue to submit papers in the manner they think is best and continue to receive “C”’s.
- Take the teacher’s feedback into account and change the way they are studying and writing papers and try to improve their grade.
- Leave the class because they realize either they or the class are not a good fit.
What people often do is blame the teacher. If they would just teach better then the student knows they would get better grades. Isn’t the teacher also responsible for transmitting the teaching in a way that I can understand? Blah, blah, blah.
Get Arthur Lawida’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The problem is the final arbiter of the success of the student in that class is the teacher. Whatever mental gymnastics the student goes through doesn’t matter to the criteria of assessment.
What many people do is ignore this reality. They live in a world where the world “should” be the way they think is fair and just. Instead of coming to grips with what they need to do to be successful in the world that exists, they judge the world by their own subjective standards and thereby suffer.
This is also true for evaluations within a corporate setting and company valuations. In a company, it is the supervisor that assesses the success of the employee. The criteria they use can be fair or not, but in the end, it is the criteria and judgment that matters in the assessment.
In my experience, good people fail at companies for three reasons.
- They don’t work hard or have the discipline to succeed. This is a difficult thing to work with because I believe some of these traits are learned early in life and are difficult to change.
- Their personal expertise isn’t aligned with the role they have taken on. This happens due to either a misunderstanding of the role or a misalignment of their talents as applied to the role.
- The company’s mission doesn’t align with their personal values and mission. They end up just not caring enough and opt out or get let go.
As for company valuations, the market determines the price. I have worked for companies that had $28 billion valuations on $75 million in revenue and others that had a $1 billion valuation on $1 billion in revenue. The people in both of those companies were good, hard working people with commitment and intelligence. Their hard work obviously wasn’t the only thing that created the valuation. It was hard work + timing + luck + a great idea + lots of vision. Valuation, especially in the tech industry, has its own rules that must be followed.
The purpose of this article is really to point out that we all need to do our best to understand the reality in which we find ourselves. What are the criteria and rules we will be assessed by and what is the game we are playing? Once we understand that we can move on to the role we are being asked to play and see if it is a good fit for our skills, values and desires.
The important thing is that once you choose to participate, you realize that you do not make the rules. You can decline to participate and/or make a game of your own where the rules are different but then you are bound by new rules and a new reality. There are so many dimensions of existence happening simultaneously that we will never have all of the information so the important thing is to find an idea you can align with, find a group of people that share your values, understand the rules, stay flexible, work in a disciplined way and live each moment to its fullest. Success, like life itself, is a gift and gratitude for the opportunity to participate is the key to happiness in any role.
