Last week I gave a virtual talk to a group of Black mid-career professionals. I titled the talk “Leading with Influence” and provided ten tips for navigating Corporate America as one of two Black male senior leaders globally at the company where I work. I provided the usual tips, like “Know your stuff,” “Take Ownership,” and “Be Authentic,” paired with war stories from my career to make them real. Interestingly, every time a participant pushed me on how to really put this advice into practice, I found myself saying: All these tips are easier to implement when you feel good about your wealth. Taken further, work is easier with wealth.
Work is hard enough already for Black professionals. Fifty-eight percent of us have reported encountering racial prejudice at work, and 65% of us agree we have to “work twice as hard” and actually be twice as good in order to advance. This (among many other factors) is why wealth creation is so important.
Work is easier with wealth because the wealth you create is akin to a competitive moat you’ve built around yourself as protection from the vagaries of any employer. I liken it to Porter’s Five Forces.
Porter’s Five Forces is a framework companies use to analyze their competitive position in the market. Michael Porter first offered this model in his classic Harvard Business Review article from 1979 called “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy.”
The model utilizes five competitive forces (see image below) that affect every industry. In this post we’ll look briefly at each of these five forces but through the eyes of ourselves as companies in the business of wealth creation. We’ll ultimately distill all this information down into five ways work is easier with wealth.
Work is easier with wealth because you become the buyer of work and strengthen your bargaining power
Porter’s first force is the BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS. It holds that powerful customers (buyers) can use their clout to affect prices (either up or down) and capture more value for themselves. As professionals in the labor market, we receive conditioning to think of ourselves not as buyers of work but as sellers of labor (productivity) to an employer. The employer extracts our labor in exchange for money. We then use that money to consume. And the cycle goes on and on while we worry about getting fired.
We should instead think of ourselves as buyers of work from and employer. Wealth creation makes that possible. We can be more discerning about the work we purchase from whom and at what price. A strong wealth foundation helped me “buy” a new employer when I needed to. I also grew my overall compensation by 63% and can do the same for you.
You can supply your labor less, when you ultimately do, you can do so on your terms
Porter’s second force is the BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS. Here, companies focus on how easily suppliers in their industry can drive up the price of inputs. As professionals, I liken this force to how much strength you have on the other side of the buying equation. How much power do you have when you need work as a life input? Because of the many barriers Black professionals face in the workplace, I argue that our power is lower than it should be.
Wealth creation can help. It can help us more easily and boldly stand up for pay and level equity in our current work. It can help withstand potentially long bouts of unemployment. 73% of Black Americans who cannot go more than three months without a paycheck. Don’t be one of them! And it can help us be more discerning about the labor we ultimately decide to supply.
You worry less about the “threat of new entrants”
Companies spend a great deal of time and resources protecting against the third force: THE THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS. In industry, new players can force incumbents to lower prices and/or spend more to retain customers, thereby threatening profitability and even long-term viability. As employed professionals, the threats we face are no different. And they are everywhere. Corporate restructurings, layoffs, politics, generational shifts, and the many barriers to Black advancement we discussed are all threats that we must navigate and neutralize.
You guessed it; wealth creation becomes vital here. Having wealth provides a sense of security that can improve your mental and your physical health. Health and wealth are inextricably linked.
You worry less about your employer getting rid of you
Porter’s fourth force is about the THREAT OF SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. In business speak, profitability suffers when a new product or service can meet a customer’s basic needs in a differentiated way. In personal speak, you may suffer when your employer “makes you redundant” – if you’re not prepared.
Having wealth softens what can inevitably feel like a harsh blow and buys you time to recover.
Work is easier with wealth because you may find it easier to be authentic at work if that’s what you want
Porter’s final force covers RIVALRY AMONG EXISTING COMPETITORS. When there are many competitors in a space, it is hard to capture outsized profits because many firms are competing for the same customers. This drives down prices and raises costs. As employed professionals, I liken this to competing with co-workers.
I did a Google search for “competing with coworkers” and it only took half a second to return 75.8 million results on the topic! I assume we can all relate! Again, with wealth in the bank, coworkers simply matter less unless you decide otherwise. This is particularly important for Black professionals who know all too well the costs of code-switching at work. There’s a not insignificant part of self that we may forsake to get ahead. Wealth creation can help turn this on its head, allowing you more authenticity and sense of self at work.
And there you have it – the five ways work is easier with wealth.
What other ways could work be easier for you with wealth?