Return on Investment

When I teach Organizational Behavior (OB), MBA students with a background in finance or accounting usually groan. Too soft. No numbers. It couldn’t be further from the truth. The basic assumptions of finance often apply to OB as well. Let’s use the topic of work-life balance as an example - you should make strategic decisions on where to invest your time and energy based on Return on Investment (ROI).

This principle is simple. Invest your time and energy in the life domains that give you most reward in return. It can be challenging to determine what the ROI in each life domain is, but not impossible. Here is a clear versus murkier situation.

Meetings. Spending hours and hours in meetings where you leave not knowing which decisions were made or what action points need to be taken. Now, I am notoriously allergic to large meetings, so determining the ROI is simple for me. Not worth my time. I walk during faculty meetings. I fold laundry during committee meetings. I will even roll clay beads for my son’s bracelet business, so that I have something to do that helps me listen. Because I know my personal ROI on poorly run meetings is very low, I try to make the best of it by multi-tasking and I only do committee work that I find purposeful.

Now let’s do a murky one. My role as Academic Director for the FT MBA program. This role is comparable to that of a quality manager. The goal is to keep both students and instructors happy and ensure the quality of the program. If that is still too abstract, here is a day in the life of an Academic Director.

On Friday night, I drive home depleted. I spent the largest part of the day talking to students. Some much needed, but difficult conversations were had. The day started with an extra information meeting about the upcoming leadership retreat. The students had various valid concerns. I explained the logic behind each decision.

In the second meeting I convey various concerns from instructors to students, such as students arriving late for class or not preparing for class. Many are taken aback, some show understanding. A few even express their support openly. In both meetings, I have done my best. But it is unclear how many students are upset versus happy. I have no idea what the return on this investment is.

This becomes clearer during my class after both meetings. About fifteen students stick around until 5:30pm. We are supposed to discuss the progress of their consulting project. Instead, a few students politely ask for a clarification on course fees. It is a complex answer, for which I need to use the whiteboard. But the students eventually all understand. The situation is not ideal, I explain. There is an odd honest, safe vibe in the room, which is why students ask more questions and share more concerns, all polite, all valid. I listen to them carefully, and then share some of the administrative restrictions I operate with. I see fifteen light bulbs switching on. One by one. “Why are you doing this job?”, one student asks, “It sounds impossible to do it right”.

I ask myself this question many times a year. I do it for the students I can help. Those who have urgent family matters and need an adjusted program. Those who are doing their best but feel overburdened and need someone to talk to. I do it for the few program improvements I can make. Many hours of my workweek go to meetings with students, instructors, and team members. And it generally pays off. Even though I don’t know how to put a number on lightbulb moments, or on a thank-you email from a student. But as long as there are more lightbulb moments and thank-you emails than sleepless nights, I will keep going.

The trick is to determine your own ROI on the various work, family, and leisure activities you do. Some of them you might have to do. Most of us need a paycheck. Some of us need to get the screaming toddler home. But it does not mean that you have no freedom at all in focusing more on the things that do give you energy within your job or within your home life. It might be as simple as starting the day with an activity or task you love, or ending the day with it to reward yourself.

It can also help to think about some tasks as an investment with a delayed return. Because that screaming toddler you carried home and calmed down, now knows a boundary, which makes it more likely that these tantrums stop. Or, all those tedious meetings you sat through eventually result in change. The key is to keep track of the balance between your investment and returns. And to pivot and focus your energy elsewhere if this balance isn’t there.