Job security is a desire common to many employees, yet full security remains an elusive goal in almost any endeavor. Patti and Jack Phillips, in this book, show how to calculate the value of your work so that you can communicate its value to decision-makers in a business setting. This value is called “Return on Investment” (or ROI, for short) and provides a business case for your labor. If you honestly contribute more than you take and can show it clearly, then your efforts are likely to continue ahead.

The Phillips couple together runs the ROI Institute and teach how to ascertain ROI to many fields. They divide the process into seven finite steps:

Showing the value
Why? (Impact)
How? (Choosing)
What? (Objectives)
How much? (Data collection)
What’s it worth? (Analysis)
So what? (Application)

They provide a basic business plan for how to construct this analysis, along with a multitude of use cases that demonstrate the methodology. Their writing is concise and clear, and they do not waste words on unnecessary motivational coaching. Their perspective is one of result-oriented business, not of analytic science. They are interested in making a pragmatic business case, not in the technical details of a given step.

This book does not do everything, of course. It does not go into expansive detail about individual items, nor does it provide a list of resources for a deeper dive. Further, it doesn’t tread on much new conceptual ground. ROI calculations are fairly standard in today’s business climate, thanks to the efforts of people like the Phillips. What this book does do is provide a concise, well-thought-out plan to calculate ROI for those who are new to this methodology.

At some juncture, almost every worker will have to answer the question of how to communicate their worth/value to others. This approach provides a solid conceptual framework and action plan for doing so. While sometimes running at a negative ROI has benefits (e.g., when a very positive ROI is expected in the future), a numerical ROI is a short, helpful way to defend a project’s or a person’s value to the business. Further, as the authors note, using their process to calculate a negative ROI can shed light on strategies to transform the project into a positive ROI. Overall, Patti and Jack Phillips provide a solid, uncomplicated method that can be used for business applications all over the map. ( )