Job Concession Valuation Exercise
Price the freedoms your salary currently makes you surrender
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
The exercise begins with monthly take-home pay and treats workplace freedoms as concessions that can be bought back. Price the ability to wear your own clothes, choose your start time, avoid unwanted colleagues, work from home, remove disliked tasks, work only until the required output is complete, control the creative direction, and share in the value you create. Deduct each amount from the salary. The shrinking balance exposes how much the employee is effectively paid to tolerate restrictions rather than perform meaningful work. It also separates dissatisfaction with the work itself from dissatisfaction with its surrounding structure. The result is not an instruction to resign, but a clearer personal valuation of autonomy, control, location, relationships, and upside.
Origin
Chris Williamson runs the exercise with Johnny after describing it as a strategy he has used around a dinner table with people who complain about their jobs.
Core principles
- 01Salary pays for restrictions as well as work
- 02Pricing each restriction reveals what matters most
- 03Autonomy can be worth more than gross pay suggests
- 04A job should be judged by its full lived experience
How to run it
- 1
Set the salary baseline
Start with monthly take-home pay rather than the headline annual gross salary.
Pro tip Use the amount that actually enters your bank account each month.
Watch out A large annual gross number can conceal what each month of time is buying.
- 2
List restricted freedoms
Name the constraints around clothing, schedule, location, colleagues, tasks, output, creative control, and financial upside.
Pro tip Include structural conditions as well as the work itself.
- 3
Price each concession
For every freedom, decide how much monthly pay you would give back to obtain it.
Pro tip Answer one concession at a time so later answers do not hide the value of earlier ones.
Watch out Do not treat every freedom as valuable if it would not materially improve your experience.
- 4
Calculate the effective value
Subtract the priced concessions from take-home pay and inspect what remains.
Watch out The result is a personal valuation, not a forecast of self-employment income.
- 5
Locate the real problem
Decide whether the remaining dissatisfaction comes from the work, the workplace structure, or both.
Pro tip Use that distinction to compare a new employer with self-employment.
In the wild
Starting from roughly £1,200 per month, Johnny gives up portions of the salary for wearing his own clothes, choosing his hours, avoiding people he dislikes, working from home, and being paid for completed work rather than time served. The exercise leaves a much smaller amount attached to a far more autonomous job.
→ The remaining salary shows how strongly he values freedom over the original employment conditions.
Chris describes applying the exercise to someone who hated his office, colleagues, suits, and other restrictions. By the end, the employee was effectively willing to pay rather than continue under the original conditions.
→ The exercise exposed a stronger aversion to the job than the headline salary suggested.
Common mistakes
Comparing annual gross salaries
A headline number ignores tax, monthly time sold, and the value of freedoms surrendered.
Treating the result as a resignation order
The exercise clarifies preferences but does not replace financial preparation or comparison with another job.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for an unhappy employee deciding whether greater autonomy would justify lower or less certain income.
Not ideal for
It is not sufficient for making a resignation decision without also testing financial risk and alternative roles.
From the transcript
“take your own salary and deduct as it's appropriate”
“how much would it be for me to get you to be able to have your wage grow in line with the value that you…”
“he was paying me to go to his job really”
From the episode
Should I Work For Myself? - Business Principles 102 - #106
Business Principles 102