Note: This is an abbreviated version of the MPRP Interpretive Guide. The full guide and materials will of course be available for users of CareerLeader™.

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There is a wide variation in the types of rewards that people value highly in making career decisions. Through the Management and Professional Reward Profile (MPRP) inventory, you create a personal hierarchy of thirteen value dimensions which enable you to identify the work-related rewards that are most meaningful to you. That knowledge will be of central importance as you evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of specific jobs and career paths.

As you look at Jan's MPRP Score Summary you need to know exactly how each reward was defined. The best definition of each dimension is the actual statement you respond to when taking the MPRP:

Financial Gain	The position provides excellent opportunity for exceptional financial reward
Power and Influence	The position offers the opportunity to exercise power and influence (to be an influential decision maker)
Variety	The position offers a great deal of variety in the nature of the work performed
Lifestyle	The position allows ample time to pursue other important aspects of my lifestyle (family, leisure activities, etc.)
Autonomy	The position offers considerable autonomy and independence
Intellectual Challenge	The position offers consistent intellectual challenge.
Altruism	The position offers the satisfaction of regularly helping others with their individual or business concerns
Security	The position offers a great deal of security in terms of predictable salary, benefits, and future employment
Prestige	The position is with an organization that commands a great deal of prestige in its field
Affiliation	The position offers a setting with enjoyable colleagues with whom I feel a sense of belonging
Positioning	The position offers experience and access to people and opportunities that will position me well for my next career move
Managing People	The position offers the opportunity to manage and direct other people
Recognition	The position is in an environment where individual accomplishments are recognized with praise from peers and superiors

The Score Summary provides three types of scores: a Relative Value score, a Value Inclusion indicator, and an overall Inconsistency score. The following explains the meaning of each and something about the implications of various results.

Relative Value. The number in the first column to the right of each work reward indicates the number of times Jan indicated that that reward was more important than the others. The MPRP, just like real life, forces you to make tradeoffs, in this case one reward over another. Because of the forced choice nature of the instrument, you cannot be high on everything.

Jan most highly values the rewards Intellectual Challenge, Financial Gain, Variety and Lifestyle (in that order). She is not, on the other hand, going to get excited about a job because it allows her to help other people (Altruism), provides her with Security, or allows her to Manage People. Note that Relative Value scores do not measure aptitude for the work, ie Jan might be very skilled at managing and directing people, for example; she simply doesn't find it rewarding.

Value Inclusion. This simply tells you whether or not you consider a given reward to be of value at all. Jan, for example, places no value on the rewards of Altruism, Security and Managing People -- not surprising, since they are her three least valued rewards. But she also places no value on the reward of Autonomy, despite the fact that she endorsed it five times over other rewards. This means that Autonomy joins the list of rewards that are of no importance to Jan in an ideal position.

Inconsistency. This score is a measure of the clarity of your work reward values. Jan's Inconsistency Score is in the average range. A more complete discussion of the implications of inconsistency in sorting out your reward values is included in the full Interpretive Guide.

One way to think about MPRP results is as a shopping list. Reward values that are in the very high range (10-12) are "must-haves". You may have to accept a job that does not truly provide for one of these reward dimensions, but if that is the case you will feel that deficiency, and your desire for that reward will continue to shape your career path. Value dimensions having moderately high scores (7-9) can be seen as "good-to-haves," but not deal-breakers. Jan's "must haves," then, are Intellectual Challenge, Financial Gain, Variety and Lifestyle. She is not going to be happy for very long in a position that does not provide those rewards.

In the full CareerLeader™ program we provide expanded explanations of each of the 13 rewards. Here are the two for Jan's most highly valued rewards, Financial Gain and Intellectual Challenge.

• The Financial Gain reward value dimension is not concerned with making money generally -- everyone wants to make a comfortable living. It is concerned with exceptional financial reward. If you rated this dimension highly, you are saying that the opportunity for compensation that is unusually high is a strong source of motivation for you. The actual sum of the compensation is irrelevant: at an early stage in your career it might be a sum that is large compared only to the salaries of people in their early twenties; later on it may be an equity position that brings with it the possibility of substantial wealth. For some people the building of wealth is a central purpose of their careers; for others compensation beyond a certain desired level adds little meaningful value.
  
  
• People who value Intellectual Challenge highly as a reward are saying that they look to work to provide them with challenges and stimulate their thinking. They are problem solvers and are looking for work that provides them with a steady diet of problems that require analytical reasoning. If your score on this dimension is moderate or low it does not mean that you are not at all interested in intellectual pursuits. It certainly is not a measure of intellectual ability. Lower scores may occur when the inventory-taker assumes a high level of intellectual challenge as a baseline in any job being considered and therefore considers it to be a "given" and rates other dimensions more highly. Or, you may be more oriented to action than to thinking about things at a more abstract level.

Both the BCII and MPRP have frequently asked questions sections. We didn't show you any of those with the BCII, but here are 2 of the MPRP questions that Jan might have found useful.

What if two of my values seem to be in conflict with each other?

All of us have dynamic tensions that are part of our psychological make-up: aspects of our personalities that pull us in different directions. There is an inherent dynamic tension that arises from the desire to realize certain reward values combinations. One of the most common is a tension that exists when the Lifestyle reward is highly valued along with Financial Gain and/or Power and Influence. This, for example, is true for Jan. Achieving unusual financial gain, and pursuing roles that bring with them high levels of power and influence within organizations, almost inevitably requires a sacrifice in terms of extended hours devoted to work at the expense of time with families and other meaningful personal pursuits. Nevertheless, it is not unusual to have elevated scores that are evidence of this dynamic tension. Inner tensions are never solved once and for all. The deeper ones are likely to be sources of creative unrest and energy for large stretches of our careers. Chapter 8 of Discovering Your Career in Business deals at length with the role of conflict in the creative unfolding of a career.

I'm thinking about a career in management. Can the MPRP help me decide whether that is right for me?

The short answer to the question is, "Yes." One very general and rough way to think about business careers is in terms of pure management careers and individual contributor careers. Pure management careers are those that are characterized by accomplishing organizational goals by managing and leading other people. As a management career develops success is typically represented by greater authority in relationship to a larger number of people and control over greater amounts of organizational resources. The career of a manager in a Fortune 500 company -- moving from line management in a particular function to middle management and then to general management with cross-functional responsibility -- is a good example of a pure management model career. Individual contributor careers, on the other hand, do not involve direct authority over large numbers of subordinates. They involve the bringing of expert knowledge to business organizations. Career development in the individual contributor model is represented by growing recognition for the value of one's knowledge and expertise, rather than greater control over organizational resources. Investment banking, management consulting and venture capital are examples of industries that are dominated by individual contributor career paths.

The next step is assessing your abilities.