Excel is the most dangerous weapon available to an aspiring carierist, I have accidentally used it myself to a great advantage. To understand this phenomenon you have to look at the world though the eyes of a manager: they have tons of smart people coming up with tons of interesting but not well-articulated or substantiated ideas - heavy on opinion light on tangibles. How can a manager pick good ideas out of endless stream? If he understood what you do he wouldn't need you to be there. So if you show up with actual data in Excel they love you right away.