I don’t usually post again so soon (I just posted last night!) but was driven to do so by Keith Ferrazzi’s excellent
blog today “
10 Ways to Become Indispensable at Work”. No matter if you work for yourself, or for a large company, these concepts can be applied to making yourself valuable to your business (and personal) stakeholders. I cannot (and don’t even want to try) to improve on it. Here it is, reprinted in its entirety:
Forget your job title. The way to become indispensable at work is to add value beyond your job description. Starting today, you’ve got to figure out what exceptional expertise you’re going to master that will provide real value to your network and your company.
Here are ten tips to help you on your way toward becoming an expert:
1. Get out in front and analyze cutting-edge trends and opportunities. Identify the people in your industries who always seem to be out in front, and use all the relationship skills you’ve acquired to connect with them. Also, read, read, read!. Eventually, you’ll start making connections others aren’t.
2. Ask seemingly stupid questions. If you ask questions that are like no other, you get results that are unlike any that the world has seen. How many people have the courage to ask those questions? The answer: all the people responsible for the greatest innovations.
3. Know yourself and your talents. Overcome weaknesses by developing an expertise that highlights your strengths. The trick is not to work obsessively on the skills and talents you lack, but to focus and cultivate your strengths so that your weaknesses matter less.
4. Always learn. You have to learn more to earn more. Your program of self-development should include reading books and magazines, listening to educational tapes, attending three to five conferences a year, taking a course or two, and developing relationships with the leaders in your field.
5. Stay healthy. Research has discovered that at mid-afternoon, due to sleep deprivation, the average corporate executive today has the alertness level of a seventy-year-old. You think that executive is being creative or connecting the dots? Not a chance. You have to take care of yourself—your body, mind, and spirit—to be at your best.
6. Expose yourself to unusual experiences. Knowing one’s own industry and one’s native markets is not enough to compete in the future. Take a deep and boundless curiosity about things outside your own profession and comfort zone.
7. Don’t get discouraged. Guess what—when you’re rocking the boat, there will always be people who will try and push you off. There will be continual changes and challenges requiring you to be persistent and committed. Focus on the results and keep your eyes open for what is happening on the edges of your industry.
8. Know the new technology. You don’t need to be a “techno geek,” but you do need to understand the impact of technology on your business and be able to leverage it to your benefit. Adopt a techno geek, or at least hire or sire one.
9. Develop a niche. Successful small businesses that gain renown establish themselves within a carefully selected market niche that they can realistically hope to dominate. Individuals can do the same thing. Think of several areas where your company underperforms and choose to focus on the one area that is least attended to.
10.Follow the money. Creativity is worthless if it can’t be applied. The bottom line for your content has to be: This will make us more money. Great ideas are meaningless in business until someone pays for it.
“The graveyards are filled with indispensible men…”
--- Joe Famalette, enterprise management genius