Knowing if you are value-adding to your company's success?

Why would you want to know if you are a value-adding component of your organization? At least for the following two reasons; first is simply to know where you stand in respect to job security, future opportunities including promotion, new challenges and remuneration. The second is to know, for personal development reasons, whether your role actually means anything to anyone, including yourself.

I decided to write on this topic taking into account the economic challenges we are facing in the world today. Many people are being made redundant, there is concern about where new jobs will come from and on top of that there is an issue where the meaning of many roles is becoming very unclear, adding stress to the human resource system.

Without going too deep into the concepts of personal development, engagement and satisfaction from your role within your company I wanted to address the more immediate concern of job security, value of knowledge and skills and future employment prospects. What we are finding in the current economic climate is that many roles are no longer needed and this is leading to either redundancies, people being let go, lack of pay rises or indeed pay reductions. Many of us are finding it hard to cope because lets face it, Gen Y and late Gen Xers have never worked in this kind of environment. We would have never thought that "my skills and knowledge is obselete" and in fact we have something in common with the older generations and their 'job for life concept'. So the question is just how valuable to your organization are your skills and knowledge?

You have to start by being completely honest and looking at both the direction society and your organization is moving. If you have a niche skill, is the demand for that going to continue in the future. An example of this is mortgage broking...sure it will continue to be needed but not to nearly the same degree. The bottom line is that you cannot think your skills will always be needed by your employer, but you also have to remember that they will not tell you that until it's too late.

To be able to ensure your job is safe and be able to request any rise in remuneration you have to make sure you are fulfilling a demand - a demand by both the organization and society. This is the only way to know you are a value-adding component. The work I undertake with my clients is around this very matter...determining the value of someone's current skills and knowledge both now and in the future. Plus more importantly determing what skills and knowledge will be required.

So ask yourself two questions; firstly could my organization replace me easily if I decided to leave today and secondly, what would it mean to my organization's bottom line and performance if my role no longer existed? Answering these honestly will give you a good indication of where you stand. What you then do about it is up to you.

A business or career begins with a dream...but succeeds from a solid foundation

I'm not sure if it's due to the recent economic crisis...actually let me say economic events as I don't want to be another conveyor of doom and gloom, but I have been reassessing my own skills and personal resources recently. Purpose? To discover what I actually know and what value I provide to society. What I have found in fact is a bit of a wake up call in that whilst I do know certain things I perhaps thought I know more than I actually do.

I'll be the first to admit I have some great career goals in respect to the businesses I want to develop. Lots of goals and objectives supported by motivations but the one thing I needed to do was assess whether I had the ability, knowledge and experience to achieve the goals I wanted when I wanted. Let me tell you it's an interesting exercise to undertaken, particularly when you are brutally honest with yourself.

Let's take for example you want to run a consulting business and you think you know enough to succeed. Can you answer the following questions in a positive way:

1. Do you know more than 80% of competitors?
2. Have you validated the knowledge you need to know to succced?
3. Have you confirmed the above with your potential customers?
4. You might have 'consulting' knowledge but do you have 'financial performance' management knowledge? (that is, the knowledge to run your company finances)
5. Have you undertaken a risk assessment on the impact to your business of negative events e.g. economic downturn. Has this been validated?

See the thing is, it doesn't matter if you are smart as a 'subject matter expert' and have a great dream to go out on your own - if you don't build a solid foundation behind you then you will not succeed. Likewise, you definitely need a great dream to succeed but it is only the start. Failure is achieve by being under-prepared and it is not hard in this fast-paced world to indeed be caught short.

Don't get confused by 'buzz' words on job descriptions

Right now you might have a great idea for a business or have just read an unbelievable job spec for a new role. The feeling you have might be incredibly positive and you are feeling upbeat and eager to explore these opportunities. But ask yourself why do you feel this way?

It is important to be motivated but more importantly it is important to use that motivation to undertake the research necessary when exploring new business or career opportunities. There are a number of reasons why an opportunity might seem attractive but there are also many reasons why not be get confused by an opportunity you do not accurately or correctly understand. It is always easier to walk into something than walk out.

It just so happened to be MBA bashing day on the blogs attached to an article on Marketwatch. Of course with the upheaval in financial markets MBAs were always going to receive some blame in respect to the mess created by the financial engineering that took place. However like all of us MBAs are also people looking to further their career, perhaps be involved in something meaningful and challenging whilst providing for their families. Hey, sure some greed is involved and in this case a disaster has occurred but no one has ever said human beings are perfect. I digress a little, but the point I wanted to make is that many jobs are not what they seem to be. They promise a lot and offer very little - perhaps they offer a lot of money but nothing else. Many of my friends in investment banking would perhaps agree with me....then again after working 18 hour days they may be too tired to read this blog.