Learning is the "How"

Everyone wants to make more money in their work and know that they are secure. As a business owner they want to keep growing and improve their business. So how does knowledge tie into that? People’s careers and owner’s business stop improving when they stop learning. We have heard that before. So what type of learning is key? Any learning. The only way for a career or a company to grow is through new ideas and new knowledge applied.

You want a new raise, new sales goals or even just to hang on to your job – then get learning. Continuing to add value to your clients, your co-workers and your industry is how you grow. So you need new ideas and ways to offer new value. It all comes from reading a book, listening to an audio tape, reading a periodical, checking out online resources. It is more about what you can bring to the table with your mind than it is your hands for most of us. If you never show up with a new idea or engage in a new strategy/tactic in your career or business, how do you expect to continue to add value? Not sure what to learn. Ask your boss, ask your clients.

Fresh businesses and fresh people are always learning and applying in their work.

Gratitude is Key

With all the talk of economic slowdown (whether you choose to participate or not), now is a great time to focus on time tested keys that can help you and your organization. Gratitude is key because, first, it strengthens relationships. When you consistently let clients and customers know you appreciate them and thank them for their business they come back. What they buy may vary but they become more and more loyal through strong gratitude. Secondly, gratitude is terrific for focusing your organization and team on what is going well. It can also be just for you in your own role. What is going well? What are you grateful for?

TIP...

Start to list off all of the things that still are advantageous and you are lucky to have. People feel better. Teams come together. It builds morale in a company quickly. Is gratitude part of your staff meetings?

Finally, as you talk about what you are grateful for you focus on opportunity. Opportunities are available in all economic conditions. Many people stop trying to see them. Starting with gratitude about last year’s big sales, great clients and big wins can spur the conversation of where this year’s opportunities will lie. Take time to work gratitude into your daily routine (a thank you card a day) and that of your team’s (team meetings, announcement, rituals).

Take Notice then Take Notes

In your work, what do you know about your peers, your boss or your team? Do you have any information on them personally? Do you actively look for ways to build relationship and enhance your daily work experience? So often people say, well when someone takes an interest in me then I'll take an interest in them. Unfortunately, if you want an interest taken in you, you need to go out and take an interest first. Give to get. Want to create value so that your job, your department or your company are so valuable that you can never be fired, downsized or fail? Go after all the relationships you can. Internally and externally. Sure performance is still important but when combined with strong relationship it is unbreakable. Your clients, co-workers and employees will go the extra mile only when they know you, like you and share with you.

Try this. Take time each week and call a client and talk to them. Not about the product/service but about them. Sure, it will seem strange the first week but you will get it soon enough. Just call and talk. Start with the weather and have 5 other generic topics to cover. Now go do the same things with someone in your office. Just go to their office and talk - about them!! Not for 2 hours but for 10 minutes. Learn something new about that person. Finally, log the information in a database or on a notepad. Why? Because we can't keep all the details about every person in our head! Yes, cheat a little. Cheat with the notes but be sincere in expanding your work relationships every week.

BUSY-NESS IS NOT GOOD BUSINESS

Too many people in too many companies judge someone’s performance based on how busy they appear to be. I have worked in offices where someone’s job appeared to be filling up the 8 hours with whatever they could. Stay busy, your head down and no one gets hurt. It is a crazy way to operate but its more common than it should be.

Strong organizations realize that busy doesn’t count for much. They take steps to establish other ways to judge performance. They evaluate and measure actual outputs or impact on clients to see where value is being created. As an entrepreneur, what is your company measuring?

As an individual, how are you finding a balance between busy and effective at work? How are you maximizing your impact? Let me offer some ideas:

Start your day with what is important. This means look at what is important for you to do and start with it first. No! Not after you check voicemail and emails. Before you do anything else, get to what is important to you and your company or client. The major pitfall of most people at work is starting with items that appear urgent or are easy to tackle like emails. But email is rarely the most important thing. People get working on miscellaneous items and suddenly its 4pm and they never got to the work they needed to.

Secondly, most people think their time is dictated by others. Actually there is only one person that controls your time, you. When the phone rings, you pick it up. When someone walks into your office, you allow them in or to stay. You have the ability to choose where you start, how long you work on something, what your priority is. Owning your time and explaining to others around you how you are going to be spending it is critical.

Start your day with what is important and watch your productivity rise. Your new focus will make you a stand-out in the crowd of busy-ness.

SPEAK UP!

In my experience with corporate environments, often the loudest voice is really just the biggest opinion and not always the facts. In your workplace, if you have an idea, an ambition or a passion you need to pursue it. You may run into people who don’t see the same opportunity or vision but that doesn’t mean yours is wrong. In fact, often the more innovative you are the less others will adopt your ideas … initially. Watch out for the voice of experience, the voice of reason, the voice of “I’ve been in this business for …” All of these voice stifle real breakthroughs.

In your company you need to be the one coming up with fresh ideas and fresh ways to tackle the work. That is really what the boss will value. So how often are you quietly seeing opportunity and then allowing an internal voice or the one in the next cubicle to tell you otherwise.

As a great exercise, start to come up with 5 solutions for every one of the problems you have in front of you today. The first 1 or 2 are easy. Then 3 pops up and then you really start to hit some new territory when you find 4 and 5. Maybe it’s a hybrid of 3 and 5 that you present in the next meeting. Maybe you float your new idea quietly over a coffee … but get it out there. The best ideas come from the people in the business every day. The same people often thinking, no one will listen to my ideas. Are you saying them out loud?!

Business owners and managers love people that are creative, innovative and always working to solve a problem. They won’t take all your ideas and implement them but they will appreciate and remember your voice and efforts. So speak up.

Step Up & Stand Out

One of the worst expressions from any staff member or service person is, that’s not my job. It appears people are so quick to push off responsibility and do the bare minimum in their jobs. When was the last time you had the chance to go further for a client or for a project and stopped, using the idea that it wasn’t really your issue or responsibility to improve it.

Every employer I have ever worked with has wanted more from their staff; more initiative, more effort and more responsibility to solve the issues at hand. Contrary to that popular quote, you DO get paid to think. Most of your income and value comes from your thinking and solving problems. So own it. Initially you get paid to do a certain function or role. So own that and be responsible for everything in it. If its in charge of admin supplies then make sure everything is stocked, inventoried, you’ve asked about everyone’s needs, you’ve compared prices. When you take full responsibility for your area (no matter how small) it demonstrates you can do more. It demonstrates all those great qualities all companies want to showcase – pride in work, organization, initiative and, of course, personal responsibility.

You want to get paid more? Then demonstrate your level of personal responsibility to your tasks and your area of the business. Take whatever you are supposed to be doing as the most important thing in your life. Oh sure, maybe its not but do your customers or your employer want to know that?! No.

When you stop making excuses for your job, things change. It’s no longer the traffic, the bad customers, the desk you use, the lack of sales materials, the old computer, the bad boss. It is you that makes the job great. You can overcome any surrounding circumstance to stand out. So do it.

Think BIG Every Day at Work

Most of us start each work day off with the same routine ... coffee, voicemail and email. Before we know it, its lunch time and we have more emails and voicemails than we did at the beginning of the day. We show up at meetings with a passive participation and sometimes look to kill that last hour before we head home.

So how do we move from that work existence to one that breathes more life into us and also produces results that get noticed?

First off, what are you working for? Most people have a vision for their work that ends at a paycheck. If all you are working for is a payday then your chances of growth, challenge and opportunity are limited. If it's your company, you had better really be focused on something larger.

Here are my suggestions for bigger and better ...

1. Have a career path for yourself within that company and also for the long term. Lets say you want to be the creative director and you are currently a designer, then know the roles you will need to fill to get there. MOST important is to let people know what you goals are and to discuss how you could move towards your ideal role - leaders want to know which of their people are ambitious and focused.

2. What is it about being the boss that seems better than your current job? Often it can be achieved without changing roles. A friend of mine liked that the boss got to take days off to be with his kids. Rick approached the boss and made a case for working flexible hours to be with his kids and in exchange would work an extra 2.5 hours a week. The boss jumped at the offer and Rick got the freedom he wanted; the freedom he thought was outside his reach.

3. With each day you need to make an impact not just be present. When you start your day, look at what needs to be done and start with the item you can see will make an impact. Start with most important when everyone else starts with most urgent and you will stand out (if you are not sure, ask. Just having a team member who is thinking about impact makes a difference with most owners/managers).

4. Go the extra mile - it is an old clique from Napoleon Hill but going the extra mile and demonstrating that you are thinking about the business beyond just your role makes a huge impact on the boss and the organization. When my marketing manager came to me last month and said she had been thinking about online marketing and had create a report for me with a suggestion of sites, ad ideas and alliances, I was thrilled.

5. Create value and all the opportunity you want can be yours. At the end of the day, your compensation is a result of your work. The result. You want more, create more. Not sure how, ask someone. Brainstorm with a co-worker. If you are the owner then your role is to create more value for your team and your clients. Big value starts with big thinking and ends with the big reward.