What value do you bring to table?

Recently, I came across a working professional who was desperate to answer a question from his manager. The question is "what value do you bring on to the table...?

Lately, I am hearing this question from many individuals who are having a good performance over the last several years. But in the current year and coming years the organisation or the department is unable to provide the individual a suitable job role. The reason could be that the individual has enough experience and he might be a candidate for a promotion but the decision is pending due to the doubt about whether that individual can really scale up to the roles and responsibilities, post his promotion, how much investment they need to do and will it succeed.

I have observed that, many individuals think that they are completing what has been assigned; mentor juniors in the team and have x number of years of experience, which mandates the organisation to provide a promotion. On other hand, organisation is looking at the same situation with a completely different perspective - what is that the organisation or department is going gain by promoting a particular individual? Can that individual align his thoughts to the goals of the organisation? Can this individual take a team to the next level? etc.

This situation causes lot of uncertainty and can result in tough situations. So how as an individual you can get ready to answer the question what value do you bring to the table...? Here are few pointers.

1. Business value - As an individual can you bring out the business value of tasks that you perform? Could you relate the objective or the goals of the tasks to the organisation goals? If not, then this is a good place to start. When you perform implementation or suggest a new tool or process, look at it from business value that it brings. This will help the leadership to see that you are making an attempt to understand the organisation goals.

2. Innovation - Even today, many individuals are under the assumption that innovation means some thing big and some thing that nobody has done until now. But unfortunately it is not true. In the current world, innovation is that can bring new perspective to what you or your team does which can help in achieving the goals effectively. This will show that you are an explorer for new solutions and you are open for new ideas. So look at every opportunity where an innovation can be brought in.

3. Analytics - Currently data is a fuel for many things, use the data that is present as part of your project or product and use it to uncover insights that could help your customer. Adoption of analytics even at a smaller scale can sometime brings huge change and value addition to the project. This shows that you can use the data available to uncover insights which can help the organisation and customers.

4. Skill enhancement - As an individual, how much effort you put to up skill yourself matters a lot. There were times when organisation used to decide on trainings, but in current situation, organisation expect their employees come up with a plan for their skill enhancements. This shows that as an individual you are ready to invest to enhance your skill.

5. Depth in knowledge - Could you take a module or a tool and go as deeper as possible that nobody else can go? Can you uncover some of the risks that nobody is able to identify? Can you answer some of the tough questions asked by your customers which nobody else can? Well knowing a tool or a programming language to its ultimate depth becomes important and it help to work with it efficiently. This shows how you can help the team become efficient and can set an example for others.

The five pointers will help you to showcase your abilities to the questions that organisations asks themselves before promoting anyone. If you can showcase that you can look at business value and make the right decision, constant look out for opportunities to innovate, bring analytical insights to improve efficiency, put continuous investment towards up-skill and with in-depth knowledge about tools and process, will definitely put you in the right spot.

So, start mapping yourself on where you stand and how you can bring a change in your day to day activities to adopt the five pointers. If you really want to adopt, it requires self motivation; nobody else can motivate you, it is you as an individual should put continuous effort to adopt the five pointers.

To conclude, in my experience, the above five pointers should help an individual. But as reader of this post, you may agree or disagree. If you agree, please provide your thoughts, in the comment section, on how are you trying to achieve the five pointers. If you disagree, please share your thoughts in the comment section, on what you do show that you can bring value addition.

Bring out your potential out

In any industry, as individuals, sometimes end up thinking that are we really working to our potential?

For many of us, can't answer the question; either because we don't know or we are not sure.

The objective of this blog is to provide a simple approach which can be used by anyone in any field to bring out ones potential at work.


Following are the 4-step approach, which, in my experience will help in working to our potential.

Step 1: Know your strength and weakness
To work for our potential, one need to understand what are the areas of strength and weakness. Once you have listed down your strengths and weakness, start harnessing your strength. This will avoid loosing your strength. And put continuous effort to improve your weakness.

Since you are harnessing strength every day, every where, the results will be always positive and there will be immense satisfaction from the outcome. And since, there is a continuous effort to improve your weakness, there will be less dis-satisfaction on your short comings.

Step 2: Self commitment
For continuous harness of your strength and continuous effort to improve on weaknesses, it require time, energy and there is chance to loose the focus along the way. To help you to keep going, make a self commitment, that no matter what is thrown at you, the focus is intact. Many great achievers, say commitment is one of the key to success. So, make a self commitment to make sure there is continuous harness of strength and continuous effort to improve on weakness.

Step 3: Effective Time management
Every day we have a fixed routine, starting from when we wake up, go to office or gym or meet friends or how many times we take coffee break. In this fixed routine, finding time to put continuous effort to improve your weakness will challenging. That is the reason effective time management is required. Start with basic time management like planning your day ahead by writing down what you will do when. Or use time management tools which help in plan your day or week or month. If you don't find time then irrespective of commitment and knowing your strength and weakness, the potential in you will not come out.

Step 4: Wear different hats!
If you have to harness your strength and to use your improved weak area, one need to find opportunities. Finding opportunities is a long process as you need to wait for the right time, right environment etc. Instead, in my experience creating opportunities is a great way to continuously harness your strength. For this, wear different hats - for example, as a developer you are writing a code for a module. While coding, wear a hat of an experience developer in your team; if you were in his position, how would you approach it? In similar way, if you have to present to executive in your organisation, wear a hat of your senior executive and answer questions like how does this add value, how does this help in improving the brand value etc.

In our day to day activities at work, if we start wearing multiple hats, we will find that there are areas where you need to improve and it may so happen you will find an opportunity to use your strength to the fullest. This creates a cycle - create opportunity or find a weak area by wearing different hats, your list gets continuously updated; with self commitment and effective time management, you will continuously work with strength and improve your weak areas.

Conclusion
The 4-step approach is a good start for anybody who wants to bring his / hers potential out at work. This will provide immense satisfaction and helps in quality results. The cycle of knowing your strength and weakness, making self commitment to continuously harness and improve your strength and weakness, with effective time management to execute your plan of action and creating opportunities to use your strength and identify weak areas by wearing different hats, will bring your potential out.

First blog!!!

Blogging......

When I was proposing a new idea in my organisation, one of the leader said, "why don't you write a blog about it...". My reaction was a just a smile and complete confusion of what is a blog.

That's when my wife introduced to me the world of blogging. But then I was hesitant and resistant. It took me several years to actually write my first blog post and edit this page with some thoughts.

Well, I have made a commitment, that I will start writing on my new ideas, share my views, share my thoughts, share my views through blogging.

Many of my co-workers ask, what keeps you going in whatever situation that is thrown at you. My answer is "Self Motivation". I say this because once I commit and I am motivate myself to complete that work no matter what it is, I never back down.

That does not mean that I am going to write about self motivation, but what I would like to write about is, due to self motivation, what I learned, what I experienced and what I achieved.

I wish that my views and ideas will get discussed, debated, and in-turn conclusions will be drawn. It is a cycle of learning, unlearning, motivate or get motivated and achieve.

That is the end of my first post. I like to thank in advance to all those who would read my blog posts and provide their views.