You Are Valuable - Being An Asset Not A Cog

In many of my mentoring discussions, I always ask my students "Do they trust their leader?" While a straightforward question it is amazing to see how much qualification my students want to go through in order to answer the question. The question can be applied to any professional that one interacts with and with a simple yes or no. On a personal level, no one has a problem answering this question when applied outside of a professional setting... "Do you trust your butcher?" or "Do you trust your sibling?" What I find is different is the relationship or more specifically the expectations of the relationship.

Often times most professionals see the relationship with others the same way an organization does: through the org chart. If someone is of higher rank, certain assumptions are done, if they are of equal rank, other assumptions are made, and if they are lower in rank then yet even another set of assumptions are raised. This differs from personal relationships where there is an absence of an org chart, everyone is equal. Most professionals do not even recognize that they behave in accordance to what they believe the org chart represents which is that there are professionals that are superior (high rank), some that are equal, or some that are inferior (lower rank). As commonplace as this thinking is, it is not advantageous to adopt it. In doing so, a professional creates barriers or improper filters to people and how they behave within the workplace. More often this leads to false senses of security, arrogance, or other dangerous attitudes that can have devastating career impacts. 

A great follow-up to the trust question of a manager or similarly "higher ranked" leader is based on a simple scenario: "Does your leader praise you for your successes? Does your leader defend you when you make a mistake?" Most professionals are surprised by the defense remark in that most firmly believe that managers are not there to "defend" anyone. In truth leaders defend their team more so than admonishing them because the team is a reflection of their professional conduct. A lazy leader creates a lazy team. A creative leader creates a creative team. A political leader creates a political team. And so on. Any leader which most professionals see as their manager or higher-ranked co-worker should defend their team. 

Yet there is a strong distinction between a leader vs. one who is put in a position of leadership. A leader exhibits qualities and characteristics that inspire, empower and support the people they are responsible for. A person placed in a leadership position sees people as resources to be used, cogs so to speak, rather than assets. This fundamental relationship understanding is absolutely critical in understanding the true nature of the value proposition differences between professionals. 

Typically someone managing cogs does not admire a cog for being a cog. In their view, a cog does not even warrant the slightest amount of attention. It is obtained to perform a purpose. If the cog fails at it's purpose or breaks down, it is replaced. Simple as that. However an asset is something to be protected, cultivated, taken care of, so that it can be of greater value over time not less. As a result professionals who see themselves as managing cogs take a very different view than those managing assets. Organizations that have true leadership never willingly want to lose assets. They will work with them to find the best fit, good roles, and greater challenges so that they stay. 

This of course leads to the next and final question: "Does your leader see you as a cog or an asset?" This is where almost all professionals that I have mentored have the same answer ... they simply do not know. At this point I mention it is their responsibility to manage their career and test their leader. Why spend all the effort on a leader who at the end of your usefulness is more than likely simply going to "get rid of you" as opposed to "working with you to regain your value". So how can a professional determine what kind of manager they have? Simple: give them a test. 

For example in my own professional experience I have purposely "failed" on tasks to test how my higher-ranked co-workers would react. It is easy to get praise when you are successful, yet it is rare to find someone to defend and mentor you when you fail. In my case I test organizational leaders as often as they test me. Working within an organization is a mutually beneficial arrangement or should be. I look at each person and each organization as my equal never my superior. Also I look at each relationship as mutual whereby we work "with" one another, not where I "work for" the organization. 

Another way to look at the relationship is as one between equals. As much as you as an individual professional have to "prove yourself" to your organization, the reverse is equally true: the organization needs to prove itself to the professional. Many management levels within organizations see themselves in this manner. They bring value to an organization that can be desirable. So they spend their time convincing the organization of their value and hopefully by demonstrating it. 

If one wants to be considered valuable, then one has to see themselves as a valuable asset not just another cog. While this seems very simple, which it is, it is not always easy. However by taking this powerful perspective it allows individuals to act differently: seeing opportunities that they might have missed, conducting themselves with empowerment not desperation, understanding and marketing their own unique brand, and ultimately taking charge of their own career. 

Innovation - Perspective Matters

Recently I had the pleasure of assisting several colleagues with how to address coming up with innovative solutions to their business challenges. It was interesting work and I found that in spite of the different problems they had to tackle, the desire to look "innovative" in their proposed solutions was absolutely critical. From their perspective being innovative meant that they were in fact quite able to contribute to their organization's value proposition and retain their positions.

The first thing that I had to explore with them was what the term "innovative" meant to them. Most had elaborate descriptions using examples ranging from Apple's products, to cloud technologies, electric hybrids, and the like. At this point I mentioned to them that the typical description of being "innovative" resembles a personality that always brings forth new ideas to existing problems that demonstrates original and creative elements. Something that is missing in this personality is the idea of being able to deliver. Innovation sometimes fails, such as Apple's Newton or Mobile.me service. Just because something or someone is innovative does not mean that they are always right nor will be able to produce significant returns on investments all the time. 

So why is innovation so important to many professionals? From a practical viewpoint of an individual it comes down to being valuable or perhaps more valuable to an organization. In today's business world not being up on the latest trends and how they can be valuable to an organization can put professionals at a disadvantage to other professionals who do understand the latest capabilities especially when competing for scarce business resources. A good example that I encountered happened to be the use of Salesforce.com outside of traditional IT boundaries. Several technical leaders had been criticized by their business counterparts for not delivering good value for the amount of resources expended on internal efforts. The results were... a) the technical leaders were seen as "less" valuable to the business, b) business resources were re-allocated to other areas, c) the technical groups were "excluded" from key business initiatives. While the examples differed the results were always the same for the most part. Professionals that do not seem to have a firm understanding of what the latest offerings can bring to the table and how they can realistically be of assistance to the business is seen as a weakness.

Let me be clear in that this is not simply limited to lower level leaders or what I call "boots-on-the-ground" professionals but C-leaders are similarly guilty of not understanding nor appreciating the value propositions of the new models. For example I had recent discussion about the crowdfunding company Kickstarter with a seasoned C-level. They were mystified by the model and wanted an explanation of how it worked. So after a brief discussion of how the company worked at a conceptual level I pointed out several successfully funded programs such as DoubleFine and more recently Pebble. Using such a crowdfunding model start-ups had a new avenue that could not only supplement existing investment avenues, it could potentially replace them. I also pointed out that crowdfunding was not limited to just start-ups. For example, it is quite possible for a department within a larger organization to go to Kickstarter and get budget for an effort that while not appealing to C-level leadership, might be really appealing to the company's customers. Admittedly Kickstarter might not be the best way of enabling this capability but some future crowdfunding site might be able to do this which would enable a different and perhaps better cost/profit structure for initiatives that company leaders might be unwilling to take on their own. 

Ultimately being a professional regardless of the field means being on top of the latest approaches and advances in the chosen profession. Being seen as continually valuable is the result of mixing experience, the latest approaches, and using one's own talent and know-how to blend them to solve problems. In the technical arena, it is even more critical considering the rapid rate and amount of change being introduced. And like so many companies and products, the ones that can innovate have shown to take commanding leads much to the chagrin and misfortune of incumbent market players. The same is holds very much true for the individual professional unwilling and unable to adjust.  

2012 - Let the Talent Wars Begin!

Among many of my professional colleagues they have noticed a significant upswing in hiring in our local area of the Silicon Valley and their local areas across the country. However in many cases while they see the hiring we have not been able to take the time to compare notes on what we see as trends.

While a totally informal poll with absolutely no scientific method, among the executives and technology specialists that I interact with on a regular basis there are a number of areas of growth:

• Cloud. This is both a mix of cloud providers such as SalesForce, Amazon, etc. Also there is growth in cloud enablement or provisioning where organizations are looking to create their own internal clouds.
• Mobile. Everyone I have spoken to has seen significant demand for mobile expertise. While there is a large amount of focus on Apple iOS and Google Android, there is also increased demand in Windows Phone 7 as well. 
• Big Data and it's corresponding analytics. I put both of these together because in my mind there are several facets to big data such as infrastructure/operation, and the very valuable analytics. While it is true that the ideal is to have data scientists, many organizations want the value of the analytics are looking to convert internal personnel to the task and/or looking for tools/services.
• Enterprise Applications. Surprised? As more experienced individuals retire or move away from core enterprise applications, younger talent finds such applications very boring and unattractive leaving large gaps in terms of having personnel capable of meeting the demand. This demand is unlikely to change as enterprise applications are not really capturing the imagination of graduating college students.
• Social Networking. A very fast growing area thanks to the competition between Facebook and Google, many professionals are finding significant demand in this area in terms of services, analytics, competitive products, and consulting. 
• Gaming. Casual and social gaming have certainly increased but the increased interest in gamification techniques and how they can be applied to companies have created a noticeable increase in companies looking for those with some degree of background in gaming. How much this grows remains to be seen but it is interesting.
• Enterprise Consumerization. Many organizations are looking to create large financial impacts by engaging and retaining orders of magnitude of customers. In order to do this, companies are looking at ways to introduce degrees of consumerization into their organizations and ultimately personnel who understand various aspects of this concept and what it entails.
• User Experience. Many companies now realize that user experience is tremendously important to attracting and retaining customers. As a consequence there is a very large increase in looking for designers, user experience experts, and other disciplines. This includes not only creating whole new experiences from scratch but transitional as well moving from existing ones to new ones. 

In addition to these areas, there are corresponding increases for a variety of experience levels ranging from college graduates to experienced professionals. 

Another observation about these positions is a commensurate increase in their expectations along a variety of dimensions: flexibility, entrepreneurial, adaptability, and many others. Many of my colleagues have also noticed that most of the organizations had in fact held conservative stances during the recession which while natural created skills gaps between what the market now demanded and their own skills. As a result, many find seizing these new opportunities more daunting than they had originally planned.

2012 signals a period of unparalleled demand for professionals that we all hope will be shared by others on the road to recovery.