CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DOUBLE YOUR VALUE
Value is a perception—not a fact—and everybody has different ideas about what is most valuable. We develop these ideas early on, based on both our experiences and inherent inclinations. In doing research for our book, Success Built to Last, we discovered a number of techniques that can be used to determine what’s valuable to your boss and coworkers. Following are nine steps that will help to dramatically increase your value.
1. Two Interests Are Better Than One
First and foremost, most people treat themselves as a commodity—something that can be replicated and therefore isn’t unique or has value that’s more or less equivalent to that of other commodities like it.
Instead, think about how you can combine several of your special interests, skills, and passions into a role in your company. The late Steve Jobs was a great example of this. He was an adoptee who started Apple in his adopted parents’garage. But he dropped out of a liberal arts college when it failed to inspire him, not wanting to waste his folks’ money on something he didn’t feel was special or unique. Instead, he started taking art classes, particularly calligraphy, where he discovered what technology was missing most: a sense of beauty and an ease of use.
Jobs’ ability to combine his dual passions for engineering and art into exquisite industrial design is legendary. Rather than following a linear path toward a career or job, you’re better off combining your multiple passions to make what you do more unique.
When coauthor Bonita Thompson started out in HR thirty years ago, she combined her love for organizational behavior with her interest in statistics. She became a compensation specialist, which at the time was valued at a real premium over being an HR generalist. It was very rare to find an HR person who loved both people and math, so Bonita was able to capitalize on that. She then went on to earn an MBA, with a concentration in management information systems. Her interest eventually led her to develop the world’s first corporate intranet for human resources. She created that innovation at Levi Strauss—and the idea sprang from both her interest in HR and her passion for using technology to improve service. Nobody else in the world has the same combination of experiences, talents, and interests as you, so use them to your advantage!
Two or three passions are better than one if you want to offer your company something unique.
2. Sign Your Name
It’s really important to give your product a personal imprint, and more so, to show that you’re willing to take the responsibility to put your name on the door—at least, metaphorically. Show that what you’ve created is so special that you are willing to brand it.
When Bonita was working in a cubicle amidst dozens of others as an HR job analyst for Bank of America, she found a way to brand her special way of analyzing over 100,000 positions at that bank and it separated her from the pack. Bonita created the brand name of “Market Analyzer,” which turned an average project into a special product that distinguished her work as strategic to the organization.
Sign off on all the unique work you do—make it clear who you are and how important your projects are to your organization.
3. Know What Your Client Values
Understanding what your boss wants and values is not always as obvious as you might think. To figure it out, you’ve got to actually go and observe them—spend real time figuring out your boss! Most supervisors appear to be clear about what they think you should be doing on your job, but have you found out how they are evaluated by their bosses? In other words, do you know what makes your boss successful? What is she or he stressing out about, and how might you think of ways to help?
When Bonita was an HR officer, she noticed that her manager was scrambling to keep up with current events in the international markets where the company had many offices and branches. She took it upon herself to scan the relevant publications and pull out articles for him that related both to his job and to the company’s priorities. This ended up becoming a highly valued skill and Bonita’s boss became seen as an important source of strategic and up-to-date information by other senior executives
If you want to be highly valued, don’t wait to be told how. Go find out what’s challenging your boss and clients—seek to help them long before you’re asked.
4. Know Who They Value
It’s vital not only to know what your clients value, but who they value. Who matters to their success? A study recently emerged showing certain nonprofits that had actually grown during the economic crisis—nonprofits were obviously among the hardest hit, but there was a group that mysteriously managed to grow anyway. They succeeded by making it their business to find out who was most important to their various donors or organizations and which individuals or outlets those donors would want recognition from. Save the Children, for example, put out press releases and sent notes to the communities and people who mattered to their donors, emphasizing how much of a difference that donor’s contribution had made. These nonprofits effectively used both flattery and public promotion.
It’s definitely good to keep in mind that flattery can be overused and end up appearing fake or off-putting. But if it’s given for specific behaviors that people take seriously, flattery has tremendous value.
In fact, Cliff Nass, a professor at Stanford, recently conducted a research study on flattery and criticism and surprisingly discovered that people appreciate and respond to flattery far more than they’d like to believe. People actually love to be patronized!
Nass also discovered that people criticize others much more than they flatter, meaning when we do praise someone or something, it’s more cherished.
If you want to be more valuable, give more status and recognition to the good work done by those around—even your boss—and it will call your attention to the ways in which you should be valued, too.
5. The Three P’s: A Three-Part Secret to Success
We all too often separate our passion from the work we do for others, and this is such a big mistake! We conducted a World Success Survey of 110 nations for our best-selling book Success Built to Last, which determined that people who had continued success and impact in their field or profession—for twenty years or more—had all three traits in common. Those who had success year after year, through both thick and thin, all defined success in three distinctive ways that were necessary for them to have success that was sustainable. We call them “the 3 Ps” as part of their value equation: Passion, Purpose, and Performance.
In our jobs, we’re all held accountable for goals, and that’s what we mean by Performance—we have to deliver on our promises and deliver them well.
But successful people don’t just work for a company or a job, per se. We have to also be serving a Purpose that’s larger than ourselves. Most people need to have a cause that motivates them—something that we feel makes a difference.
At the same time, we need to be doing something we care about and have Passion and heart for—that’s what recharges our batteries and gets us through setbacks. Otherwise, during tough times, how would you scrape yourself off the floor, get back up and out, if you have no fundamental connection to what you’re struggling with? We have to pursue something that serves the market, which serves customers and serves something we care about and want to deliver year after year.
6. Get Known
In this day and age, there are so many techniques available to help get the word out about what you’re doing. Start by creating a connection to social media—blog about what you’ve been doing and whom you’ve been helping. Mention case histories, what problems have come up for you or your organization, and how you solved them.
Guy Kawasaki is a great example—he separated himself from the pack of early Apple folk by blogging his thoughts and experiences for many decades now. He’d left the company early on, so he never became as wealthy as those who stayed. But he has had so many valuable things to say about his profession in general, and Apple in particular, that he’s became a sought-after speaker and consultant.
Joining professional associations is another effective way to both get known and have impact: they’re always looking for more hands, hearts, and brains. Offer to help out and you’ll probably be asked to join the board. Reach out to reporters who write for your professional magazines and newsletters. Eventually you will be quoted, and before you know it, you’ll be better known in your industry. Make sure that you can serve others, and in so doing, gain visibility for your valuable services.
7. Build Trust: Offer a Sense of Security
One of the best ways to be seen as valuable is to make people feel secure that you can get the job done right. In our research, we found three steps that are most valued in building trust. We call them the 3Rs.
Responsibility: People need to feel they can count on you, but there’s more to it than that: if you make a mistake, avoid playing the blame game. Don’t waste energy deciding who’s most at fault, or finding excuses for why something went wrong. Instead, take responsibility for the mistake or problem, take accountability, and offer solutions that can solve the problem.
Your credibility can actually increase more when you make a mistake—if you show the ability to take responsibility and accountability even when things aren’t rosy.
Reliability: Show up as the same person every time—people will not trust you if you’re someone different every time they meet you. Be consistent and behave consistently in all of your interactions.
Responsiveness: Do it quickly! Deliver on whatever promises and commitments you’ve made in a timely way—get it done. The faster you follow through, the more credibility you will have.
8. Always Get Better
What can you do better next time? This step might also seem obvious, but it’s one of the most difficult to implement. When we fail, we again tend to play the blame game, focusing all of our energy on fault as opposed to what can be done to succeed in the future. Worse yet, we decide not to try again.
But success isn’t a good teacher either. Most people have difficulty finding ways to get better at what they do when they’re already succeeding. We don’t see the incentive to get better. We’ve won. How could we possibly improve? The people who are valued most in an organization over the long term focus on how to do even better next time around.
9. Create a Place for Your Goal
To make something happen and get something done, we’ve got to be with the right people, at the right time, in the right space with the right tools. Make sure your work environment has everything you need to succeed with your goal—all the tools and files and information that will help make progress the moment you turn your attention to it.
A successful entrepreneur that we know wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream of making a movie. But to make that happen, he realized he needed to move to Hollywood or New York—he needed to start to access a community of people in that field to build a network. Another friend wanted to learn a new programming skill for her HR work, so she made sure that she always kept a special place on her desk with all the books, software, and tools together in that place—ready for her work every day. Studies show that people who lay out their gym clothes the night before a workout are many times more likely to actually work out the next day.
Perhaps most important, if you want to be more valuable in your role or position in an organization, make it your business to meet other people who are valuable in the type of job that you’re striving for. When you dive into the nine steps we have outlined in our research, start by observing and befriending people you value and respect, those you know are valued in their professional community. What are they doing and how are they interacting with others? Spend less time with toxic friends and invest more time with people who inspire you. How were they driven to do more and be more valuable? It’s a good bet they’re doing something they love with people who support their passions—and that is essential to success that is built to last.
Bonita S. Buell-Thompson is a thirty-year veteran of human resources and industrial psychology at Bank of America, Catellus, Pacific Telesis, Genentech, and other leading organizations. She holds an MBA in information systems from U.C. Berkeley and was research director for Success Built to Last, the sequel to Built to Last, and the Leaders of the New Century series.
Mark C. Thompson is former SVP of Charles Schwab, an executive coach and venture investor in Best Buy, Facebook, and Apple’s leading iPhone and iPad applications companies. He is a founding advisor of the Stanford University Venture Design Lab and best-selling author of Success Built to Last and Now, Build a Great Business!