The Best Employee

I am often asked by my youngest son, "Daddy, who is your best employee?" I have to pause and think, and then pause a bit longer to consider how would you rank your best employee. There are so may qualities that could factor in to consider "the best employee".

Hard-working, loyalty, impact, results, leadership, intelligence, decisive; this list could go on and on when thinking about how to define a best employee. ConsumerTrack has so many great people on our Team, with a great range of talent and experience, it would a futile exercise to attempt to compare a world class software engineer with a high performing sales professional.

I spend a great deal of time with other CEO's, founders and executive leaders, and a common challenge discussed is the challenge of finding great people in digital media in general. All of these successful leaders may have their own perspectives on what makes a great employee, but the list of qualities often overlap when shared.

So back to my son's question, it made me really think about the many amazing employees we have today and who have been a part of our success in the past. The many great people that have been part of ConsumerTrack over our almost 16 year history have a great deal in common.

First, they are part of ConsumerTrack for a reason. They all are serious about their careers, they want to learn, they want to grow, they want to take on more responsibility and they want to achieve goals. They ask questions and build relationships through communication and collaboration. I could stop here with just these things and feel confident that if you bring this to the table, you will be successful anywhere and have the opportunity to be great.

Secondly, most of our successful employees have not come with 10-20 years of digital experience, they came with a work ethic and a perspective that they needed to prove themselves and earn their accolades and promotions. Our employees that did come with significant experience, still arrived humble and worked as hard as anyone else to show their expertise and knowledge. None of our best employees showed up with entitlement.

Third, and probably the most important success factor that I have seen in my career, is that the best employees at ConsumerTrack set the bar high for themselves. They don't need to be pushed, they don't need to be yelled at or told to work harder. No one else will ever set the bar of success higher for them than they already do for themselves. They are accountable, they take ownership and they focus on solution over the problem. They show up to learn, grow and win.

I could write 20 more qualities and personality traits, but when I think of ConsumerTrack's great employees, this is everything needed to be great. I am proud to have had so many "best employees" over the years. I know think about how to support our managers to hire, train, mentor and support "best employees" of their own to help them grow and become more impactful through expanding our great Team.

Are you the best employee at your company? What is stopping you?