Where Are You Most Valuable to Your Company and Why?

Yesterday, I started sharing with you Addie's story... If you missed it, you can find?part 1?here.

... When you’re in your thirties, it’s pretty easy to get an MBA, skill up in something, or even switch jobs. Many people switch jobs if they think their company doesn’t appreciate them. But they almost always go to a weaker company that wants them because they worked at a better-branded company.

They get what they think is a better job, but it’s not really better because they’re going to a weaker company and leaving behind the entire social network that made them successful. So they go to a company that is less successful and have to start all over again.

Addie has tried all of this. When we?started working with him, it had come to the point where he wanted to run a decision by us: Which company should he join? He had already decided to leave. We?didn’t think it was a good decision to make because the companies he wanted to join—versus all the companies he was likely to join—were very different.

The list of companies he gave us at the beginning was different from the list of companies he had interviews with. Those companies he had interviews with weren’t going to take his career to the next level unless he took a leadership role and he took the company to the next level. If he didn’t do that, for the rest of his life, he would have to explain why he left a market leader, a prestigious company, and joined another, not so great company, and didn’t really do anything there.

So, this was a big problem for him.

There was a lot of despair and some failure as well. I want to talk you through how we?guided him.

First, we?put together a plan for the client. We repeat the plan until they follow it. Sometimes we’ll repeat things in multiple sessions and a client will ask why. It’s because they’re not following the plan. It’s not enough for them to know the plan—they actually have to do it. We can’t give them the whole plan because when they do something, we have to modify the next stage of the plan. That’s just common sense.

We’ll explain what the plan was because I think it will help many readers. It’s important to know how you’re performing, but if you’re truly a leader, it doesn’t matter how you’re performing. Unless your bad performance involves smoking drugs in the office, coming in drunk every day, or engaging in inappropriate behavior with staff, the company usually doesn’t care much about your performance if your team is doing well. When I say the company usually doesn’t care much about your performance, I mean they don’t care about your?professional?performance. The company should care about harassment, and they should deal with that very quickly.

If you have a high-performing, high-flying team, you’re going to get good ratings unless you’re doing something very bad on the personal front. You have to do something really bad for your team to be a breakout success but you, as a leader of the team, is getting a personal negative rating.

That wasn’t the case with Addie. You could see that from speaking to him for a few minutes. He’s a really nice guy, and he wants to give to the world. He understands the privilege he has of being the first in his family to get an education, the first person in his family to come to the United States of America. He brought his mother, sisters, and brothers to the US. You could give a round of applause to a guy like that. He’s very focused and determined. He doesn’t have a personal problem. We?could be wrong, but I think no, he doesn’t have a personal problem.

Second, we?asked him to look at the performance of his team—objectively. “What would someone looking in from the outside say about your team’s performance?” I mentioned earlier that his team is doing well, so we don’t have to go into the details.

Here’s the next question we?asked him: Is your team critical to the broader organization? If your team underperformed, would the broad organization suffer? His team is critical to the broader organization because they produce a significant amount of cash flow that allows the broader company to fund expansionary plans. So, it’s very critical that Addie manage his team well.

Next, we?asked him, “Do you believe you’re a valuable member of your organization?” Valuable means that if you’re not part of the organization, the organization suffers. And he said yes.

The next question is an important one, and this is the one senior people need to answer correctly to reboot their careers. You are performing well. Your team is performing well and is critical to the survival and success of this company. Now, where in the organization are you most valuable to your company?

Unless your CEO doesn’t like you personally and is trying to punish you—which is almost never the case because CEOs want to bask in the glory of their success, and they like to put key people into key areas so they can focus on other areas, and they want to forget about things they don’t want to think about. So, if you’re doing well and you’re valuable to your company, they’re not going to just put you in a bad place if it’s going to hurt their performance and make the CEO look bad.

So, where are you most valuable to your company and why? This is an important question because Addie believes he is most valuable as an EVP. But clearly the company, for some reason, thinks he’s more valuable as an SVP. The question isn’t why doesn’t anyone want to promote him, but why does the company think he’s most valuable as an SVP? What is it about the way he’s running his unit that makes the company think that given Addie’s skills and success, it’s better to keep him there?

Not to keep this email too long, I will continue this story in the next post ...?As always, if you believe that these kinds of insights and concepts are going to help you, then subscribe to the?annual premium membership?(Insider)?on FIRMSconsulting. In the annual premium membership (grants access to?StrategyTraining.com?and Strategy Training apps)?we unpack and teach problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership, strategy, communication skills, and show you how we helped different clients.

Why not have a big life.

Kris

CEO, FIRMSconsulting.com

P.S. Access sample episodes from our training programs here.