Valuing Oneself & Others

How do you measure performance and value your talents?

Have you 'actually' measured your value?

'Perceived value' translates into 'actual value'. That is why the best people are sought after by potential employers and executive search specialists. When these people value your skills, wisdom, experiences and competencies you get compensated more, are recognised and  valued even further. 'Pay for the best' is the truism when it come to employment and employability.

How do you appraise your value? How do you get valued like a precious diamond is assigned a price-tag, or your property/real estate is appraised?

Before your next performance appraisal, do a SWOT Analysis. Born of marketing, and used to assess the value of a brand, SWOT can be used to assess your valuable skills, and Unique Selling Points (USPs). SWOT is an acronym for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. By identifying, in detail and exactness, your Strengths (abilities and capabilities) - you can project your Opportunities (including future value and potential). Your Weaknesses need to be reduced, and converted into competencies or your Threats increase to become your risks.

Do a SWOT Analysis before your next Performance Appraisal interview, job interview, or when updating your LinkedIn profile. 

Leadership Lessons: How do you value yourself? How do you value others? How do you answer questions relating to value, relevance and importance?

Is Nobody Indispensable?

When I ask around, ‘What do you understand by being indispensable?’ I receive a wide range of responses and interpretations.

I tend to hear: ‘Nobody is indispensable!’ What does that mean? It sounds like employees do not really value themselves very much. If you do not value yourself very much, then why would your organization think, otherwise?

Consider the occasions when your team needed you around: year-end audits; during their vacation; when a male staff attends national service; a colleague goes on examination leave; your colleague is on maternity leave. On these occasions, were you most needed to deliver certain tasks? Thus, were you indispensable? Now, whatever number of days you were considered ‘vital’ or ‘cannot do without’, what would it take to extend this period of relevance? That is the goal you will have to think through.

I think the question is not about ‘indispensability’. It is about being valuable. How do you make yourself valuable? What is your brand? What does your brand stand for?

What do you possess that is valuable to your organization? How do you stand out from the rest? How do you position your brand? Which competencies do you possess that is rare, and valued by your organization? What are your mental orientations: contemporary versus traditional; flexible versus rigid; innovative versus predictable; daring versus safe?

Authors, David McNally and Karl D. Speak of ‘Be Your Own Brand’ wrote that ‘When you think of brands, chances are you think about whether we trust them or not, like them or not, remember them or not, value them or not.’ All these words have emotional components.

I just met a 40-something friend today, and he has been an entrepreneur for the past year. He challenged himself to do something different after earning his pedigree MBA degree. For the last six months, he worked on retainer as a consultant, doing business process reengineering. He is, currently, being wooed by an executive search firm for two global positions. Lucky? Perhaps? Hard work? Certainly. Relevant? You are correct. Indispensable? Probably. Indispensable skills. Absolutely.

What will you do on Monday? How will you position your brand? Evaluate your worth.

Laughter: Reset Your Emotional Bank

By the time you are in your 40’s, your face may become a roadmap of pain. That is why those, deep crevasses on your face are known as laughter lines, crows feet, wrinkles and other cosmetic unmentionables. Face the facts: we age. But, can we age gracefully? [Read this blog: Age Before Beauty]

If only we can turn back time…[We cannot]. If only there was a reset button, like the one you find when your PC or mobile phone ‘hangs’. The reset button restores things back to order. Reeves Leong also talks about the ‘reset button’ for the economy and branding.

I can relate to a reset button, having spent the past year considering and configuring my personal branding. In the business of presentation, you will need to define, and refine yourself. What are your differentiators? What makes you more relevant than others? You need to mark yourself out differently. What is your signature? Reset yourself, and reconfigure your value for tomorrow. What are you doing to reinvent yourself so as to stay relevant.

For some of us, it is that reset button called the ‘panic button’ or ‘belly button’. For others, it is laughter. Yes, good, plain old, ‘ha ha’ laughter. Laughter may be the best medicine, as Dr Norman Cousins wrote when he healed himself back into good health. A laugh a day keeps the doctor away. Laughter is a whole body, physiological experience where major muscles like your abdomen, lungs and heart get a physical workout.

Want a good laugh – it is a point and click away. Go to YouTube.com. Watch comedians like Richard Pryor, Russell Peters, Katt Williams, Chris Rock, and many others.

Upset? Reset your button. Have a good laugh.