We talk a lot in these pages and online at SalesandMarketing.com about improving the performance of others — coaching individuals up so they are more valuable to the larger goal. We don’t talk as much about increasing your value…or even monitoring it.
Obviously, if you increase the value of those around you, your value increases as well. Do you feel overvalued or undervalued at work? The question is not as self-centered as it may seem. In their new book, “Admired: 21 Ways to Double Your Value” (Evolve Publishing), authors Mark C. Thompson and Bonita S. Thompson state that a big part of excelling, whether at work, home or other facets of life, is being engaged enough to care whether you are valued.
“If you want to become essential, you must both make sure you’re delivering value to your MVPs — your most value people — and that they recognize that value,” they write.
Increasing your value at work begins with knowing what your boss, colleagues and those you supervise value in the first place. It sounds intuitive, but the authors say when they asked more than 1,000 people if they knew what their boss or customers valued, the respondents gave themselves a “miserly score of two on a scale of seven.”
“We know what we are asked to do in our jobs, but focus very little on how or whether the recipients of that work — our bosses, colleagues and customers — value it. But in business and life, success is in knowing (and then doing) what the customer wants and needs, not
what we think they should want and need,” the authors say.
As leadership gurus Frances Hesselbein and Marshall Goldsmith state in the book’s foreword, “When you find a way to give your MVPs the support to achieve their goals in a meaningful way, then they’ll reward and admire you. That’s the key to success in reaching the top of any ‘most admired’ list, at the office or at home. But more important, that’s the secret to finding meaning and happiness in your life and work.”
