Why bother with a big goal?
That’s an interesting question, actually, because focusing on your life or career goals can be a bit of work. It’s much easier to just exist, to go with the flow, to enjoy things as they come to you – or complain when things don’t work out. This seems to have become the norm in our culture.
As we travel through the stakeholders, your customers end up being one of the most powerful categories. And the length of this list might surprise you!
Depending on your job, the end customer might seem very distant. My first career out of college was as an engineer, and there were many stages between my work and the people who actually purchased the products I worked on. But as I became more experienced, I recognized that the people who spend money are the most important ones to understand, because that money paid my paycheck. If they didn’t want to spend money, there was no reason for me to have a job.
Let’s start off this series of “stakeholders” by exploring your suppliers. People can struggle with this category, so let’s explore it a bit more.
Let’s suppose that you’re in marketing or sales. Who develops the products or services that you sell? Who purchases or supplies them?
Or suppose you’re in customer service, answering questions and resolving issues. What are the products your customers call about? Who controls them?
I’d like to spend some articles here talking about all the different people that you work with. Why? Because it’s crucial to developing the kinds of relationships that will help you not only now, but in your lifelong career journey.
The concept is straightforward: When you become clear on the needs of those you work with, you’re able to make better decisions, deliver more value, and be happier with your job. For the lack of a better term, I’ll call these people your “stakeholders.”
You’re incredibly busy, I understand. You have more stuff to do than you’ve ever had before. Reading. Responding. Figuring out. Taking calls. Emailing. Before you know it, you’ve worked 10 hours today and you wonder what exactly you accomplished.
That’s the trap.
DOING STUFF is not the same as ACHIEVING SOMETHING. And most people who look at their lives discover that a lot of the stuff they’ve spent time on didn’t actually result in anything particularly useful.
Everyone’s a leader. No, really!
We often assign the term to people who are in recognized positions of power and authority, but that weakens the term.
If someone is going along with you on any kind of journey, you’re a leader. You are in a situation which you need to exercise some kind of influence over others who are with you on that journey.
I had a chance to work with over a hundred people last week in workshops around career planning. The theme of each session was on developing your own resilient career, which many people are struggling with right now. Worried about insecurity and job loss, many are finding it difficult to realize that they have options and choices.
But I wanted to talk a bit about humor, lightness, and energy. (more…)
Is everyone out to get you? Really?
I ask, because it seems that we sure act this way a lot. Our boss announces something, and instantly we’re trying to figure out why that puts us at a disadvantage. Why would there possibly be anything good in what he said?
Here’s a different way to think about it.
I had a chance to attend a fantastic workshop this morning, led by the incomparable Gus Lee. Never heard of him? He’s a leader in challenging people to find and develop a core of character in their lives.
In setting up my new business, one of the toughest challenges so far is picking a company name. I’ve been (kind of) working on that for a month now, but have really been putting concerted effort behind it for the last week.
Why is it so difficult?
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