How to be Value-Adding

“If it doesn’t add value, it’s waste.”

— Henry Ford

Let’s kick off 2021 with a bang to help you boost your career by focusing on solidifying first principles in the workplace. 2020 has been a tough year for everyone around the world. But it’s over now, and regardless of what 2021 will bring, it’s time to get over the self-pity and the excuses that we’ve all used in 2020 to get back onto our career goals and self-improvement goals. When bad things happen, it’s OK to feel down, it’s OK to get upset and blame the world. But don’t fall into the trap of wallowing in it, which is all too easy to do (after all, we’re all humans). The fastest way for things to change is for you to take action and take charge of the direction you want to head in. Regardless of results, any action is better than no action.

So to kick-off 2021 and rejuvenate your journey, let’s revisit the first principles of a successful career to so that we make sure we have the solid foundations in place. Whether you are continuing in your current job or have just started a new job, one of the most important aspects to always make sure you visibly demonstrate is that YOU ARE ADDING VALUE.

Anyone can meet the minimum requirements of their job description. That’s what the CV, interviews, and case study questions are for. That’s also what the probation period is for, to make sure you can at least meet the minimum requirements of the role. However, if you want to progress in your career, get promoted, and have a chance of standing out against the competition, you need to demonstrate that you bring more to the table than just being able to do you job.

Even if you’re happy to not be promoted and just stay in the same role. Demonstrating value-add will maximise the chances of keeping you safe if an organisation restructure is underway. After all, when deciding who to keep on-board, leaders look to those who are more versatile, are willing to do more, and importantly, are more committed (adding value requires you to commit extra time and resources - it shows that you care). Of course, there are political motivations during a restructure (and bad leaders who pick suck-ups first) but overall, if you’ve consistently demonstrated value-add, you are more likely to stand-out positively.

So in 2021, what do you need to do to demonstrate value-add to the organisation.

WHAT IS ADDING VALUE

Value add is a simple concept to understand. It simply means that the product or service received, provides more than the cost of purchasing the product or service. Like it or not, as employees, we are products that the organisation has purchased to deliver on a certain output since they pay us a set salary in order to receive certain deliverables that help the organisation get to its goals. Adding value as an employee simply means demonstrating that we bring more to the table than what our salary would indicate. Yes, in an ideal world, your pay is commensurate with your contributions. But the ideal world doesn’t exist. In the real world, if you want to be promoted, you need to demonstrate that you can operate at the next level first.

There are some simple steps we can all take to consistently demonstrate we are adding value. The steps themselves are small and easy to do, but it’s consistency that is key to effective demonstration. One of my favourite Simon Sinek quotes best demonstrate this:

What does brushing your teeth twice a day for two minutes do? Nothing! Unless you do it every day, twice a day, for two minutes.

TREAT THE TEAM/ORGANISATION AS IF IT’S YOUR BUSINESS

When I was at Deloitte, one of the more people oriented Partners who genuinely cared about the team rather than the billables (these were few and far between) took me aside to give me some career advice. She pointed at a few new Partners and Directors who were on the Partner track and said:

Do you know why these guys (and girls) are Partners? It’s not because they are technically brilliant or that they deliver what they promised. Those things are important. But above all else, they treat this firm as if it’s their own business. They acted like Partners before they became Partners.

This advice has stuck with me ever since and is one of the key planks in my career that has guided me in everything from deciding whether I should open my mouth and risk saying something stupid, to what projects I should agree to undertake and commit to.

Yes, we all have job description requirements to meet. However, we need to go beyond that and also be aware of the goals and challenges that our organisation and our direct boss are focused on, and then come up with solutions that can assist. Treat the team, the department, or the organisation as if it’s your business. Become aware of the bigger picture, understand where the organisation/department/team is facing challenges and then put forward ideas or solutions that may help your boss overcome these challenges. It doesn’t matter if the solution isn’t adopted, what matters is that you are thinking and that you cared enough to commit time and effort to come up with a solution.

I work in the Risk profession, and too often, I have seen peers fail to grasp this important concept. They think their job is done simply because they’ve pointed out holes. But almost anybody can do that. What makes a genuinely good risk person is not just identifying the holes but taking the extra effort to come up with potential solutions. Time and again, in my performance reviews, the most consistent positive feedback point has been around me being focused on problem solving and coming up with solutions as a stand-out point in contrast with my peers. This one simple piece of advice has had a tremendous impact in helping me to stand out in the crowd.

However, there is one important caveat here. Make sure the solution or idea has been properly thought through. Just like it’s easy for risk people to point out holes, it’s also easy to just throw a bunch of ideas that can’t be executed. This will have the opposite effect and you’ll come across as some just taking the piss out of the situation. I have a direct report who is in this exact situation. He comes up with ideas like “we should just merge this department into ours” or “we should just tell them to do this” without any thought as to the challenges that need to be overcome. After a while, I simply acknowledged what he said and moved on since the lack of practicality makes it difficult for me to take him seriously.

DON’T BE THE BRILLIANT JERK

Netflix made this line famous when their employee handbook highlighted that they do not tolerate brilliant jerks. I love this because it’s so simple, confronting, and to the point. Yes, do what you can to stand-out from the crowd, but if you are unable to demonstrate that you can influence your peers to move forward in a single direction, if you can’t demonstrate that you can be a team player, if you can’t demonstrate you are self-aware and recognise the impact of your own actions/emotions on other people, then you are not likely to move forward.

It’s no longer the 1980s. Organisations recognise that greater leaders are key to success. And greater leaders are not those who possess deep technical skills. Greater leaders are those who can lead others (peers and direct reports) in a single direction. If all you care about is how you stand-out, or hitting a certain metric, or how technically brilliant you are, you are not demonstrating that you understand that you are one piece of the bigger puzzle, and importantly, you are not demonstrating leadership capabilities. When it comes time for promotion, you will be overlooked.

Remember, while IQ is important, EQ or emotional intelligence is equally important. I will delve into EQ more in a subsequent blog post but if you are not aware enough of the impact of your actions/emotions on others then you need to take steps to boost your EQ.

PERSPECTIVE TAKING

A myopic, siloed view to problem solving is the biggest trap teams fall into. I see this happen often in meetings where we’re so focused on getting to a solution that technically solves the problem, we overlook the downsides that are inherent within the solution (or simply choose to ignore the downsides). Once you’ve contributed meaningfully to the solution, take a step back and look at the solution from the perspective of different stakeholders (internal and external). This is one of the most valuable things you can do since it brings the all-important insights. Critically examining a decision or solution from the perspective of different stakeholders will help you to identify issues/improvements that others have not thought of and genuinely enhance the overall outcome or at the very least convey a sense of comfort that the downsides have been thought of and are acceptable. This is something that not many people do (particular in the more junior roles) and is another key step in demonstrating value-add.

ADAPTABILITY

Finally, demonstrate that you can adapt to changing situations and are comfortable working in ambiguous situations. The world is not perfectly defined and often you are given tasks or face problems that are so unstructured that there are literally a hundred different interpretations. Great leaders and great employees will try to better define the request/problem/situation, and then take steps to either firm up their definitions or when new information comes to light, quickly adapt and change their definitions in order to move forward. If you can do this, you are once again demonstrating value-add. Why?

Because often when you boss is facing a challenge or has received a request from above, it is often undefined and ambiguous. I’ve received requests that take the form of “I’d like you to take care of x”, and I’d have no ideas as to the background of x, what success looks like, how much time I’ve got, etc. But rather than ask a hundred questions of my boss, who most likely hasn’t had the time to think about it in detail but just wants the problem resolved, I’d go away, do my own research, define the problem, and get cracking. I’d update him along the way to make sure we’re on the same page and adapt as needed.

Solving for ambiguity is vital to demonstrating value. As a leader, if I have to break down the problem for you and come up with the solution for you, then I’d seriously question why I’ve employed you. So if you’re facing an ambiguous request, sure you can ask some simple questions but take the effort to do your own research to further refined the problem, and then come up with a solution. And as new information comes to light, rework and adapt the solution to fit.

Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels