The smartest folks in college and business seemed to gravitate to big companies because of the money, perks, and potential. Now, we’re seeing another trend. Smart folks straight out of college or B-school go into a big business to learn product development, sales, purchasing, supplier management, customer service and general management. Then, they start their …
Your career or job has a lifecycle. It starts, grows, matures, and declines like any product lifecycle. The trick is to understand where you are in the lifecycle. At the start of the cycle, you learn a job, identify your stakeholders, understand their expectations, and develop skills to satisfy these expectations. As the job grows, …
Self-development replaces corporate career management or guaranteed employment. Traditionally companies told us what’s necessary to perform a task or job satisfactorily. The company then provided resources, training, and incentives to ensure the task was performed according to company policies, procedures, and expectations. This has now changed as more companies move towards a system of developing employee …
The secret of business success is not who you know. It’s what you know. The Wall Street Journal Advertisement Core process competencies are what differentiate one company from another. Organizational core competence is the same as an individual core competence or proficiency. We all have assorted abilities and skills – individual core competencies. Many …
Project workers are on the rise! More companies are hiring project workers to work on specific deliverables. Project workers can be internal employees or contractors. In many companies, they are interchangeable. According to Charles Handy, an organization’s middle ring is composed of portfolio or project people who have specific skills the organization needs for special …
What is your Brand You equity? Never heard the concept before? The Brand You equity consists of all your personal attributes, ethics, reputation, and professional associations around your work, career, and job. Think how companies use brands to differentiate themselves from their competition. How do you use your reputation or name to enhance your business? …
In the de-jobbed world, a worker without a product is like a company without a product: full of potential resources, perhaps, but competitively not even in the game. William Bridges, Career Strategist As a worker, it is critical that you start now to define your Brand You and reputation. Most workers today offer interchangeable …
You are your first product, so positioning yourself in the market, as an individual is extremely important. Portia Isaacson, Founder Future Computing It’s not only about why and how companies add value and innovate. It’s about how suppliers, contractors, employees, and ultimately all of us must do the same thing. We all have to …
A major theme throughout this book is that we’re all leaders of our destinies as Me Inc., Brand-You or CEO of your career. In other words, we are all portable producers of value. As a product, we may offer a courteous phone response, engineering consulting services, gentle dentistry, or milling a machine part. All these …
We’re seeing more migration to temporary work. A recent study indicated that up to one-third of the companies reported using professional temporaries as managerial, professional, and technical specialists. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, predicted recently that “in the future, the balance of employment power will change. We’ll witness the revenge of the downsized.” Well, …