Be Different or be dead

October 23, 2017

Why your career will skyrocket if you are ‘the only one’

Source: Pexels

Why your career will skyrocket if you’re ‘the only one’.

“There is only one” is the answer every person should covet when someone asks a question about anything.

— “Who is the right choice for this position?”

— “Who has the highest leadership potential of all our managers?”

— “Who shall we ask to lead the team charged with bringing our new product to market?”

You want the answer to be “There is only one choice” - and that is you.

You want the choice to be crystal clear; a no brainer to those asked to consider the answer to the question.

How do you position yourself to be the only one when the number of contenders for any one opportunity is huge. There is so much competition for anything, it’s almost unimaginable that one person can get tagged as being the obvious choice.

But it happens.

What do these individuals do to make themselves “the only one”?

First of all, they done get to that position through serendipity; it doesn’t just happen; it’s not a fluke.

They achieve this exalted only position by creating and successfully executing a strategy to be different from everyone else in a relevant way in their area of specialty.

These six actions are crucial to their strategy.

#1. They meticulously understand their competition and how each of them approaches a task or assignment. They study their approach to solving problems and how they go about seeking approval for what they’ve done.

Their competitors provide the baseline behaviour to be different from. Typically most of the competition use common tools like copying what others do and also following what the pundits espouse as the ‘right’ thing to do which serves as an opportunity for differentiation.

#2. They have mentors who have excelled in getting things done in the trenches. They have a powerful brand among their peers as someone who is motivated to continually ‘try stuff’ until they eventually land on a winner.

Executing gains more currency and credibility in an organization than intellectualizing and assessing the most appropriate course of action to take.

#3. They question “We’ve always done things this way” — a great way to define why you are, but not particularly relevant to defining what you need to be. “Only ones” never assume the past is particularly relevant to moving forward in chaotic times.

They constantly advocate assessing current projects and activities to ensure they continue to be relevant to the direction of the organization, and are quick to put up their hands to say cut the CRAP if they’re not.

#4. They are contrarian by nature and attempt a 180 to what most others do. Their natural inclination is to beg the question “What if we did it in exactly the opposite way?” and see what result can be achieved.
“How can I do this differently?” is foremost in their mind; it is involuntary response and governs everything they do - they always look for a way to add their personal twist.

#5. They find the idea of benchmarking and best practices repugnant. You can’t be the only one if you rely on copying others as your modus operandi; they get this. They understand that all copying achieves is to increase the size of the sameness herd who all look alike and are indistinguishable from one another.

#6. They have their sights on their next move. They know exactly what position they want and when they would like the opportunity to get it. This targeting is critical in terms of positioning and the priority of the issues to engage in.
If, for example, one covets the Director Marketing role, displaying ‘only one’ tactics are more productively applied to marketing, sales and business strategy projects than others.

Being ‘the only one’ is the ticket to success if you are looking for a way to standout from others; these 6 actions will pave the way.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 10.23.17 at 03:46 am by Roy Osing
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October 2, 2017

11 easy ways to lose yourself in the boring crowd

11 easy ways to lose yourself in the boring crowd.

More successful careers go to those individuals who are able to differentiate themselves from their peers; to have a ‘specialness’ about them that draws attention.
And their differences generally gets them more opportunities and personal rewards.

But my experience is that many people without knowing find themselves getting ‘sucked in’ to the crowd rather than focusing energy on moving away from it.
The crowd is a mass of people who all look the same. They are indistinguishable from one another. They are all conformists to a standard set of rules, whether they be in business or in personal life.

They are not individuals, but rather express the lowest common denominator of the mass they are embedded in;

They are all average. They look like everyone else. They blend in with general values;

It is safe in the crowd. You get to hide out and avoid exposure and recognition. There is safety in numbers particularly when every digit is the mirror image of the next;

It’s warm. Heat, lots of body heat. Everyone is close to one another; existing in each other’s personal space. Body heat transfer through conduction and convection is alive and well here;

It’s stress-free. You never have to be apprehensive about the direction to follow. Just follow the person in front of you; they obviously know where they are going;

It’s risk-free. By being like other members, you can feel confident that whatever you do won’t be noticed and therefore won’t attract criticism;

It’s consistent. There are few ups and downs; activity doesn’t vary much as crowd members are consumed with ‘the straight and narrow’ and perpetuating the momentum of yesterday.

If you find the following crowd attributes appealing, you may be unknowingly getting drawn in to it and push back is necessary.

▪️Look at what the most popular person is doing and copy them. Emulation is the key behavior to exhibit if you want to bury yourself in the crowd.If you are inclined to be different, you’re not a crowd qualifier;

▪️Determine the really important rules and always obey them. Conformance is critical to survive in the crowd;

▪️Never do anything to draw attention to yourself; you want to go unnoticed;

▪️Don’t ask questions; challenging the status quo is unforgivable;

▪️Never challenge an idea or point of view. It’s very important to support your fellow ‘crowdsters’;

▪️Avoid reading new stuff. This will only fuel the desire to try new things or offer a different perspective on things. Unacceptable!

▪️Never hang out with crazy people. These people are outside the crowd and you can’t give the impression that you are looking for more than the crowd can offer;

▪️Some advocate weirdness as a value they covet in people. Don’t go there. Weirdness = fun and nonconformity. Reread No. 2. It’s verboten;

▪️Talk the way everyone else talks. Don’t invent your own words. Cool sayings must be muted. They are the tip of the stand-out iceberg and will freak out fellow crowd members (and draw attention to you and get you kicked out of the crowd);

▪️Take sh** from anyone who offers it. Another key requirement of blending in. You must let anything thrown your way stick. Turn the other cheek and ask for more;

▪️Always say ‘yes’. Make it your answer to everything even if you’re not asked a question;

I guarantee that if you find yourself doing anything on this list of 11, you run the risk of being a bonafide player in the crowd with many years of slipstreaming others ahead of you.

And career rewards will elude you.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 10.2.17 at 03:22 am by Roy Osing
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September 25, 2017

4 practical ways a leader can keep on growing

Source: Unsplash

Once you’ve grasped the leader brass ring you’ve made it; now you can relax and ride the wave until you decide to do something else, right?

If that’s what you believe, get ready for a rude awakening.

What you’ve earned today, you must fight to keep tomorrow. It’s amazing to witness a leader in free fall who doesn’t stay relevant to their organization.

Every standout leader has a career plan; a strategy to continually learn and build their value as an individual that can enhance the performance and long term survival of the organization.

A personal development plan should have these four elements.

1. New organizational capabilities

Defining the new skills and competencies that must be acquired if the organization is to retain its competitive position - and the current ones that must be abandoned because they’re no longer relevant.

Long term success isn’t about continuing to do what created past success; it’s about defining the course to be charted that will meet the challenges tomorrow of changing customer demands, disruptive technology and new competition.

The survivor leader must paint themselves a rich and detailed picture of what the organization must look like tomorrow if it is to continue to thrive.

2. Personal competencies

Given the new capabilities the organization needs to develop for future success, the leader defines the new skills they must possess and an action plan to acquire them.
If for example, their business plan faces much more aggressive competition brought on by new disruptive technology, a personal development plan to learn and practice new marketing skills would be very appropriate.

For leaders to grow, they must continually be morphing their skill set to be synergistic with the challenges facing the organization.

3. 360 degree feedback

Obtaining feedback from others on a leader’s performance is a vital element of a personal development plan.
Many organizations use this tool to measure performance; I believe, however, that it has the most powerful impact as a personal development tool.

Personally, the 360 feedback tool was most useful in obtaining feedback from my peers; my boss and direct reports tended to rate me favourably and from them it was difficult to define a specific improvement action plan. My peers, in the other hand, had no problem hammering me on behaviour they thought inappropriate.

I used my 360 results to improve my performance and to identify developmental experience and skill gaps that I had to close.

4. A lateral move

Most leaders don’t give this element of their personal development plan the attention it deserves; in fact it is rarely mentioned.
As a developmental tool, however, negotiating a lateral move into a completely different position has invaluable growth benefits for the individual.

I moved from VP Marketing to VP Operations and it was the best thing I could have done. I applied my strategic skills to the operations role and took away an “in the trenches” practical experience that served me well on my way to a president position.

Moving around the organization is the most effective way for a leader to develop themselves and enhance their relevance to the organization.
And it gets them known in all corners of the organization as a leader who wants to learn all aspects of the organization.

A leader that doesn’t have a career personal growing plan is at risk of being irrelevant sooner or later.

Don’t be a victim.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 9.25.17 at 04:16 am by Roy Osing
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September 18, 2017

5 simple ways to spot a real asshole

5 simple ways to spot a real asshole.

An asshole can really screw your career up.

I have had to deal with so many of these people in my career and have seen the havoc they can cause. It is critical to know how to spot them so you can take evasive action.

An asshole is everywhere in both our personal lives and our business lives. They live where most respectable people with integrity don’t go.

I have survived many assholes in my career; this is what they look like.

1. They are the consummate grinner; they grin you constantly

You know that phoney false smile pasted on their face that they flash at you when they want you to believe they agree with something you are saying or a position you are taking.

In reality their grin means exactly the opposite of support; they really don’t believe a word you are saying and will admonish you whenever they get the chance.
Whenever you see the grin, be prepared for betrayal.

2. They spread fake news about you

They know who your real supporters are and will lie through their teeth about you to them. And they are smooth when they do it; experts in the innuendo. Careful to be not too blatant.

They use the ‘grin fodder’ you have provided as the fuel for their stories.

3. They treat themselves as number 1 — ALWAYS

Never forget it. It might seem that they actually care about you and your circumstances but they don’t. They want you to let them in so you are vulnerable to a move they eventually make against you. ‘After me you come first’  is their mantra.

4. They do not hesitate throwing you under the bus

Never expect they will take accountabilities their actions. Whenever things go awry look for the asshole to try and blame someone else for the screwup. They constantly want to be perceived as lily white to those in the organization who they believe matter and will sacrifice anyone around to enhance their position.

5. They actually believe they are righteous

And this is the real scary thing about them. If you call them on any one of the aforementioned four issues they respond with shock and disbelief and will vehemently deny any culpability. They are pathological liars who are constantly in denial; that’s what makes them so dangerous.

Assholes can cause irrevocable harm to others if they are allowed to do their thing.

Watch for them; don’t play into their hands.

And never play their game. It turns out that assholes eventually get found out and are punished for their sins.

Just don’t be part of the carnage they leave behind.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 9.18.17 at 03:12 am by Roy Osing
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