Be Different or be dead

June 20, 2016

Why an outrageous goal is necessary for a winning career

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Why an outrageous goal is necessary for a winning career.

I had a bold audacious goal very early in my career.

It was to be the VP Marketing before I was 40 years old.

You may not think this was bold, for today there many CEO’s and executives much younger, but in the day working for a monopoly telephone company with the executive ranks replete with mainly engineering professionals, it was very ambitious.

Marketing was, at that time, thought to be a fluffy discipline. The company decided what it was going to provide its ‘subscribers’ and the prices that were to be charged and that was it. Very little market research; no competitive pressures to worry about.

Therefore the Marketing VP position was not viewed as one of great strategic value to the organization and was typically filled by one of the engineering brethren.

So my goal was not only a stretch, it was ‘impossible’ given the circumstances of the day.

But that’s what I wanted, so I declared it (to myself) without any idea of how I would achieve it.

I had no plan. I just ‘put it out in the universe’ and went about my duties as Group Product Manager.

I knew, however, that if I were to be successful in achieving my objective I would have to consciously deviate from what I had been doing in the past.

I had to step up my game if I were to successfully break through the engineering glass ceiling, be noticed and win the prize.

That was my plan — Step up. Step out. Raise my game. Be a force to be reckoned with.

My intent was to make my move to VP so compelling to the executive leadership team that when the opportunity availed itself there would be no other logical conclusion that I would be the ideal candidate. I would be the ONLY logical choice.

My outrageous goal drove the strategy that was necessary. A huge challenge demanded a revolutionary approach. An incremental more modest approach would not yield the outcome I coveted.

I looked for opportunities to be different. To do things differently than others. I did more of what was required. I did the unexpected. I went in the opposite direction to the thinking and trends of the time.

I voraciously learned what had to be done to make the move from a monopoly telephone company to a highly competitive enterprise.

And I talked up internally the moves we had to make in marketing new services that would enable us to stand out from other competitive suppliers and in customer service where we had to lose the tag of treating customers with a monopolist’s attitude derived from being the only game in town.

I stuck to my game plan.

The regulatory rules changed and competition arrived in the telecommunications business.

Marketing and customer service became key components of our competitive strategy.

A new marketing VP was required.

I competed against many external candidates.

I won.

I was 39. I beat my ‘impossible’ outrageous goal.

My message to young professionals is to declare what you want.

Let the outrageousness of your goal be your guide to achieving it.

Keep it in your consciousness. Do big things.

Do different things.

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

• Posted 6.20.16 at 05:34 am by Roy Osing
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June 6, 2016

5 vital traits to hire for high performing amazing teams

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5 vital traits to hire for high performing amazing teams.

You’ve heard it a million times. Building extraordinary value in an organization requires amazing people.

You can have the most innovative technology and the coolest products and services, but without the people layer to transform these capabilities into value, they are worthless.

How do you recruit people who will deliver unbelievable performance for your organization?

What do you look for?

The profile of the person you recruit must fit the challenges that organizations face in today’s markets. Intense competition, highly empowered customers, and unpredictability describe the barriers to success and survival.

Recruit these 5 traits to build a team that will stand out from the crowd and raise your performance to unbelievable levels.

#1. Human being lovers — They have a genuine affection for people; they care for others. This makes them extreme team players who will actually do whatever it takes to help their fellow employees to move the collective forward.

#2. Goosebumps story teller — They love telling a story and they have a million of them. They tell their story with such richness and emotion, they take your breath away. They are particularly good at telling stories that illustrate their desire and commitment to have credit go to others.

#3. Anti-rhetorician — They focus on what they’ve actually achieved rather than attempt to persuade and impress through high fog factor language. Results speak louder than intent; they get it and they can prove that they’ve done it.

#4. Driver — An intense sense of urgency fuels everything they do. It’s more than ‘action orientation’; it’s more a natural element of their personal DNA. They don’t tolerate discussing the theoretical benefits of an idea; they want to get on with trying it out to see if it has any practical value.

#5. Un-perfectionist — They are satisfied with getting it just about right and are prepared to change course in the face of unexpected events. They are ‘learn as you go’ individuals who see value in making progress, learning from execution and delivering results.

The academic pedigree isn’t a helpful predictor of an individual’s contribution to organizational performance. It shows what you know not what you will likely do.

And ‘doing it’ is what is needed for success.

’Knowing it’ alone is worthless.

Recruit people with these 5 competencies and you will be able to ‘do it’.

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

• Posted 6.6.16 at 04:30 am by Roy Osing
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April 25, 2016

The 6 easy things millennials must do to be successful

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The 6 easy things millennials must do to be successful.

I recently received this tweet:

“@JeanYanglistens: @RoyOsing , Thank you so much for the inspiring career articles!! 😊 could you advise the biggest challenges Millennials face in their careers?”

Great question.

Here are my top 6:

▪️Your life expectations may be unrealistic; re-examine them.

You are tagged as narcissistic and feeling you are entitled. “It’s all about you” doesn’t cut it in most organizations. Many are trying to change to get closer to recognizing your lifestyle wants but it won’t happen overnight. Others simply won’t go there.

Either way, for the short term at least, you either have to change your expectations or look to the unconventional niche business stream for a job.

▪️Be clear on the organizations you intend to target.

Identify those who you think have the potential of satisfying your wants and expectations. You don’t have enough cycles to splash and spray your resume over the environment and hope you will land a suitable job. It’s ineffective in any event. Do your research.

Study the leaders. Narrow your options down to 3 or 4 high potential organizations to begin with and expand from there once you have established yourself.

Develop a killer resume.

▪️Work on your answer to the question “Why should I hire you for this job and not one of the five hundred other Millennials who applied?”

The job hunting herd is huge and if you can’t differentiate yourself from others you will be invisible, ignored and unsuccessful.

▪️Fair or unfair, the business world perceives you as being here today; gone tomorrow; changing jobs frequently when the work environment and/or money is no longer acceptable to you.

A resume characterized by a mobile persona raises questions about desirability as it flies in the face of what most organizations want: an employee who is “committed” to what the company stands for and is prepared to stick around for a while.

“Why should I hire you when you have a proven track record of “disloyalty”?” is a question you will have to have a convincing answer to.

▪️If you’re not a marketer you’re at a disadvantage.

There is a good chance that you will exhaust all of your target employers and will have to step out on your own. Fortunately you have the on paper credentials necessary to build a business in the digital and social media world.
What is critical for your survival, however, is to be able to find a niche market opportunity where no one else is playing and where your skills can be applied.

Hone your marketing competencies. Look for small segments where no others play. Talk to people about what they crave. Build capabilities for other millennials to engage with and learn from each other. Create an innovative work environment for others in your tribe.

▪️Don’t look for the perfect job.

Get one and then work on your career. In fact I don’t think your objective should be to land a career; it’s not reasonable given your circumstances. Get a job - learn something - apply what you have learned productively - decide if it is what you want to do forever - take the next step.

Your career will evolve from this process. The truth is you don’t know what your career will be when you start. Too many variables. Go do stuff and see where it takes you.

Think about it.

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

• Posted 4.25.16 at 05:47 am by Roy Osing
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April 11, 2016

Why career success depends on being awesome or not

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Why career success depends on being awesome or not.

And awesomeness depends on how many people around you are in the same career category as you.

What category are you in? Engineer? Author? Content Marketer? Accountant Executive Recruiter? Advertising Manager? Consultant? Personal Trainer? These are all common ways to describe the box you play around in.

How big is the category you’re in? There are literally hundreds and hundreds of individuals in each of the professional categories above.

Successful careers are determined not only by your performance, but also by the number of other people who share your category.

The larger the population in your category, the more intense competition you face; the more difficult it is to be awesome and the tougher it is to rise to the top.

It’s extremely difficult to get noticed in the crowd and attract the attention you need to progress in your career.

The secret is to redefine your category so that you are the ONLY in it.

Reduce the crowd you’re in to you and only you.

This means getting really granular in terms of what defines you as opposed to anyone else.

So, you’re NOT an accountant! You may carry the accountant tag, but in terms of positioning yourself for personal growth opportunities, you are an accountant with certain attributes that make you unique.

And as such, you cannot be compared with other accountants; you are in an accountant category by yourself.

So how might you go about defining you, the accountant of 1?

Here are 5 questions to ponder.

▪️What added education do you have (that is useful to the organization) that traditional accountants typically don’t have?

▪️What skills and experience have you amassed that would surprise people coming from a “numbers person”?

▪️What unique business ideas do you have that make you MORE than an accountant?

▪️Are you a numbers or finance person who can add strategic value to the organization ?

▪️Do you have a gift for relating to others which might be an unusual trait of someone who fulfils this introspective role?

Consider the standard definition of your job as the foundation on which to build a structure which applies only to you.

Your basic role is but the entry level to a successful career. You need it to play the career game but it guarantees nothing unless you add to it dimensions of uniqueness that others value.

There is no formula for this work, no equation that yields your category of 1.

It requires introspective examination in combination with an accurate assessment of what the marketplace needs.

Get going.

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

• Posted 4.11.16 at 04:03 am by Roy Osing
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