Identify Your Value-Added, Constantly Improve and Stay The Course

Value is anything that increases the chances that other people will achieve what they want to achieve. Define your "value-added" in terms of output, not activities. If you don't see the value you add, then other people won't get it either. For example, your value-added might be increasing new sales, accelerating the closing rate from initial contact to signed contract, reducing turnover, taking market share away from the competition, creating teams that improve results without increasing costs, attracting and eliminating top talent or eliminating time-wasting activities.

Every year in Fortune 500 and in BusinessWeek the top 50 executives are highlighted. When they describe these top performers, they describe them in terms of output and not in terms of activities such as number of meetings held or how many sales calls they made. The top performers might be described as integrating employees from different cultures in a way that gains market share, slicing through the complexity of biotechnology and getting valuable drugs to the market faster, or creating brands that establish a vast distinction from the competition.

When I think about some of the most value-added executives I've ever worked with, I would describe them this way:

The Bridge - This is a woman who takes a business concept, a business plan or a potential crisis and bridges the idea into a day-to-day reality that improves results.

Mr. Process - This is a man who creates processes for everything from crisis management to communications to meetings to business unit functions. These processes save people a great deal of time and energy in not having to recreate the wheel every day. Results have accelerated year on top of year on top of year.

The Creative Force - This person sees unusual connections between variables that seem disconnected and merges them together in a way that gets people into motion faster and drives results.

Once you identify your value-added, then focus your efforts on constantly improving the output that you deliver in this area AND on sticking with this value-added.

Many, many times people will not see you as a value-added. They will dismiss you and what you have to offer as meaningless. When this happens, there are two dangerous things you could do:

1. Try even harder to convince this person that you really do bring value.
2. Worry that the value you bring to the table is really meaningless.

First, let's focus on the issue of extending time and energy trying to convince someone who doesn't believe that you bring value into someone who does. My advice is don't waste your time. Move on. Go after a different customer, find a different boss, move to a different department, leave the organization or start your own business. The time you waste trying to convince someone that you really do add value could be redirected toward people who see what you bring to the table.

Practically every famous person has a story to tell about how other people didn't see the value they brought to the table:

• Michael Jordan was cut from the varsity basketball team as a high school sophomore.
• Kurt Warner was cut from several different NFL teams.
• Walt Disney was laughed at when he went to get financing for his first animated film.
• Oprah Winfrey was told to change her name.
• Ralph Lauren was told by Bloomingdale's to take his name off of his ties and make them narrower. (He refused and six months later they ordered a hundred dozen ties.)
• Fred Astaire was described by one casting director as "Can't act, can't sing and can dance a little."

If other people don't see it, don't try to convince them otherwise. Move on. Save your energy for where it will be appreciated. When Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield went to get the first "Chicken Soup For The Soul" book published, they were turned down by 38 publishers. They simply said, "Next!" To date they have sold nearly a billion dollars worth of that series. Don't waste time if people don't get it. Just move on.

I know of a dozen people who have been fired in the past six months. The temptation is there for them to focus on what they did wrong. I have a hunch they didn't do anything wrong. Their boss's perception of them simply changed. Rather than wasting time on trying to convince their boss that they really do add value, I've encouraged them to focus on finding people who see them as a value-added. In many cases, they are thrilled with their new situation. They're in a place where they are respected. Now they can flourish.

Rarely is the rejection all about you. To create an effective business relationship, not only do you have to bring value, the other person has to see it as value. As the stories above demonstrate, you can bring extraordinary value, but the relationship won't get off the ground if the other person has filters within their mind that they can't get past.

A few years ago, I jumped through several hoops to meet a high-level executive. He talked for 45 minutes, and I talked for 15 minutes. We spoke mostly about his business and where he was trying to go. I recapped our conversation with a letter. A few weeks after the meeting, I found out that he thought I was very average and that there were a million other people just like me out there and that he didn't need my assistance. No problem. I moved on. (Of course, I wondered if he thought he was average since there are a million sales managers in the world. I'm just glad my wife didn't make such a snap decision about me because I don't thing I said anything particularly spectacular the first fifteen minutes we met.) A few days later I met with a high-level executive from Coca-Cola. I listened to what he wanted to achieve, spoke very briefly and wrote him a follow-up letter. He hired me a week later and recommended me to two peers who also hired me to work with their groups. Many years ago, I was a high school teacher. I taught Algebra II/Trigonometry to freshmen and juniors. The freshmen were very advanced and loved math. They thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. The juniors hated math and only took it because it was required. They dreaded my class and couldn't stand having me as a teacher. Same subject, same teacher, same level of commitment and enthusiasm on my part. Yet, I received two very different reactions. Ten years ago, I interviewed for a high school coaching position that paid $3500 a year. I was rejected. They told me I was too naïve, too innocent and that I wouldn't do what I said I would do. I left the high school and started my own business five years ago. To date I've earned over three quarters of a million dollars serving as an advisor and teacher to corporate executives. Guess I wasn't so bad of a coach after all. As I was writing this article, the funniest example of all happened. I was contacted by a former client to give a speech for her company. She said I needed to meet with the new executive team. I said that would be fine. She changed the date of the meeting with the executive team five times, changed the date of the presentation twice and changed my topic twice. Then today she told me they couldn't hire me after all because they had an exclusive contract with another consultant. I wrote her and said, "I've never heard of a consultant who doesn't allow for other consultants. Do they have the market cornered on knowing everything about everything?" In this case, I was approached and rejected without ever saying a word.

The second dangerous issue is that you might become jealous of someone else's value-added and want to become like them. That's a huge mistake. You're unique. What you bring to the table is your talents, passions and values. The key is to identify what you do well and keep finding ways to do it better.

In 2000, two high profile executives, Jacques Nasser at Ford Motor Company and Dennis Kozlowski at Tyco International, said they wanted to be the next Jack Welch and to create the next GE. Consequently, they both ignored what their companies did well and focused on adding new components. In the end, they each destroyed an extraordinary amount of shareholder wealth and lost their jobs. This happened because they weren't satisfied being who they were. They wanted to be someone else.

What if Ralph Lauren had accepted the early rejections and decided to work as an accountant? He would have been very average and the world would have lost out on a great deal of value.

How about Walt Disney? What if he had accepted the rejections and become a manager for a different studio? Again, he would have been average, and the world would have lost out on a great deal of value.

How about if Oprah Winfrey had taken the name, "Susie", and spent her career as a newscaster? That would be 150 million people every week that wouldn't see an interesting interview.

What if your value-added is finding the right people for the right jobs and assembling teams that drive results, and you stop doing it because somebody told you that you were very average? Again, you will be average at whatever you end up doing, and your organization will lose out.

Just because someone fires you or rejects your value-added does not mean that it is not valuable. It simply means that they were blinded to what you have to offer. Learn from that experience. Perhaps make small adjustments in the way in which you explain your value-added or the way in which you deliver it. But if the other person truly doesn't get it, then move on. It's their loss, not yours. Stay the course with the true value that you offer and keep searching for those people who will understand it.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

Back to Newsletter Page

P.O. Box 1245 Fenton, Missouri 63026
Phone 636.825.6611 Fax 636.825.9831
E-mail info@thecoughlincompany.com