Usefulness is the main element in providing impact in any organization. If you’re not useful, why not? Usefulness—not your degrees, certifications, awards, or past successes—determines your worth in the organization. Should anyone keep paying for a subscription they’re not using? Or a resource that stopped producing relevant content? No. If you’re not useful to your company, quit (and give someone else an opportunity to be useful) or start being useful.
Let’s stop tallying credit and recognition as a measure of success in our work life and in our personal life. We need to focus on the lasting impact our work and contributions have to our organization and to our family.
Always remember that one does not simply achieve a state of usefulness. Usefulness is an evermoving state that keeps evolving—everchanging. This is true for both individuals and organizations. In Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s legendary management book, “In Search of Excellence,” they’ve described excellent companies as innovative; “innovative companies are especially adroit at continually responding to change of any sort in their environments.”
Simply “changing” does not equate to usefulness either. To be useful, you need to be mindful of the current and the evolving needs of the environment. Changing, just to change, is not innovation. It’s an impulsive behavior, mostly triggered by lack of foresight or by the lack of resistance to “bright shiny objects.”
Many years ago, when the digital marketing strategy of custom targeting of audiences was still new, I went in the office of our then head of marketing and advertising to propose new ways to target our customers with customized offerings. Jokingly, she declared, “Uhoh…Don drank the [COMPANY NAME] Kool Aide!” She knew that I just came back from a trip, meeting with executives at a social networking company in Menlo Park.
Hearing that, I paused and thought. She’s been a great supporter, and I know she was just making fun of me, but that reminded me that I should make sure that the solution I’m proposing is useful to our goals and objects, and useful to the customers whom we serve. She wants to make sure I wasn’t blinded by this new “bright and shiny” solution. Long story short, my proposal and study of the solution were sound, and I got the green light!
As is says in the title of this book, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There,” one cannot rely on their past achievements to propel them to the next phase of their career. You need to constantly find ways to be useful in the current situation.
Jim Collins once asked Peter F. Drucker which of his books was Drucker most proud to have written. Drucker, visionary management consultant and educator, and considered ‘the founding father of the science of management,’ responded quite surprisingly: “The next one.”
To wrap this up, ask yourself these questions and do it well—it doesn’t matter if you get the credit for it.
“What’s that one fundamental ‘thing’ that would not have happened if it weren’t for your contributions?
Or fill in the blank: “Because of [INSERT YOUR NAME], we now have ______ .”
“How can I be more effective?”
“How can I be useful?”
Crowdsourcing FTW
What do you do to make sure you’re most useful for your organization? How do you know which direction to take or what’s next? How do you know that your ‘usefulness curve’ is flattening?