Tom Peters talks about the same concept – his remedy is to “brand yourself.” The basic idea is that while systems can be created and tools developed to make doing work easier, there are people – creatives, artisans, craftsmen, whatever – who are either fantastic at developing systems OR so damned good at what they do that they make systems even better, make them come to life in extraordinary ways.
He talks about how everyone is in marketing/sales – your job is to become extremely good at what you do, to find projects that allow you to prove it, and to surround yourself with people who sing your praises. If you have those three pillars in place, you’ll go a long way towards making yourself irreplaceable.
One more tactic is to focus on “dollarizing” yourself – you need to be able to identify how the work that you do improves the bottom line. If you design, what’s the financial impact? (i.e. the marketing campaign i developed led to a demonstrated increase of X in the third quarter.) If you’re in HR, what’s the financial impact? (I found three superstars who not only saved us money by doing the work of 6 but made us money by developing these concepts for the company.) If you’re in accounting, what’s the impact? (i.e. my expertise in tax planning helped us save $3 million last year.)
An HR person who can prove in dollar terms that they have a knack for talent, or a marketing person who can prove with data that their ideas are more than just clever will prove invaluable regardless of the market, and regardless of the systems the company surrounds them with.
I love Tom Peters.
some thoughts . . . it seems to me that the knowledge economy has already come and is working it’s way through the crowd, past the keg, and is aiming for the back door. As I see it, a new(ish) creative economy is emerging in America, and it currently like the crazy guy in the dance room. . .not sure where he came from, but boy does he look fun!
some validity (sorry for the long addy’s, I don’t know how to do the cool link trick):
1. http://futureofinnovation.org/PDF/Benchmarks.pdf
2. http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentPage____17263.aspx
3. http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_35/b3696002.htm
4. http://www.culturalpolicy.org/pdf/venturelli.pdf
Which points back to Lee’s question in the previous post about whether talent is knowing or doing – I think it’s both.
About The Author
I'm a graphic designer and sometimes writer living in Anderson, South Carolina. I serve as the Design Director for NewSpring Church. I love Jesus, my wife, Levi's Jeans, good Tex-Mex, and 8oz glass bottle Coca-Cola Classic. On good days I love them roughly in that order. Email me.
More on Knowing Versus Doing
Fri 07/20/07
More on knowing vs. doing