Anti-fragile
"What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” Well, while that’s not quite true, we all get the idea. That’s also the premise of Nassim Taleb’s book ‘Antifragile’ which talks about how various stress on different systems (from the human body to the financial markets) actually benefit from temporary stress because it allows them to develop great resilience and long-term strength. For example, going to the gym to put your body under temporary stress will ‘weaken’ your muscles for the day but strengthen them overall. Dealing with challenging new situations in work is often stressful, but prepares us for doing that in the future.
You already know all of this right? Maybe so, but remember the next time that you’re struggling with a difficult person or situation that it’s actually the best thing for you. It makes you stronger, it improves you as a person, as a professional. It forces you to have more flexibility in your skills, attitudes and behaviours, it increases your breath of experience.
Personally, I had a difficult situation to deal with recently, and professional I have challenging situations every week. Rather than wishing they both went away and stopped bothering me, I found this philosophy of openly embracing them allowed me to grow and deal with them. The result was the situations resolved themselves in an elegant manner and now I feel better prepared to deal with similar occurrences in the future.
For more on this type of thinking, which in my opinion is endlessly valuable, please see Ryan Holiday’s book “The Obstacle is the Way”. Again, if you’re like me you probably think you understand everything from the title itself, but trust me - it’s worth a read.
Keep a learning log and a journal of your tasks
Ask lots of questions so that you get up to speed quickly
Find out what your KPIs are and what success in your role looks like
Figure out what the company and your team's objectives are for the next 6 months/year
Learn how your team likes to work and communication
- You might see people making videos, like me, or so-called experts, and think they've never struggled. And it's not true. - I couldn't learn quick enough - It's about responsibility, not blame
- Discuss it openly with your manager
- Outline your intention
- Understand their perspective - deeply. Avoid being defensive.
- Share your perspective - calmly. Admit wrongdoing if necessary.
- Express your commitment to progress and a resolution.
- Understand what will make it better and ask for support.
- Thank them for their time and understanding.
- Deliver on your commitment and ask for feedback.
Increase in brand awareness (e.g. social listening, website visits, in-person visits, market share). In a previous video, I spoke about how to emphasise your impact on increasing online sentiment through reviews, subscribers and likes. And in this video I’ll discuss underlining your impact on brand awareness if you’re in a business that sells products.
This is all about highlighting the marketing or promotional opportunities that you develop for the business or the relationships that you are able to leverage.
If your main job is sales, then you’d be expected to generate income for the business. But what about all those people who are involved in other areas, yet still manage to bring in new business. That’s very valuable and worth taking into account when speaking to a manager about a salary increase or a promotion.
How do you emphasize your contribution to increasing positive customer sentiment (e.g. online reviews)? And why is it important to do so?
If I asked whether you’d be more inclined to work with or buy something from a company or a brand that you liked, you’d probably say ‘of course I would’. According to Dr. Robert Cialdini, who is a professor of psychology and marketing, and author of a book called ‘Influence’, “liking” is one of the 6 key factors of persuasion.
With that in mind, if we can increase “liking” or the online reputation of a brand, that has a value because it’s going to influence customers/clients to engage in our services and it might lead to an increase in sales. So how do you calculate it?
How do you convey the value of your work and how your efforts are having a positive impact on your company/organisation?
Here are a couple of useful ways to understand what you have achieved and what you have contributed. They should primarily be used for acknowledging your own efforts, but could also be used for having respectful and professional conversations with your manager.
They should not be used in a moment of conflict or as any form of threat. That would be counterproductive - at least in my opinion.
Are you a subject matter expert that shares your expertise on an area outside of your role? Do you teach new skills to people on your team? Do you save your company money by providing in-house training? If so, do you ever consider how much that’s worth to your company? A simple way to express its value is to figure out how much it would cost to outsource it to another company.
Occasionally you might be concerned about losing your job. But you should also consider your commitment to the organisation. This is because it will take time to hire and train someone else, and it will take even longer for them to get up to the same productivity as you in the role.