How to become Irreplaceable in your Company

In times of crisis, all the rules change

In times of change, it is often a good idea to think about it How to become indispensable in your company. Many organizations use times of crisis as an opportunity to “cut fat” – looking at people who only do good things at good levels but aren’t usually bad enough to give up.

At such times, they begin to evaluate who in the company is actively taking the company to new levels or at least increasing the chances of survival of the company.

The unfortunate thing is most of the time People who do a better job are not recognized Compared to people who are good at getting credit.

Case in point (I literally thought about this while writing this email): Several years ago, I helped my wife who was working at a large bank email her vice president.

He immediately printed it out and asked to meet her. At the meeting, he exclaimed that she saw all his worries very clearly and decided to give her more new responsibilities on an important project.

The project my wife led turned out to be the only project launched within deadline and within budget in the seven years she was there.

Now here’s the kicker, a year later the vice president met her again, and said, “If you hadn’t written this email to me a year ago, you would have already been laid off…Failure to recognize talent is the management’s fault but I’m glad we didn’t make that mistake.”

Here is the need. My wife has financial engineering skills that far surpass me. You often discover computational flaws in a large organization that can take up to three months to prove mathematically to co-workers! However, she is not good at emotional writing, human motivation, and behavioral design. This is where my strength comes in handy.

Now I didn’t think I’d actually keep my wife’s job when I wrote this email, but based on the motivational profiles of her co-workers, I thought it would be a useful thing to do (and yes I listen closely to my wife when she talks about her day).

repeatedly, Just because you are good at your job doesn’t mean your company recognizes your value.

One of my other talents is creating visual models and frameworks (here’s an Octalysis Prime video on how to discover my strengths).

This here is the company’s 2×2 matrix. Although I don’t want to spend a lot of time going through this in detail, the key here is that Some people try to thrive in an organization through strong political skills, while some try to thrive through strong performance. Of course there are people who have both.

The key here is that in times of peace and stability, political skills are often rewarded. After all, since everyone is comfortable, the motivation to not annoy/anger others outweighs the motivation to deliver a great job.

But this suddenly reverses in times of crisis. It is a do-or-die situation for both the organization and the managers who make decisions that affect their careers. They will not only risk performing / surviving those who make them feel emotionally good (employees who play golf with them and have mutual house barbecues)

Have you ever wondered how startups with just twenty people and so little money can outperform mega companies of twenty thousand people and billions of dollars? (Often these big companies simply give up and buy up startups for a billion dollars.)

it’s because of As for startup, it’s always do or die. Every employee at a startup needs to constantly learn new skills and unleash their full potential because… the default is death.

If a team member is performing modestly, that means 5% of the organization is mediocre! As a result, everyone needs to be a performer and stars in the 2×2 frame above, there is no place for politicians.

That’s compared to the big companies in peacetime – most people work hard enough to get paid, and then stop. The extra energy is dedicated to playing politics where it is more rewarded.

Few people learn disruptive new skills, take on innovative new ventures (after all, why would they risk all this comfort at the chance of failure?), or invent new systems to populate their workplace.

During crises, just like working in a startup, everyone has to become a performer or a star. This means that Everyone should consider doing these things:

  1. Learn brand new selling skills for the new economy
  2. Go beyond your responsibilities and embark on innovative projects that can increase your value or the strength of your organization (most importantly – its recognition)
  3. Improve persuasive and empathic communication skills to guide management and help them feel safe because of your involvement
  4. Start by taking the initiative and coordinating with other departments to help them navigate new challenges (eg telecommuting)

For me, I immediately looked for innovation in the remote workspace and created the remote cultural framework. It attracted a lot of attention (virtual speeches, podcast, book order) in just one week!

Of course, I won’t stop there. There are a hundred things I want to do and learn to come out 5 times stronger than I was before the crisis started.

what about you? What have you been doing to make sure that you are making yourself more difficult in your workplace? Or at least, what’s your game plan for this? Because business as usual will not work. Doing the exact same thing and hoping things will work out is not a winning strategy.

I want to hear about your plans to survive and thrive during the COVID crisis and become many times stronger in the post-Covid economy.

Quick reminder: The early 30% discount from Level 2 to the 30-day Behavioral Design master course expires April 10th.

I send this reminder because I constantly get emails from people saying to me, “Ah! I missed the early bird discount cut! There was no reason to remind me of that! Can I still get the discount?”

30% off Tier II Early Bird Expires at midnight on April 10 (depending on your time zone but we usually give a small grace period). So if you feel like you might end up getting these tickets sooner or later, it would be a good idea to grab and save your ticket today: http://bit.ly/yu-kaichou

I’ve already said a lot about the 30 day Behavioral Design Master’s classes so I won’t boggle you here besides I’ll share the best skills and practices currently available to me, and you’ll get plenty of hands-on guided training.

Also, if you need more time to decide, don’t worry because after April 10, you’ll only drop to the Tier III Early Bird discount (25% off), so you’ll still be able to comfortably get it as a discount.

It’s time to upgrade yourself and create next-level things!

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