Indispensable By Monday E-Book

Larry Myler

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 216

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Separates fact from fiction for what makes an employee indispensable

When trying to move ahead or even just keep a job, there are actions that would be of great advantage to any employee and there are strategies that are just plain stupid. Interestingly enough, the stupid strategies are used twice as frequently in corporate America. Indispensable By Monday goes beyond conventional wisdom to reveal and impart the skills and behaviors that any employee at any level of any organization can implement to bring substantial dollars to the company.

Author Larry Myler and organizational performance consulting firm VitalSmarts asked 1,800 corporate leaders to identify the bottom-line behaviors that would make employees essential to their organizations. Now, Myler distills what he learned for every employee and employer. Indispensable By Monday outlines the profit-producing behaviors that distinguish workers who add value from those who don't, such as reducing company costs, increasing income, improving key processes, bringing back lost customers and more.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

PART I - Help Your Company, Help Yourself

What’s in It for You?

What Does Indispensability Look Like?

Employed? Keep the Job You Have . . . Unemployed? Get the Job You Want

1,800 Business Leaders Can’t Be Wrong: What Your Boss Wants You to Do

Behavior: Regularly Proposes Cost-Cutting Ideas That Work

Behavior: Regularly Proposes Revenue-Producing Ideas That Work

Behavior: Streamlines Company Processes to Save Time and Money

Behavior: Improves Personal Productivity by Increasing Work Quantity and Quality

Behavior: Proposes and/or Implements Procedures to Improve the Cash Flow of the Firm

Do You Bring in More Than You Cost?

Personal P&L Statement for Direct Revenue Generators

Nonsales Personal P&L Statement

All Dollars Are Not Created Equal: How to Find the Most Valuable Ones

The Resume That Speaks Volumes: Capture Your Contributions

For the Faint of Heart

For the Overachiever

Death of the Suggestion Box: May It Rest in Pieces

A Better Way

A Bad Proposal

PART II - Pull Money out of Thin Air

Creating Unexpected Profit Is Always Your Best Strategy

Profit Source 1 - Yes, There Are Still Costs to Be Cut

Real Estate: A Rich Source of Hidden (and Reducible) Costs

Sewer Savings

Utilities Savings

Property Taxes

Property Insurance

Cleaning

Maintenance

Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment

Major Suppliers (Raw Materials and Components)

Advertising

Sales Compensation/Referral Fees

Hourly Labor

Bank Fees

Profit Source 2 - Ansoff Revisited—How to Harvest More Money from Customers

Profit Source 3 - Refunds and Rebates—Get ’Em While They’re Hot

Profit Source 4 - Improve Every Process and Earn by Every Improvement

Whenever You Touch Something, You Lose Money

Whenever Something or Someone Sits and Waits, You Lose Money

Whenever Something Is Communicated Unnecessarily, You Lose Money

Perfecting the Process: Paring Down Variance and Waste

Profit Source 5 - Catch Costly Mistakes Quickly, Before They Get Out the Door

Profit Source 6 - If Mistakes Do Get Out the Door, Recover Lost Customers

Profit Source 7 - Print Money at Work by Doing Your Own Job Better

Stay on Task

Manage Quality

Use Your Brain

Move Faster

Get Creative

Profit Source 8 - How I Spent My Summer Vacation—Finding $500,000 in New Zealand

From Fish Story to Revenue Story

Income Lessons Learned

Profit Source 9 - Supply Your Suppliers with Profit—Let Them Supply Discounts ...

Profit Source 10 - Become Indispensable to Customers by Giving Them Money

Profit Source 11 - Improve Company Cash Flow and Become a Hero

Profit Source 12 - Give Your Company an Unexpected Competitive Advantage

Market Position 1: Offer More and Raise the Price

Market Position 2: Keep the Offering the Same and Raise the Price

Market Position 3: Offer Customers Less and Charge Them More

Market Position 4: Offer More for the Same Price

Market Position 6: Offer Less at the Same Price

Market Position 7: Give More and Charge Less

Market Position 8: Charge Less for the Same Thing

Market Position 9: Give Less and Lower the Price

Value Proposition Summary

Profit Source 13 - Should You Work More for Less Money or Work Less for More?

Career Position 1: Do More and Get Paid More for It

Career Position 2: Get More Money Doing Your Current Job

Career Position 3: Get Paid More to Do Less

Career Position 4: Do More for the Same Pay

Career Position 6: Do Less and Get Paid the Same

Career Position 7: Do More for Your Company and Get Paid Less

Career Position 8: Get Paid Less for the Same Work

Career Position 9: Less Work for Less Pay

Your Personal Value Proposition Summary

Profit Source 14 - Soft Skill, Solid Results

PART III - Making It All Work . . . Starting Monday Morning

Problem Solving: Generate Only the Highest Value Solutions

The New and Improved Performance Appraisal

If You’re in Sales, Outsell Everyone Else

If You’re a Leader, Lead Toward Increased Profits

Prime the Pump

Everything You Need to Know about Accounting—and It’s Not Much

Every Organization Must Earn More Money Than It Spends.

The Balance Sheet

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

What’s Next?

Afterword

About the Author

Notes

Index

Copyright © 2010 by Larry Myler. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Myler, Larry, 1959-Indispensable by Monday: learn the profit-producing behaviors that will help your company—and yourself/Larry Myler. p. cm.

eISBN : 978-0-470-58598-6

1. Organizational effectiveness. 2. Cost effectiveness. 3. Value added. 4. Employee motivation. I. Title.

HD58.9.M95 2010

650.1—dc22

2009038780

To Jill, Rachelle, Trey, Conner, Marissa, and Lauren. Thank you for your unfailing support and confidence.

Foreword

My company, VitalSmarts, has grown both revenues and profits at an average of 25 percent per year for the past decade, and I am convinced that if you seriously infuse the ideas in this book into the DNA of your organization, so will yours.

I attribute our success to two things:

1. First, we have developed potent solutions to persistent client problems.

2. Second, we have worked with skilled employees who think and act like owners and who know how much attention is required to keep the bottom line healthy.

Frankly, I’ve discovered that the former is far more easily attained than the latter. If you’re an owner, leader, manager, or supervisor in an organization who has already figured out the first point, this book will help you achieve the second. If you’re an employee who is looking to increase your value and become a contributor your company can’t live without, you have come to the right book. Conversely, you may be unemployed and looking for a tangible advantage over many other job candidates. Well, here it is.

The assertion that the first challenge of entrepreneurship is finding a market you can serve better than anyone else—and the second is creating an employee team that is wildly passionate and supremely capable of growing and improving the company—may sound simple. But strangely, while all leaders know they’ve got to get number one right, most have no idea how vital number two is. I once worked in a company that got job one right and totally ignored job two. The company’s sales expanded nicely; in fact, the product was so good that we grew from zero to $100 million in about 10 years. The problem, however, was that we never made a profit.

My partners and I learned a powerful lesson by watching this company’s experience. And when the time came to set out to start our own, we decided to work hard on Larry Myler’s prescription. We committed to being uncompromising about placing the right people in the right jobs and spending any effort required to equip them with all that they needed to act like owners at all times. The results have been more than worth the investment.

So, ask yourself the following questions:

• How much would it be worth to you as a business leader to have a graphic designer so wildly committed to your success that he sells your products to his weekend ski students? Our graphic designer, Kevin, closed more than one deal for us in exactly this way.

• How much would you invest to get an events coordinator who is so animated about reducing costs that she finds a way to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars in savings from your hotel suppliers? I’m convinced Janet falls asleep at night dreaming up new ways to do more with our precious resources.

• How many more sales would your company have to make to equal the profit contribution of your shipping department—doubling its capacity without adding a dime to costs? Nate did precisely that for our company last year.

I am convinced that after your company finds its market niche, the most important work you can do is to ensure that every single employee in your company can do what Larry Myler describes in these priceless pages. And if you’re not a leader—but “just” an employee—pay attention to this story.

In her short career of five years in our company, Mary has doubled her income. She didn’t do so by getting annual cost-of-living adjustments, playing politics, or staying busy doing non-value-added, made-up work. She didn’t win the lottery, and she certainly didn’t do it by negotiating harder for promotions. Instead, she relentlessly asked and answered the simple question at the heart of this important book: How can I add more value? Because of that, Mary is literally indispensable.

At the end of every year, my partners and I go over a list of names of those we are terrified could be poached by shrewd competitors. We talk long and hard about what we’re doing to ensure that these vital employees are being fairly compensated and are given the autonomy they need to thrive in our company. Mary is at the top of that list.

Every few months, Mary will make an appointment with me to learn more about the future direction of the company. Then, she’ll reassess her priorities to ensure that her work is aimed at significantly accelerating our progress in that direction. If it’s reducing costs, Mary becomes an alchemist for clever ideas. If the challenge is to expand our reach, she tirelessly uncovers new opportunities we can exploit. She is truly Indispensable with a capital “I.”

In my view, the title of this book is no false promise. It is, in fact, the natural consequence of applying the sound, proven, and timeless behaviors that Larry Myler teaches so masterfully. I had the benefit of being tutored in these concepts personally by Larry himself over a 10-year period, and I’ve long suspected that unless you could have him at your elbow, there was no way to gain the wisdom he had to offer. You can imagine how thrilled I was to see how successfully he distilled decades of entrepreneurial brilliance into this compact and fascinating volume. Diligent readers can now compress my 10-year mentorship into a much more efficient learning curve.

So, if you’ve already done job one, I urge you to absorb and apply these concepts with all the energy they deserve. I trust that the payoff in your career and your business will match—or even exceed—my own.

And as much as I’m confident of the personal benefit you’ll gain, my deeper hope is that this book becomes required reading for every leader and employee on the planet. If successful businesses are the engine of economic, social, and political progress in the world, then Larry Myler’s prescription provides the power to drive that which we care most about.

To your success!

Joseph Grenny Provo, Utah

Preface

Why I Wrote This Book

The vast majority of advice you can find on topics like getting a job, keeping your job, or being promoted is—for lack of a better term—fluff. By and large, it’s mostly about political, non-value-added tactics that don’t bring more dollars to the company’s bottom line. You will come across countless lists of things to do, including wearing nice shoes and having a bright smile. You’ll be told to get to work in the morning before the boss arrives and leave after he or she does. You may even be persuaded to eat lunch at your desk and just look busy all the time—by doing anything. If you buy into this pervasive pop mentality, you may feel it necessary to volunteer for everything and generally make yourself more “visible.” But what you really need to do is help the company earn more money than it spends and spend less than it earns—period.

Look, if you’re already coming to work on time and with clothes on and are a fairly decent colleague who does pretty well at your job description, then you can best help yourself by adding real, hard-dollar value to your company—now.

By taking advantage of what you’re about to find within the pages of this book, you will absolutely be more valuable to your employer (or prospective employer). It doesn’t matter what the economy is like. Creating profit for your company is always your best approach, in good times or bad. The only difference is that in bad times, you will be more likely to get or keep a job, and in good times, your chances of being promoted or receiving pay raises and bonuses will increase. Said another way, this book was not written to work in a specific economy but rather in every economy.

Believe it or not, these concepts will likely be even more valuable in good times than in bad. That is because when the economy is so good that all a company has to do to make money is be open for business, leaders and employees alike tend to get lax and forget about running a tight ship. And that is the time when your personal profit contributions can drive your organization’s bottom line forward even more impressively.

So, get dressed, smile, and make sure you leave for work on time. But if visibility is your goal, arm yourself with what really matters: the skills, knowledge, ability, and tools you need to become Indispensable by Monday!

Cheers,

Larry Myler

www.moreorlessinc.com

Acknowledgments

If you’ve never locked yourself in a room with four MBAs and one attorney for two hours a week over a three month period, you should. It’s not as bad as it sounds . . . quite nice, actually. Many thanks to Darryl Wagner, Rob Storey, Tod Bybee, David Rasmussen, and Heather McDougald for offering invaluable help in vetting and refining the concepts that made it into print, and mercifully killing the ones that didn’t.

To fellow workers who brilliantly bring financial benefits to clients, and who have made contributions to this effort, I offer my respect, thanks and admiration: Cheryl Snapp Conner, Chris Jordan, Josh Rowley, Cory Maloy, Tom Pittman, Jim Murphy, Brent Hirschi, Steve Glover, Russ Warner, Kevin Simister, and Joe Thomas.

First-round edits would not have been nearly as fun without Cami Buhman. Proofreading and excellent improvements were graciously offered by Mike Carter, Steve Glover, Kevin Simister, and Joe Thomas.

The team from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been utterly fantastic to work with. Lauren Lynch (associate editor) has been a first-rate handler, dealing with all of my eccentricities in a professional manner. Christine Moore’s developmental edits have made me look like I can almost write. Lauren Freestone and team did a first-rate job of production. And a special thanks to Matt Holt for positively answering my initial email inquiry exactly ten minutes after I sent it!

I must express deep gratitude to my good friends and past associates at VitalSmarts for partnering with me on the leadership study, giving constant support in this literary undertaking, and never ceasing to show confidence in a successful outcome: Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Al Switzler, Ron McMillan, Mike Carter, James Allred, Mary Dondiego, Yan Wang, Scott Myler, Andy Shimberg, and Steve Willis.

Heartfelt thanks and recognition go to the Eli Kirk team for early graphic design on the book, and design and construction of our web site.

PART I

Help Your Company, Help Yourself

What’s in It for You?

Because this book is about helping your company, you might be asking, “What’s in it for me?” The answer depends on which of the following four career scenarios best describes your situation. If you don’t see yourself in any of the four—now or in the future—stop reading.

1. You’re one of a small group of people in your company being considered for a highly coveted position that promises more money, opportunity and prestige to whomever gets it. And you want it! What can you do to secure this promotion? Isn’t there some way to rise above the competition and become the obvious choice?

2. Rumor has it that another round of layoffs is coming. You’ve been lucky so far, but you know that luck can’t last forever. How can you remove yourself from the list of potential terminations and put yourself at the top of the list of indispensable employees?

3. You’re one of millions of people looking for work. The competition is sharp, well educated, and experienced. You need an advantage. What are prospective employers really looking for? Can you modify your resume and prepare for interviews in ways that dramatically increase your chances of getting the job you want?

4. You’re a leader of a team, department, or company that is made up of wonderful, dedicated employees who know precious little about how to increase the profits of the company. As a leader, you are evaluated based on the performance of your people. How can you engage the collective know-how and full potential of your workforce to positively impact the bottom line?

In the coming pages, you will learn the skills that can dramatically improve your chances of being promoted, avoiding lay-offs, landing a job (if you don’t have one), or engaging your people to increase their business value. Are these big promises? While there are no guaranteed outcomes, reading this book over the weekend will prepare you to successfully deal with your current situation. You really can be Indispensable by Monday.

You become indispensable at work by bringing in more money than you cost. And you’re about to learn how to do just that.

For 30 years, I have had the good fortune of owning or co-owning six companies and learning from some incredibly gifted partners, employees, and customers. Two of those companies were consulting firms. During my 11 years of consulting work, it has been my privilege to assist clients of all sizes in becoming more efficient through interpersonal communication skills, sales expansion, leadership, cost reduction, and survey research. Working with hard dollars as well as soft skills, I’ve discovered that any business’s success or failure depends almost entirely upon individual contributors. Organizations don’t succeed, people do. With that conviction, I respectfully write this book for you.

What Does Indispensability Look Like?

I learned about indispensability early through necessity. At the age of 22, I was working my way through college as a machinist manufacturing parts at an aerospace/defense subcontractor firm.

I needed the job and the income, and I wanted to perform well.

On the first day of this job, I was shown the five machines I would be operating. The trainer told me that my quota of finished parts would be 12 trays of 12 parts each—or144 total parts per day. Though I completed my quota for the first day, I was befuddled by the manufacturing process. The production of each part required me to stand and wait for one machine to finish its automatic, 30-second procedure. Because of the physical arrangement of the machines, I then had to carry the part three machines down the line to perform the next procedure. Next, I carried the part to each of the remaining three machines for completion. I seemed to be wasting a lot of time standing around, watching machines perform automatic functions, and transporting parts back and forth.

On the second day, I came in early and enlisted the help of a maintenance worker to rearrange the machines. The new configuration allowed me to put one part on one machine, and while that part was being processed, start another part on the next machine. As you can imagine, this resulted in a much more efficient process; by lunchtime, I had produced 144 completed parts. At the end of the day, there were 288 parts awaiting assembly. I doubled my productivity merely by rearranging the machines.

Over the next couple of weeks, this increase in production caused some interesting challenges. Workers and suppliers who produced the materials I needed had to increase productivity to match mine. The assembly department had to devise ways of increasing their efficiency. But we worked together to come up with solutions that everyone could buy into. As we adjusted, production increased company wide.

One day, as the whole line was humming along at its improved pace, the president of the company came down to the production floor and tapped me on the shoulder. In front of all my coworkers, he told me how happy he was with the improvements, thanked me graciously, shook my oil-soaked hand, and went back up to his office. I felt like a million bucks—only greasier.

Keep in mind that this company’s IQ was probably above average. (Did I mention the firm was an aerospace/defense subcontractor?) Yet, despite their genius, they had simply overlooked an opportunity to streamline a process. Other, similarly well-run organizations can miss efficiency opportunities for many reasons. Most commonly, people become comfortable with the established ways of doing things, and they overlook obvious enhancements. Ironically, most improvements are in plain view.1 Company veterans will often tell you, “This is the way it’s done.” That may well be true; but the critical approach you will bring to your job on Monday morning is the newcomer’s point of view. You will ask “why” of anything and everything in your firm that costs money, takes time (which is money), requires attention (which eats time), and saps energy (which is all you really have to offer). If you do so, you’ll find you can perform your job in different and better ways, with improved results.

Will there be times when you will be looked at negatively by coworkers for raising the bar on performance? Maybe. Does that mean you shouldn’t do better? Absolutely not, because you can always include them and give them part of the credit for improvements, thereby making your success their success. All it takes is an invitation from you for others to improve upon your ideas and be a part of the implementation.

Employed? Keep the Job You Have . . . Unemployed? Get the Job You Want

In good economic times, the top performers in organizations—or the indispensable employees—regularly receive bonuses, benefits, pay raises, recognition, promotions, and even job offers from other companies. They are always building their resumes and preparing for bigger and brighter things to come. My goal is to help you—through your increased profit contribution skills—enjoy the advantages that are available during such economic upswings.

If your company hits a rough patch financially and is forced to make some cuts in pay, benefits, or personnel, your goal should be to add value to your employer in an effort to increase the chances that you will be seen as a keeper—someone without whom the company would be worse off. When the good times return, you will be well positioned as one of the critical contributors who preserved the company, and you may enjoy the benefits of a company once again in good economic standing.

Should things get really tough—as during a wide-scale, deep, and prolonged economic downturn—top performers keep their jobs if the company survives. Unfortunately, even stellar contributors in failing organizations with ugly financial results may not keep their jobs for long, because their individual contributions may not be sufficient to save the company.

If you are currently out of work due to monumental financial upheaval—which could mean that there are lots of people competing for a limited number of available jobs—you’ll be able to use the information found here to increase your employability in three ways:

1. Revamp your resume as modeled in these pages to highlight your bottom-line profit contributions. You have probably produced some direct financial benefits for past employers, so quantify what you brought to them by properly updating your resume.

2. Become conversant in the basic language of financial statements so that you may coherently discuss with job interviewers how you will provide substantial monetary input. (If you are not up to speed on this point, turn to the back of the book and read the section entitled “Everything You Need to Know about Accounting—and It’s Not Much.”)