HOW TO ACHIEVE A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN A TOUGH ECONOMY--PART II
================================================== =
In the previous issue of this eNewsletter (www.WolfRinke.com) we discussed the following strategies you need to master to take charge of your career:
--Pick your place of work carefully
--Pick your boss carefully
--Keep your resume floating
--Invest more in yourself than in your job
--Think contribution not position
Now let's look at several other strategies that will enable you go beyond surviving in this tough economy:

Think projects
Today, most work gets accomplished by projects. To thrive in a project environment, recognize that work gets done primarily by three distinct specialties. First there are the resource providers. These are the folks who develop and supply talent or money. Your human resource manager and financial officer would fit into this category. Next are the project managers. They are responsible for making sure that the talent and resources are organized in such a way that the project gets done. Next is the talent. These are the people who have the skills to get the job done such as managers and front line employees. To thrive in this new environment, it is important that you go beyond developing your expertise (talent) and master Winning Management skills so that you can perform equally well in the project manager or resource provider role. (To help you with this see the special offer in section #2.

Think global
To take advantage of globalization you must dramatically increase your cultural awareness. If you now work in a primarily homogeneous organization and are not at least 95% satisfied I recommend that you seek employment in a multicultural organization. Don't know where to start? Get a hold of Fortune's latest issue of either "The 100 Best Companies to Work For" or "America's Most Admired Companies" typically published in February and March of every year respectively (www.money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune) and apply to any of the companies listed. Equally important learn a foreign language. If you're not fluent in at least one foreign language you will be in trouble. And put your language to work by visiting a country that speaks the language of interest to you. You'll really learn to speak it, become culturally sensitive and bring back a ton of great ideas to accelerate your success dramatically.

Think weird
Future growth in the world will come from what Tom Peters calls the Imagination Business. So think different. No, better yet think weird. Force yourself to color outside of the box, to look at the same thing as everyone else and see something different. (My definition for creativity.) Act crazy. Be weird, just don't be comfortable. Look around you. Look at the people who are the real geniuses of today's age, like Steve Jobs of Apple, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google. They came up with things that they were passionate about and that customers did not ask for. They do things not only different, they often do exactly the opposite of what others perceive as rational. Remember if it were rational, everyone would do it. And being like everyone won't enable you to succeed in this tough economy.

Become an effective team player and leader
Like it or not, teams are the way lots of work is being accomplished in today's organizations. Being effective in this environment requires that you learn how to empower others and master Winning Management skills. (To help you with this see the special offer in section #2, http://www.WolfRinke.com)

Focus on delivering exceptional quality service
Delivering exceptional quality service is not an option, it is a survival strategy. You must be absolutely clear about who provides you with a paycheck. No, it's not your boss or even your company. It is the person you serve--an external or internal customer. As a litmus test of how customer focused you are, look back at your calendar for the last week to find our how much time you've spent with your customers. If you are spending less than third of your time each with your customers and employees you are heading for trouble.

Become a problem solver
One of the best ways to position yourself for advancement or pay increases is to become a problem solver. In this tough economy you can't expect to be compensated for time, only for results and problems solved. So actively look for a problem that impacts negatively on the bottom line put a team together and solve it. Then, let the powers-to-be know how much your team improved the profitability of your organization. If you do that consistently you will be ready to be promoted, even in tough times.

Think of yourself as self-employed
Seeing yourself working for one large company for the rest of your career is, to say it gently, crazy! It's just not going to happen! In this tough economy it's important that you see yourself as "self-employed", or as "renting" your services out to someone else (your employer). To get started, pretend that you are an entrepreneur or a consultant who is selling services to a client (your employer). To make this realistic, compute your daily compensation. Be sure to add your benefits--about 30%. Then get in the habit of asking yourself: "Have I created value today that exceeded my compensation?" Repeat that question every work day. You may even find it helpful to place a nice looking sign on your desk: "How am I creating $_____ of value today?"

Keep Growing
Get in the habit to ask: "How have I ‘grown' in my job today?" To facilitate this, think of going to work each day with a "briefcase" of skills and competencies. At the end of the day, check your "briefcase" to see if there is more in it than at the beginning of the day. If day after day, what you bring to work is the same as you take home, it's time to move on to a more challenging "assignment."

Network Now
When it comes time to find a new challenge, your network, more than anything else, will determine how fast you will find your next dream job. To test your networking effectiveness, ask yourself who you have been eating lunch with during the past week. If it is pretty much the same people, you are missing tremendous networking opportunities. So start today to get in the habit of eating lunch with different people three out of five days a week, to sit with people you don't know at meetings and to attend conferences that are sponsored by other than your own specialty groups.

In the next issue of this eNewsletter I will provide you with specific diagnostic questions you need to answer to not just survive, but thrive, in this tough economy.


Wolf Rinke