Innovation, Technology,
the Chemical Enterprise and YOU
Judy Giordan
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As the CEO of Me.Life, you are responsible for
growing your marketable value, creating your sustainable
advantage, and building brand YOU. In today's
exciting yet challenging business climate, whether
you are in manufacturing, R&D, marketing or
sales and regardless of whether you are a technician
or the CEO, building a sustainable advantage for
brand YOU and your company, Me.Life, requires
exactly the same dedication and planning as building
any company or brand. It takes:
- Developing and implementing a fearless career
strategy based on respecting and being able
to predict changing market requirements
- Building a credible and reliable reputation,
and
- Ensuring you are capable, adaptable, motivated
and committed.
While this can sound a bit daunting, it isn't.
There are three key points to remember:
1. Be an over ACHIEVER not an over EXPECTER
2. Maintain your current skills and build
new ones
3. Embrace the unknown
1. Be an over ACHIEVER not an over EXPECTER
Gather the important data you need to build your
personal business strategy. Know the qualities
companies want and which will gain you recognition
and support. In studies where employers were asked
to name the most important qualities common to
the best employees,
they cited:
- KNOW your stuff
- THINK critically
- COLLABORATE across disciplines
- LEARN in fields beyond your specialty
- ADAPT quickly under changing conditions
- WORK well in teams
- LEAD as well as FOLLOW
- BE CREATIVE and INNOVATIVE
- Take the INITIATIVE
- Show ENTHUSIASM for your work
- Have a strong WORK ETHIC
- Demonstrate a SENSE OF URGENCY
- COMMUNICATE effectively
How do you stack up against this list? How would
your peers and teammates rate you? How would your
supervisor or team leader respond about you?
2. Maintain your current skills and build new
ones
The skills you need are not only in technical
areas. Knowing and being able to use fundamental
business principles as well as cultivating strong
interpersonal skills are both key for success.
Ask yourself the following questions and see how
well you do on all three fronts-technical, business,
and interpersonal.
Technical:
- Both within and outside of your area of expertise
what courses have you taken and which books
and journals do you regularly read to keep on
top of the latest findings?
- How good are your networking skills?
- Are you comfortable having a technical dialogue
with others regardless of their position in
the organization or their degree level? Do you
ask questions? Do you present talks?
Business:
- Do you know the critical issues in your industry?
- What is your company's business strategy and
what role does science and technology play in
that strategy?
- What role do YOU play in the strategy and
can you clearly articulate that role and it's
value to accomplishing the strategy?
- Can you explain the innovations you have made
or contributed to that have had a direct impact
on the company?
Interpersonal:
- Are you as articulate about the business
and science as you can be? In a business setting
are you able to talk about business or do you
mostly chat socially?
- Are you comfortable discussing your work,
and are you able to describe how it directly
impacts the business?
- Do you know your behavior style and how well
you work in teams? If you don't know your behavior
style, ask your Human Resources department if
they administer the Myers-Briggs
or similar personality inventory. There are
actually so many it's amazing. These inventories
are all situation relative and you have to answer
the questions based on the situation. The DISC
tool is a well-known example and is available
to individuals.
- In order to network effectively and get the
result you want, can you give a "60 Second
Sketch" describing who you are and what
you do?
- How broad is your network, and do you actively
cultivate and maintain it?
- Can you "work a room" and get the
information and response you need?
3. Embrace the unknown
- Be a role model for change by embracing it
openly and without cynicism.
- Do you volunteer for new roles, responsibilities
and assignments, or do they have to be thrust
upon you?
- Are you a role model for others
in embracing change and adapting easily?
- Be a leader in metrics
- How are your leadership skills in developing
and implementing measurements metrics as
a means for change, improvement and demonstrating
accomplishment? You might not need to become
a black belt in Six
Sigma but you can detail what you can
accomplish by when, documenting it, and
demonstrating how that links to business
performance, which is at the heart of a
total quality management process. Getting
the skills is usually provided by most organizations
and many have these systems and concepts
in place today.
- What are the important parameters to measure
for achieving business objectives in your
work and projects? Do you know and have
metrics in place for them? Do you focus
on metrics linking the output of your work
to strategically critical issues?
- Are you learning and using the tools of
Six Sigma and quality to improve your own
and your company's performance?
Innovation and building sustainable value are
contact sports. They require being creative in
order to reap rewards, being consistent to minimize
cost to your company, and knowing where the market
and you are headed in order to mitigate risk in
your favor. And winning in this environment means
providing sustainable value to your employer and
to brand YOU.
Judy Giordan is Principal and Co-Founder of Aileron
Partners, a strategic and human capital services
provider, as well as a member of university, professional
society and start-up Boards of Advisors and Directors.
Her previous positions include Vice President
of Research and Development at Henkel Corporation,
Pepsi-Cola, the beverage arm of PepsiCo and International
Flavors and Fragrances. She has also held management
and individual contributor positions at ALCOA
and Polaroid.
The author of over 250 web based articles, print
articles and presentations in the areas of market
and operational strategy development and implementation,
organizational and technology leadership, career
development, diversity, polymer chemistry, and
electron spectroscopy, Judy is frequently an invited
speaker at companies, universities and professional
organizations.
Related Resources
For more than a decade, consultant Robert E.
Kelley has studied what differentiates star performers
from their coworkers. His findings appear in How
to Be a Star at Work: 9 Breakthrough Strategies
You Need to Succeed and How
Bell Labs Creates Star Performers.
Total Quality Management (TQM) relies on a single
fundamental principle: Maximize productivity while
minimizing costs. There are a number of quality
methodologies that can be used: Baldrige,
Deming, ISO 9000, Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma, and
Tageuchi, to name just a few, that you can learn
more about.
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