Episode 56: The Art of Being a Good Employee - Add Value

Hello, my friends. Welcome to episode 56. It’s a new year if you are listening to this episode when it first drops in January of 2023. Happy New year! Thanks for taking the time to join me here today.

I have decided to run a series for the next few months or maybe the whole year which I am calling the art of being a good employee.

What I have observed is that there is a lot of material out there on how to be a good manager but if your experiences in the workplace have been anything like mine you will likely find yourself at some point working with or for someone who is not doing what all the leadership materials say they should be doing. And most often they think they are a good leader and those above them praise them for being a good leader but your experience working with them is that they are not.

So what do you do?

I haven’t found a lot of material about being a good employee no matter what. If you work for a great boss – that makes it easier. If you work for a very challenging boss, you can still be a good employee.

So we are going to review ideas, and skills that you can develop no matter your position and no matter the manager you currently have or one you may have in the future.

These will be practical, personal management things that you can do to ensure that you are working within your value system, you are spending time on the most important things (both important to you as an individual and the most important things to the company that you work for, these skills will allow you to uplevel your personal and work life.

This is an art form. Some of the skills and ideas we discuss over the next few months, you may need help applying. Grab some time on my calendar and let me help you. Find another coach and let them help you. Seriously get help applying these things and you will see your life level up. This is not easy work but this is incredibly powerful work. When you learn the art of being a good employee, you can make any amount of money you want to make, you can have any job you want to have, and you may even decide to hire yourself.

There are some skills and ideas that you will have mastered already – these are the easy ones for you.

There will be some skills and ideas that you think are irrelevant or silly –I want you to pay attention to these. They may be irrelevant to you and then please disregard them. But they may actually be very relevant to you, and either your brain will be avoiding looking at them because it knows you have a lot of work to do or it may be a blind spot for you. So discuss these ideas with others around you and see if they have insights or ideas that you need to consider.

So the first concept that I want to talk to you about today as part of the art of being a good employee is to: Add Value where ever you go.

Now consider: what value do you have to add?

We often get hung up on this. You have value to add. The value that only you can add. Now you need to discover what that value is and if your employer sees that as value.

Sometimes we think we don’t have value to add. So we do nothing.

Sometimes the value that we want to add, is not something that our employer thinks is valuable. So we do not have a value match.

Sometimes we are not good at communicating and demonstrating the value that we are adding. So we need to develop those skills.

Sometimes we are not playing to our strengths and we are trying to be someone completely different from we are. This is not only exhausting, but it is also creepy. You come off as inauthentic, you run over other people. We each have a unique value to add so figure out what yours is.

When I think about what this looks like, I think about Temple Grandin. She has done incredible work for the progress of autism research and cattle handling research. She had value to add that no one else could add. She doesn’t do things like everyone else. She has clear, strong ideas. She has faced lots of ridicule and struggle. But she has added value.

Now I recently heard someone else speak about cattle handling and facility designs. Some of his techniques, and ideas were so different from what I have heard elsewhere and some of them were similar. He was adding value.

So often we think that there is only one right way but the truth is there are many ways. There are many ways to build good cattle handling facilities, there are many ways to calmly handle cattle, and there is something new for each of us to learn and share almost every day.

Where can you add value?

Now go try it out.

You might have to experiment a little to figure out if it is valuable or not but go do something. Let that brain of yours come up with a radical idea – maybe how could we make this easier? How could we make this more fun? How could we make this more efficient?

Then go do it. See what new value you can add to your job today.

Now the most common pushback I hear about this is: Why would I add value if they are never going to pay me for it?

Listen stop holding back your value from the world because no one is paying for it now.

They don’t even know about it because you are not doing it.

I live by the belief that you will always be paid for the value you add. If it isn’t this employer it will be your next one.

The reason I believe this is because every employer wants employees who know how to add value. You master this skill – and you can have any job you want.

Don’t hold back just because someone isn’t paying you for it now.

The second pushback is: I can’t do anything more right now. My capacity is maxed out right now in my job.

Add value but not at the expense of yourself.

This is where people get it wrong. Especially in the agriculture industry.

We get to thinking that the only way we can add value is to work more hours. The only way we can add value is to dig in, work harder, work longer, work, work, work. But anytime this gets to an extreme, we are trying to add value at the expense of ourselves. This is not sustainable. And working harder is not the message that I have for you today.

The message is a version of work smarter.

I am confident that you have a lot of value to add to this world.

You have value that no one else in your organization has.

Your job is to uncover that value. Offer that value. Practice that value. Improve that value. Reap the reward of that value.

So if this feels a little bit impossible, we are on the right track.

We will not know if your ideas are of value until we try them out.

So consider this.

You have value to add. (and only you can do it)

This may require some growth and some discomfort but it must not come at your own expense.

You must experiment with your ideas to find the ones that your employer or future employers will consider valuable.

Now I know it’s a bit of an abstract concept but consider: what can you do that helps yourself, others, and your employer?

Now go do that next thing.

It will be fun.

Have a wonderful week.