For many years the urge to share what I have learned about how to maximize your professional performance AND stay true to what you really value has burned in my spirit.

My passion is to see men and women liberated from the constraints of conventional wisdom about what it takes to win at work, and empowered by the truth, backed up by the principles and practices that deliver real results.

And now I know for certain that the Win at Work Book WILL be written and published!

How do I know? Glenn Dietzel at Awaken the Author Within has just announced that I am a joint winner for live mentoring in his Books Mean Credibility program. This was a global competition and I am truly humbled to have been chosen as a joint winner, along with Laurie Kirk of USA. 

Here’s the video announcement of the competition winners.

Why am I asking for your help?

It’s very important to me that the finished Win at Work Book is as real and useful as possible for my readers, so I am still conducting surveys and collecting case studies from employers, employees and small business owners.

How can you help?

If you are willing to be involved in surveys, short courses and case studies you can register your interest here

Your registration will also give you access to some useful freebies and sneak previews of the Win at Work book.

To win at work small business owners must be true to their values, just like employees.

Recently I’ve been asked by several would be small business owners how they can choose the right business for themselves. Here’s where I suggest you start – with yourself!

Ask yourself these questions and take the time to reflect and then write down your HONEST answers:

1. What are your primary natural talents?

Your best skills and strengths come from your natural talents. Do you know your Talent Code? The more you can work from your talents the more productive you will be.

2. What do you value?

Your values are your inner motivators and you need to build them into your life every day in order to keep yourself motivated. Check out Twelve Top Reasons to Know Your Values. Have you cracked your Motivation Code yet?

Have youdiscovered your hidden value?

If you are like the rest of us you will have within you a hidden storehouse of treasure that you can bring to your business. Pick up this free eCourse to help you find your hidden value.

3. What are your existing skills?

Are you great at practical, hands on tasks like making or fixing stuff? Are you good at working with numbers or information? Are you a techie person? Do have have great people skills? Are you friendly and helpful on the phone? Can you imagine yourself in a specific role, working from home?

Do you have a big picture of how your products or services meet a need in the marketplace AND a picture of all the small things you need to do to make it happen?

Are you ready and willing to expand your skills?

4. Are you equipped to be self employed?

What knowledge, skills and mind sets do you have about running a small business? Do you understand the legal, financial and taxation responsibilities? Who would use your services? How will you let the world know your services exist? Online, offline, both? Would self employment suit your personality and lifestyle?

Are you willing to learn new knowledge, skills and mind sets to ensure your success? Are you willing to take on a mentor? What criteria will you use to choose a mentor so you don’t get ripped off?

Who will be your mastermind partners and how will you mutually serve each other?

Will you surround yourself with positive, supportive people? Are you willing to read and listen to inspirational messages? Get your FREE Mini Motivators here.

Do you have the skills and strategies you need to manage your time, money and energy effectively so that you can avoid burnout and overcome overload?

And last, but certainly not least, are you willing and able to serve your customers or clients with a genuine can do and will do attitude? Are you someone your customers can trust to deliver good value?

I do hope this helps to jump start your thinking and wish you all the best in your quest to win at work AND be true to your values.

Do you know your talent code? Oprah sure knows hers!

Two people who are incredibly successful in their own careers have forged a partnership designed to turn YOU into a winner at work, without sacrificing your values. And it’s FREE!

Oprah Winfrey

Credited by many as the world’s most influential woman, Oprah is also a self made multi billionaire multiple-Emmy winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in the history of television. She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher.

Oprah has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and the world’s only black billionaire for three straight years. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Oprah is very clear about her life purpose, her talent code, and how to use her unique talent code to contribute to the world. She declares in the introduction to this FREE 3 HOUR online seminar that she is paid to be an inspiration to others to go to the next level in their work and in their life.

Marcus Buckingham

One of my favorite authors and mentors, Marcus has a similar life goal to mine … to change the way people work. He worked with the Gallup Organization for many years, involved in deep research into what makes people successful in their work. His writing style is very clear and to the point, as is his teaching style.

Marcus Buckingham is a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Leadership and Management. He started as a senior researcher with The Gallup Organization, and helped to develop the Strengths-based approach to management that is now gaining widespread recognition as the key to engagement of employees.

These two high achievers with generous spirits have teamed uo to present this word class, FREE 3 hour online seminar (you can watch, listen and learn in 20 minute chunks, at your convenience).

If you are struggling with any aspect of your work or work-life balance, and want to learn the scientifically validated secrets of personal success, this seminar will help you to take control of your career and your life.

When you’ve completed your study I would love to hear your results, so remember to return to this page, click on the comments link and tell me what you learnt and how it changed your work life.

Imagine getting paid to do something you love. Create the job, career and life you were meant to live! Join career coach Marcus Buckingham’s online workshop and put your strengths to work today.   CLICK HERE to Win at work with your talent code at your FREE online workshop with Marcus Buckingham

Customer service focus: essential to excellence in professional performance

In previous posts I’ve identified two of the three dimensions that are essential for you to win at work without sacrificing your values:

• Engagement of your talent code
• Meaning, which stems from values alignment, your unique motivation code

In this post I’ll give a quick overview of the third:

• Customer service focus.

 Your customers or clients might be internal or external, individuals or corporations, paying or non-paying (as in community service clients)

Your customer service knowledge and skills may be expanded by training, strengthened by practising, or adjusted to meet changed needs or circumstances.

Your customer service attitude however cannot be improved by the above methods because it stems directly from your values. Your attitude can change if you CHOOSE a suitable path of integrated personal and professional development, which is based on your unique motivation code AND the aligned values of your employer.

Your customer service knowledge, skills and attitude can be maximized if:

• your personal values are service oriented (it’s not about you) AND
• your employer’s values behind their customer service practices are service oriented

The points I’ve just made have one thing in common – values alignment. We can conclude that identifying and prioritizing your core values (your unique motivation code) is essential if you want to excel in each of the three dimensions of winning at work: Engagement Meaning Customer Service Focus

Do you know how to identify and prioritize your values, how to crack your unique motivation code? Post your comments, questions or suggestions in the comments box below.

Next post: Value Your Life, Live Your Values – Why you need to live your values in order to win at work and avoid burnout

Unfold more meaning in your work to win at work without sacrificing your values

Here’s a true story about a colleague who had identified and prioritized his personal values (his unique motivation code), and how that self knowledge saved him from a potential professional disaster.

Paul, a colleague who is passionate about environmental conservation, told of the excitement he felt when invited by a legal firm who specialized in Environmental Law, to discuss a possible consulting contract. He envisioned the positive impact the partnership could have on the application of environmental legislation within the nation.

Imagine his horror when, at their first meeting to explore how they might work together, he learned that the focus of their firm was to find loop-holes in environmental legislation in defence of their clients. He declined their invitation, of course.

Can you imagine the scenario if he had not been 100% certain of his motivation code? If he had not been true to his personal values?

What if he had convinced himself that he needed the contract for financial reasons and decided to go ahead? How soon would he have experienced the first symptoms of stress? How soon would he have started coming home from work with feelings of anger and resentment, and directed those feelings towards his wife and kids? How soon before he could barely get out of bed to face another day working on that project? How soon before he was in full burnout … weeks, months? You get the picture …

We can avoid burnout by being very clear about our personal values and not engaging in work that has little or no meaning for us.

Meaning arises from values alignment

If you believe that your work contributes something of worth to an organization that offers a service or product that you value to the community, then you are likely to experience your work as meaningful and satisfying. In other words, values alignment creates a feeling of connection to the mission of your employer and your colleagues.

A healthy sense of meaning, along with a high level of engagement, plus a customer service focus, are three key indicators of high professional performance.

Was this information useful? Please post your comments, questions or suggestions in the comments box below.

Customer focus

My next post will reveal why your focus on customer service will help you to win at work.

Why engagement helps you to WIN AT WORK without sacrificing your values

My previous post identified 3 dimensions of professional growth that are vital to your professional performance – engagement, meaning and a customer focus.

Remember that engagement at work stems from actively applying your natural talent code at work. Highly engaged workers display more confidence, more intense focus & higher productivity than non or poorly engaged workers. Let’s examine each of those benefits:

Confidence

Success at work breeds confidence. Success comes from engagement with your work. Engagement comes from working on tasks for which you have a natural talent. When you develop that talent code into professional strengths, and have daily opportunities to apply your strengths to produce quality work, your confidence soars and leads to even deeper levels of engagement … an upward spiral of performance and success.

Focus

Maintaining the motivation to stay “on task” and focused is a real challenge to all of us if we are not working in our strength zone AND working on tasks we value. Your values are your inner desires, and one of the keys to motivation. Think back to a time or situation when you felt successful, and were able to maintain focus on your tasks for extended periods of time … I can guarantee that you valued what you were doing, and had a natural aptitude for the skills required to succeed.

Productivity

Peak performance stems from the alignment of the task at hand with your strength zone and your values. We can express that as a simple formula: * strengths + values + aligned task = productivity.

Transform yourself into a valuable employee by applying this formula for professional performance.

Are you ready to maximize your engagement at work? Post your comments, questions or suggestions in the comments box below.

Live your values: find meaning in your work

My next post will reveal why you need to find meaning in your work to win at work without and avoid burnout

Engagement, meaning and service: how to win at work without sacrificing your values

You might be surprised to discover that these 3 things are vital to your professional performance – out of a dozen or so common Quality Management Practices, development in these 3 areas ensures your value as an employee:

Engagement

Engagement happens when you are actively working with your natural talent set and developing them into strengths. If you are engaged with your work, you will feel confident, be focused and productive, and contribute well to your employer’s business outcomes, while enjoying a greater sense of success than around 80% of your colleagues

Meaning

A sense of meaning or purpose in your work arises from the alignment of your values with your employer’s values. When you believe that the work you do contributes something worthwhile to an organisation that is offering a useful product or service to the community, you are likely to experience your work as meaningful and satisfying

Service

An attitide of service is the mark of all real winners. If you gain great satisfaction from delivering a high level of customer service, (internal or external customers), doing everything in your power to meet your customer’s needs, and sticking with a challenge until you have found a solution for your customer, then you are likely to be valued highly by your boss

Contribution to business results and your professional performance

If you ranked yourself highly on the 3 dimensions above, chances are that you are highly productive, have an immense sense of satisfaction, and are making a valuable contribution to the business outcomes of your employer … creating a win-win outcome.

Engaged workers are more productive …

My next post will reveal why you need to find a way to be an engaged worker.

Was this information useful? Post a comment, question or suggestion …