people-skills2.jpg10.  Know what you contribute. 

Job titles are so inexact. 

When positivesharing asked, “who cares about your job title, tell me what you do?”, Elaine responded with

At my first job out of college, in a small children’s museum, I had the absurdly long title: “Administrative Assistant to the Director of Development and the Director of Education.”

Somehow I acquired the nickname title “Random Chaos Girl” because I did a little bit of everything: wrote and designed the newsletter, taught bookmaking classes, researched grants, ran a yard sale, etc., etc.

Employees are trained to respond with ’computer programmer’ or ‘attorney’ when answering that question.  The paradigm is so insidious that you can forget what it is you actually do.  Job titles are not descriptive.  Clerks, even in the same company, may not do the same thing.

If you, like the guys in “Office Space”, were pulled into a meeting and asked about how you contributed to your office, workplace, and employer, what would you tell the Bobs?

You should be able to succintly quantify what you do and what your value is, not unlike a Unique Selling Proposition. 

Entrepreneurs never forget what their product is and neither should you.  No matter what you are engaged in, your product, first and foremost, is you.

You should know your strengths and contributions, both tangible and intangible.  Knowing your value is the first step to confidence in yourself and inner strength when dealing with others. 

 

“Office Space” – I have people skills

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If you liked this article check out Rules for Success: #9.