CRG Leadership Institute 
Career Success Strategies  
"Helping people achieve career success through leadership and personal excellence"
CRG Weekly eZine
 December 1, 2008
In This Week's Issue
Maintain an "Add Value!" Mindset
Quotes to Inspire
Quick Links
Greetings!

Our catch phrase of the week is:
 
"Add Value!"
 
As an employee and business professional it is essential that you create real value on an ongoing basis....significant value at that.
 
Your job must be one that is truly necessary to the success of your employer and you must be performing job in an exemplary way. It is absolutely essential that you create the value that customers/clients of your employer will be expecting.
 
This week's eZine offers some tips for maintaining a value-added mindset.
 
Please also note that we've added another section to our eZine, which will be an ongoing component of this publication -- Our "Recommended Book of the Week" -- which is presented following our quote of the week below.
PAR Signature
Andy Robinson
Head Coach
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Maintain an "Add Value!" Mindset
 
Presented below are some tips and suggestions for adding value. Develop a mindset of adding value in a sustainable manner and take personal responsibility for ensuring you consistently add value to your employer .... in these tough economic times, adding value as an employee is more important than ever.

Bottom-Line Orientation.
Focus on projects, tasks and activities that have the most immediate near-term impact on the bottom line. Put yourself in the "owner's" seat and ensure you're doing everything possible to positively impact results.

Cost-Saving Mentality.
Constantly look for ways to save your company money. Share those ideas with others. Little things replicated across an entire employee base can make a big difference. Be cost-conscious and responsible.

Win-Win Solutions.
Look for win-win solutions with colleagues, team-mates, customers and vendors. Embrace the philosophy of creating leveraged value through your relationships. Be open-minded and considerate of others' ideas.

Improve Personal Productivity.
Aggressively look for ways to improve your personal productivity. Eliminate time-wasters and distractions. Learn to say no to those tasks and activities that run counter to your productivity.

Stay Focused on the Important.
Prioritize your work efforts to ensure you're focusing on the most important tasks and activities first. Ensue that the things you think are important are consistent with and in alignment with what your supervisor and the company believes are most important.

High Quality Work.
Produce high quality deliverables that are consistently in top final form. Be the role model for producing top notch work product. Embrace quality as a personal branding element.

Reach Out to Others.
Reach to help and support others. Make yourself available to and accessible to others -- be approachable and responsive. Set the example for being a supportive and service-oriented teammate.

Time Sensitivity and Deadline-Focused.
Discipline yourself to be deadline-focused. Make it a point to complete tasks, projects, deliverables and administrative reports/forms ahead of schedule. Work with a sense of urgency, particularly on important tasks and assignments.

Positive Influence.
Be a positive influence to others. Avoid negative talk and gossip .... break the chain of negativity.

Quotes to Inspire 

"There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative."
 
 W. Clement Stone
Recommended Book of the Week:
 
"A Sense of Urgency"
by John P. Kotter
 
Author and international business consultant Kotter ("Leading Change", "Our Iceberg is Melting") returns with an engaging look at companies that need to overcome a lack of urgency-or a surfeit of complacency-with a proactive agenda. Kotter dissects well his seemingly simple premise, using his professional experiences to examine the inner workings of real companies. Kotter convincingly asserts that urgency "is not driven by a belief that... everything is a mess but, instead, that the world contains great opportunities and great hazards"; it is, in fact, "a compulsive determination to move, and win, now."