Leverage: Doing more with less

"Leverage" is a popular vocabulary word in the corporate world. Why is this? Because it is strategic and allows a single person to utilize all the resources around him or her most effectively and efficiently in order to have a positive impact on the bottom line.

What we leverage:

• People or human resources - people are resources that can accomplish tasks or provide information that has already been gathered (research)
  
• Research - from a known source or reporter such as Forrester or Gartner. Research could be gathered through various websites online, but they aren't all "trusted" so be warned.
• Capital - money doesn't buy happiness, but it can be "leveraged" to create value for the customer or client
  
• Ideas - derived from people and can be "leveraged" to create a successful strategy
• Assets - aside from monetary means, assets could be classified as a location such as a house (place of ownership)
  

The bottom line is shaped and twisted from leveraging your surroundings. Those that can properly leverage their resources to accomplish tasks, will excel at a faster pace. It should be your goal to gather and increase the items listed above, in order to expedite the learning curve or advance in a given project.

Resources: The building blocks of power

How does one gain power and success?

Resources in nature cover the areas of people, money and materials. These three areas allow one person to have more control than another. The more wealth, raw materials and people you have working for you, the more powerful you will be. When I mention power, I mean the ability to gain control in a certain area, whether it be management or the creation of a separate business entity. Resources are the gateway to overcoming adversity and climbing new heights.

• To have more people working for you or at your disposal, means you can get more things done and in a timely manner.
  
• To have more raw materials, means you can create more product to sell to the end consumer.
  
• To have more money, means you are able to purchase more materials and pay the wages of your underlings.

For example, if you notice a director at your organization and the amount of human resources under him in the hierarchy. The more people that reside under this director, the more powerful he or she is. Another item to take into account is responsibility. With an increase in money, materials and people, comes a need for more responsibility for managing these resources. If you fall short on meeting the needs of the people under you, are unable to invest money and have too many or few raw materials, you will fail and lose your position. With more power, comes greater responsibility to both your investments and the people that are working for you. If you treat your people right and give them opportunity to grow, you will grow alongside with them. Along with that increase of responsibility and growth yields a higher wage. If you notice, these resources work hand-and-hand in building your success.

Knowledge Worker

There are two types of workers: regular and knowledge. Regular employees will remain stationary and unaffected by organizational change. In this fashion, they will pass on learning new technologies and strategies in order to conduct business more efficiently. The end result of a regular employee is to become obsolete in his or her current environment. In order to stop these coincidences from occurring, you must transition your train of thought to become a knowledge worker. Knowledge workers seek to acquire newly established skills and broaden their working capacity by soaking in new forms of knowledge and technology. To become a knowledge worker, you must look towards the future and have an inborn ability to excel at work. If you're a regular worker, your skills will slowly deplete over a period of time and your position will fade away. On the other hand, if you're a knowledge worker, you will acquire a variety of different skills and techniques that match the requirements of new positions that may unfold.

Tip: Research new skills and techniques that factor into your job situation and implement a strategy to acquire them. ALWAYS BE THINKING IN THE FUTURE!

The success sacrifice

"Your role may be thankless, But if you're willing to give it your all, you just might bring success to those who outlast you."

To get what we really seek in life, we must have points of sacrifice. By "sacrifice" I mean, giving up one thing, in order to obtain another. For example, if you strive to get a promotion at work, you may sacrifice precious hours you might have spent with a loved one. This is in fact an opportunity cost in itself because in order for you to attain an opportunity, there is a cost associated with it. Costs usually account for time, money, effort and endurance and benefits can range from a promotion to a successful relationship. To make things truly work out, one must lose out on one opportunity.

You might be saying to yourself right now "I've never had to sacrifice." I will counter this thought by explaining to you that the event of even attending a college is a sacrifice and you must endure four years of hard work to either progress into graduate school or get a superior job. Instead of going to college, you may have stayed stationary at home or took up a moderate job that barely pays the bills. Have you ever driven lengths to see the woman you love? A relationship in its essence reflects sacrifice and builds off this element to be successful. If two people are willing to sacrifice to be with each other, then it must be true love. If you are willing to put in the effort to graduate at the top of your class (as a sacrifice) then you will attain a superior job.

As a rule of thumb, the more you sacrifice early in life, the more benefit you will receive later. This is a judgment call that you must make. I interned eight times throughout the past 5 years, as a sacrifice and because of that sacrifice, I claimed a job that fit both my expectations and requirements. The sacrifice here was time and effort and it paid off. If you have the determination and are willing to work for something and sacrifice, you will get what you want.

5 Inputs of Success

Focus: Find a subject that interests you, focus in on it and then figure out how to position yourself accordingly, in order to step into that field. Those who have focus, do not waste precious time on subject matter that is not relevant. My tip here is to do your homework by researching different job positions, qualifications and responsibilities to get a strong handle on relevancy to what you want to accomplish. If you are passionate about creating custom graphics, then maybe try your hand at advertising. Focus is what will help drive you!

Luck: To me luck is a "wild card" because fortune may change all other successful inputs accordingly. You could have the most determination in the world, focus on your goals and work hard, but if your company acquired, then you might lose out. Luck is something that cannot be changed or manipulated, but if you are lucky, the doors may open to new opportunities.

Hard-work: If you work hard, it shows in the quality of the end deliverable. Working hard is a characteristic of any successful entrepreneur. If you are not willing to work hard, then it is actually considered an impediment to your success and a competitive disadvantage. If you aren't working hard, others will be working hard, so they will climb the corporate hierarchy while you remain stationary. Remember you "get out of life what you put in."

Determination: Determination is the driver to make someone work hard and the force is very strong. If you are determined, you will not let any obstacle force you to quit and in doing so, you will be successful. On the downside, this attribute may make you go crazy, which is certainly not healthy to your lives. Find something inside you where you can get this characteristic and "ignite it."

Timing: Timing correlates almost directly with luck, in that if you have superior timing, the right positions or opportunities will clear and allow you to seize them. The difference between timing and luck is that you have the inborn ability to control timing. I say this because you can get your work out to your boss at the right time and manipulate the system.


I hope you all enjoyed this post....leave a comment if something is unclear!

NOTE: I create all the graphics used in the blog if you were wondering

Giving back

Throughout your life, you have viewed others helping nearby communities, donate to charities and volunteer to support local causes. There is a reason for all of these acts and although it seems obvious, I consider the act of giving and receiving a life cycle. Giving back, in my opinion, solidifies your future successes because helping other people that are not as fortune as you may be is what everyone should do. Charities are not the only form of "giving back." I also consider helping your families, a major part in the giving back process. Psychologically, if you are fortune, are highly successful and stable, why not help those that could die without your financial support.

In the previous post, you may have noticed that I included a charitable foundation, as part of my dream. If you retire and have an outstanding balance of cash flow, it serves no purpose, other than utilizing it to give back to the communities and people that have made you who you are.

So if you take nothing from this post, I would like you to take a look around your world and see how you could make the most impact, by helping others out in need. Understand that the people that have guided you, appreciated you and care for you, should be taken up with you in your success and the people that have held you back and who did not believe in you should be banished.

Overcoming Obstacles

In our lives, there have always been obstacles or threats that hinder our success. In order to properly overcome these obstacles, we must first state the various threat possibilities that we notice every day. Here are some of a few (pertaining to success in the workplace):

• Parents
• Peers
• Opportunity Limitations
• Poor Management / Mentoring
• Company Politics
• Uncontrollable External Factors (such as the weather)

After presenting your current obstacles, you must figure out tactics and strategically align these tactics to manipulating these obstacles in your favor or dismissing them altogether. One factor which we may never control is "luck", which forecasts the probability for which we will succeed. Luck is always the wild card and plays a major role in upward job mobility. As you age, parents become less and less of a factor into blockading your future and sending it in the direction they desire. Although, they do pose as mentors with previous experience that may lend a hand. Peers are tricky adversaries and mercenaries to your cause because some of your friends will be trying to utilize you as a resource to get ahead on their career path, while others may aid your cause. Your opportunities may be limited by the total allotment of revenue generated by your department or "value-add". By this I mean that the strength of your department to contribute to the company's bottom line, will initiate key opportunities for you or the lack there of. A manager is crucial to your success and if the manager lacks key skills and interpersonal communication, then you are already at a loss. It is quite hard to excel if your manager is an obstacle point of contact, so you must work around that and establish other mentors that could guide you in the right direction. Company politics are inevitable, especially at a larger corporation, where the hierarchy is limitless and the competition is strong. The only way to combat this obstacle is to play into it. External factors may not be controlled, and might have a negative impact on your work if you let them. As long as you work around these obstacles, you will be able to achieve, without constant frustration that negatively impacts your work progress.

Climbing the corporate ladder

This pyramid represents the routine transition from new employee, into management, into director, vice president and then as CEO. If you seek to be at the top, you must visualize the steps beneath and the imagery above should give you a more defined picture. Of course, there are special circumstances, that usually involve timing and a bit of luck, such as employees switching to new departments or your division prospering. Managers, directors, vice presidents or even the CEO might leave the position, allowing an understudy to fill in. Also, your division might be highly successful (in terms of revenue generated) one year and the CEO might want to invest more money and labor into it, meaning you will have direct reports, giving you a boost into management. In general if you would like to be CEO or even merely a manager, the diagram above gives an accurate read of how many years of experience you must have in order to be in the selection pool. If you think that you could be a manager after only a year, you are wrong because you will not have the full understanding of your field in only one year and will not have earned the respect as a new employee to handle that position. There are leadership development programs that allow you to successfully push up the pyramid at a faster pace, but otherwise, you must start from the bottom and work up, gaining valuable experience at every step of the way. Not everyone wants to step into management. Management means more responsibilities, more stress, and more time away from your friends and families. This blog is more geared to those who wish to stop at nothing and create upward mobility in order to accomplish at the highest level. If you want to do this, you MUST put in the time, the effort and most importantly the realization that others are seeking the same goals as you are. Just keep focused and you will climb the ladder over a period of time.