Fractional CFO & Business Leader
Providing value at every interaction.
Honesty.
In its most basic form - if you find a wallet, return it intact. If the cashier gives you too much change, let them know. A trait reinforced by my upbringing by observing my Mother & Grandparents
If it’s not yours, and you didn’t earn it, you don’t take it.
Hard Work.
Hard work still underpins success, no matter what new & fashionable phrase is thrown around - such as: “..work smart, not hard..”
Mark Cuban says that successful people already work smarter. They don’t work mindlessly, inefficiently or ineffectively. Where success is concerned working smarter is a given.
Starting out in my career one thing I knew I could do was outwork the person next to me. I could control that.
Providing Value.
Providing value means whatever you do adds value. Output is the starting point but high output alone isn’t enough. Start by assigning a value to each task to ensure high value tasks are prioritized. To successfully provide value, first look at how you manage your time. Emails & meetings are a good place to start.
Emails fill our lives for better or worse. Managing your emails is the first place to review time spent. Some organizations support a culture where you can cc anyone and everyone. Every time you send an email you have distracted or side-tracked your recipient, and if it wasn’t critical to the function of their role, you have selfishly stolen a finite resource. Think before you send.
Ensure meetings are critical to the function of the organization. At the end of the meeting if a new skill wasn’t attained, critical issue resolved, or value added then you just wasted everyone’s time. Rapport building and the feeling of being part of a team should also be achieved at a meeting, but this is secondary to adding value.
