Creating Impact, Delivering Value
The idea I’ve been putting forward, for some time now, is that you should work towards becoming an influencer. The idea is simple - work on how you present yourself and your ideas. Be clear about what areas of expertise you’re focusing on and how that aligns to your skillsets so that you come across clearly to your intended audience. Doing so ensures that when you do communicate your message, it comes across to your audience in the manner intended.
Perhaps, you find this a puzzling proposition. Why should you put yourself out there? Why should you paint a picture of yourself and what will you do with all the interest that comes your way as a result of all this work? What is the big picture here?
First, every one of us needs to communicate with others in our work lives, whether it be with peers, work colleagues, our leaders, mid-level managers, suppliers, partners, supporters, prospects and clients. Even in the most isolated roles, some level of communication is required albeit minimally. Communication is not simply about sharing facts and figures or getting your viewpoint across. In some situations, it facilitates the development of awareness or education. In others, you may be assisting with learning. In essence though, communicating is about working towards achieving something. Sometimes, you’re working to win someone over. At other times, you’re working to get people moving in a particular direction. The end game is influence. You’re sharing ideas and insights, you’re working to get others to see things from your perspective, you’re looking to be understood but also to understand.
Second, tech innovation, automation and the digitalisation of many aspects of our work and personal lives now means we live and work in a global environment. We have the opportunity, which we can leverage at any time, to reach out to as wide an audience as we wish. Ponder on that and grasp what this means.
Take jobs, for example. You could apply for any job around the world, if you wanted to.
You have the ability to create a digital CV or digital profile (such as LinkedIn) and reach out to various organisations at any point. You have the ability to access even more jobs than ever before because platforms now exist to provide this to you. Just with this alone, you can see and believe that you really are able to compete in a global environment. The limitations are what you make of it.
As another example, take the conferencing industry.
In the past, you had to wait till an opportunity presented itself to you to get a speaking engagement or to speak to your target audience. Today, the tools you need (and technical tips and knowledge base) to get a platform, to take a position, to reach out to a targeted audience and then, to make an impact by presenting an idea – they are right here. At little to no cost at all. The cost is that of your time and effort.
You no longer need to wait for a platform to open up to you. You create your own platform. You put as many messages out there as you’d like. With such unprecedented opportunity, what are you to do? How should you even start? Yes, these are challenges to face and for some, the journey may be long but like anything, you break the challenge down into manageable parts and deal with things one at a time.