Maxwell Leadership Podcast: How to Have Job Security (Part 2)

Mark Cole:

Hey, welcome back to the Maxwell Leadership podcast. By the way, I say welcome back. We’ve got some some brand new listeners, brand new viewers here today. Still, welcome back. We’ve been waiting on you. By the way, I also say welcome back because this is episode two in a two part series, and we’re going to talk more about that in just a moment. This is the podcast that adds value to people, adds value to leader who multiply value to others. I’m Mark Cole, and today Chris Goede and I are going to continue a two part series on how to have job security. Now, I laugh with that because John always teaches work yourself out of a job. But also, John is really on to something today and last week when he tells us about ways that we can make ourselves valuable to our team and valuable to our organization. Today, John’s going to be covering .6 through ten on how you can become invaluable to your team. As I said last week, this lesson is for two kinds of people. People who want to be invaluable to their company. They want to show that they have an irreplaceable value. And then two, it’s for leaders who want to recruit invaluable people to John their team. After John’s lesson, Chris and I will join together to dig even deeper into John’s teaching and how we apply it here at Maxwell Leadership. So get ready, because I want you to apply it to yourself and to your team as well. If you’d like to watch on YouTube, you can go to maxwellpodcastcom YouTube. As always, we have a free downloadable PDF that accompanies John’s lesson and you can easier and more effectively take notes if you’d like. This worksheet. Just visit Maxwellpodcastcom Security and click the Bonus resource button. All right, that’s it. Let’s go to part two, john Maxwell Teaching on how to be valuable to your team.

John Maxwell:

Number six, if you want to have job security, show that you add value. We’ve talked about adding value quite a bit. I want to give you a little. Bit more here, though.

The verb of your job is everything. All other things, your business card, stationery title, telephone desk, company car, even your policies and procedure manuals are superfluous. The pertinent questions of a successful business are focused not on its nouns, but on its verbs. What are you producing? Who are you serving? How well do you do it? Go to the verbs of the job, the action part of the job, to see if you’re adding value. So I have five questions that you ask yourself. And again, you don’t have to yell these answers out, but these are just questions for yourself that will help you understand if you add value. Such as, one, those who work with me would say that I add value to them. Was that a yes or a no? Or number two, my ideas and plans have increased customers and profits. Or three, I am worth much more than my salary. Every once in while a somebody complains I’m worth more than my salary, I said, thank God. Thank God. Because I want to tell you something. When you become worth less than your salary, you’re out of there, baby. So don’t complain and say, well, I’m worth more than they pay me. That’s very good. Hey, that’s the idea. You’re starting to understand this. Or number four, those over me constantly affirm my value to the company. That’s a good question. Or number five, I do whatever it takes to help my leaders in my organization. Those are just some key areas that you need to think about and ask yourself, how do they add value? There is no such thing as a probationary period. We are all on probation, always have been. Don’t let anybody ever say, well, I think I’m now off probation. I’ve got this security. I don’t need to worry about anything. No, hey, listen, the guy that owns the company, he’s on probation. If he doesn’t do well, he’s going to go under. Financially, everybody is only as good as what they’re able to produce.

Number seven.

If you want to have job security, number seven, show that you are irreplaceable. Show that you’re irreplaceable. Tozer said adeb. Tozer said, it’s not what a man does that makes his work sacred or secular, but why he does it. And irreplaceable people answer yes to the following questions. Number one, can they that deals with ability. They have the ability to produce and do the job. And will they? That deals with attitude. In other words, they have the ability and they have the attitude and you have to have both. If you’re going to be irreplaceable, you have to have an ability that’s great, but you also have to have an attitude that’s great if you want to have job security. Number eight, show humility. If you want to have job security, show humility. JUTH Martin said it’s far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. Show some humility. And I put some stuff in there because I think this is really key. Humility means two things. One, a capacity for self criticism. And the second feature is allowing others to shine, affirming others, empowering and enabling others. Those who lack humility are dogmatic and egotistical. That mask has a deep sense of insecurity. They feel the success of others is at the expense of their own fame or glory. And that’s so very, very true. Number nine, if you want to have job security if you want to have job security, show gratitude. Show gratitude. I agree with my buddy Zig Ziggler. Gratitude is the greatest of all emotions. In fact, the word Thanksgiving comes from the root word think. So when you think of Thanksgiving, basically what it does is it says think and you have something to be thankful for. Think and you have something to be grateful for for all the good things, of course, that God’s ever done. But but show gratitude. Number ten. Number ten. If you want to keep job security, show excellence. Harvard was right when he said, the best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today. Martin Luther King was right on when he said, if a man is to be called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets. Even as Michelangelo painted or be Tobin composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry, he should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. In other words, he said, whatever you’re doing, do your best. I saw this sign recently. It’s not in your notes, but I saw the sign said, do you like to travel? Do you want to meet new friends? Do you want to free up your future? All this can be yours if you make just one more mistake. Do it with excellence. Whatever you’re doing, in whatever conversation you find yourself engaged, give it three things your whole heart, your undistracted attention, and your maximum energy. I believe that give the project your whole heart, your undistracted attention, and your maximum energy. And give your all to each task you choose to do. Give your best creativity to each idea that you ponder. You may not be the greatest success in the world, but you will have made a success of your world.

Maxwell Leadership Growth Plan:

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Mark Cole:

Hey, welcome back, everyone. I’m reminded Chris of Albert Einstein’s quote that says, strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. Sounds like John Maxwell 100% lives. That life. And so today, we kind of always do this standout statement, something that will really drive the point, the desired outcome of the podcast. And today it’s really about give others your best self. I have committed my life to helping others reach their full potential. And this whole concept that before I can do that, I’ve got to be effective, I’ve got to be of value to the team. I’ve got to show that I really do want job security. And so we’re picking that back up today. And it’s good to be back with you.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Becky. I love this, and I often think about and, you know, this is my favorite content piece of John’s, but I think a lot about John’s five levels of influence, the five levels of leadership, and how you move in between these different levels, and you’re continually growing. And as I think about that and the points that John has brought to us, not only in today’s lesson as we go through kind of six through ten, but what we talked about last episode. And by the way, I know Mark mentioned it in the opening, but if you haven’t listened to that, you want to go listen to that because Mark shares a story at the end of that lesson that not many people know about. One of the things to where he was prepared, and it was on a plane ride with several other leaders. And so you want to go listen to that because I promise you it will resonate. We’re going to start right here where John talks about show that you add value. And as I think about this a little bit, I love where he started off in that quote that he put in the notes for us, where it says the verb of your job is everything. The verb, not your title, not your business card. And as I thought more about this, this is what kind of led me to the five levels of influence. This is really about increasing your influence inside the organization. And when you do that, you have job security. We’ve often kicked around the idea of what if all of us were on a one year contract? I had where this comes from. I had a gentleman one time in a small group, part of my church, and he said, what if your wife every year made the decision whether or not she wanted to re up or not for another year? That was our tradition, our customer. I was like, Well, I wouldn’t be sitting here being married for 25 plus years, right? It wouldn’t have worked. But, man, what if we had that mindset of our influence, of our production, of our adding value, that we would part ways? You think about athletes. You and I talk a lot about sports illustrators, what happens in contract year, they kill it.

Mark Cole:

They play so much better.

Chris Goede:

So are we in thinking about job security, really going after that? And I know that you’ve seen that. I know that you take that approach in what we’re doing. But talk a little bit about John’s point there and what resonates with you most as a leader?

Mark Cole:

Well, I wrote down two questions. I will challenge our podcast family with these two questions. And it’s this it’s very directed to you. What are you producing for the organization? What are you producing? When is the last time you’ve produced? What are you producing? And then the second question is another verb. What are you doing? What are you doing today to make yourself invaluable? When I was listening to John teach this today, Chris, I thought, show that you add value. And I’ve been around the people that talk about themselves too much, right? I mean, let me tell you what I just did. Let me tell you what I’ve done. I’ve also been around people that never demonstrate or never point out that they get that they’re adding value. In other words, they’re the silent person over on the right, and their actions speak more than words. I get all of that. But I think there’s sometimes leaders that we’ve got to get over our sense of humility, and we got to point out that we understand what value is and that we see times that we add value. In other words, show that we add value. Let me tell you how I’ve added value. Now, John’s very good at this. And a lot of times people go, man, he talks about himself a lot. It’s never to get the self gratification or self appreciation or to put the limelight on himself that drives John to do that. We do that as leaders, not to get credit. We do that to model expectation. And I have found that sometimes as a leader, the temptation to just do it and not let anybody notice it, and I’m speaking directly to you because this is truly you. We do it, and we don’t do it for credit. We do because it’s the right thing. But by not establishing credit, we don’t get it modeled in our team. We always go, Why can’t my team do what I’m doing? It’s because they may not be observant to what you’re doing. So I’ve had to sometimes go, hey, team, let me tell you this. I have taken on this sacrifice. Now, I didn’t tell them that for them to feel sorry for me. In fact, sometimes I can remember doing that. And the sacrifice was not that great. It was kind of laughable that I had to mention it. The only reason I mentioned that and bring credit or praise to myself when I show people that I am adding value is so that it will be modeled. So my real challenge to you in this whole comment, Chris, to you, because you need to hear this and to others is never share or show that you’re adding value for self glorification or self edification, but don’t be afraid to do it if the model needs to be given so that it’s demonstrated throughout the team.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, I love what you’re talking about. There’s no doubt that the key word for us to remember in this. And this is where John, you and I have known him for a long time, so I know where this stands with him. But as you think about this, mark is not talking about the boasting side of things. It’s all about our motive, right? And we’ve said before, there’s a fine line between influence and then manipulation. One is self serving, the other one’s focused on others, and the difference is the motive. So remember, yes, you want job security. That’s what we’re trying to help you with here with John’s lesson and unpack this and apply it a little bit for you. But man have the right motive behind why you’re doing what Mark’s doing. In essence, what he’s talking to us about doing. Well, let’s jump to this next point that John talks about here and where it reminded me of a conversation that either you’ve had with me or John, where you come in and someone turns in their resignation and you have one of two feelings, you go, all right, it’s time to move on. That made it a little bit easier on me as a leader. Let’s just be honest. Not everybody likes to have those conversations. The other one is, oh, God, like you’re sick to your stomach, where they are almost irreplaceable inside their organization. And John goes down and he gives us kind of two questions here. Can they or will they? And I want you to unpack the importance of these two questions because I think they cannot stand alone. Right? You can have ability, but if you don’t have the right attitude, the culture is going to weed you out and then vice versa. I know that you’ve seen this throughout your leadership. Why are these two questions so important to you as a leader inside the culture of your organization?

Mark Cole:

Yeah, I think, again, we’re talking about this idea of irreplaceable when John’s teaching this, can they or will they? By the way, if you heard last week’s podcast, episode one, part one of this two part series, chris was concerned that we selected this lesson because we had something to tell him that he was replaceable intervention. And you said intervention, and I was going to bring out the pink slip and let’s go. When you’re sitting there just then talking about should I stay or should I go, I’m sitting there going, is he getting ready to resign right here on the podcast? No, seriously. I think what we’re really doing here is trying to demonstrate irreplaceable. How do I make myself irreplaceable as a leader when I’m interviewing somebody? I have to answer the question, can they ability? Will they? Do they have the attitude that I want? But now we’re talking about somebody on the team. They’ve been there, done that. They have charged the mountain, they’ve accomplished the summit. They’ve done some stuff for us. How do you stay irreplaceable? Because often what people do is say, yes, I can look. Yes, I will look. I did it, I did it. That’s not here. If your attitude is not daily and consistently, I can and I will not. I did and I won’t do it again. Or I did, and don’t ask me that again, I did it once. You have made Bursell replaceable for the organization because this attitude is not about can they, have they done it before? It’s can they do it today and in the future for the organization good. The question is not will they based on have they done it before? Is there a demonstratable passion that they have brought to the table? The question is, is the passion still there? Because I have found that a lot of times when leaders have accomplished something great, they begin to coast. When leaders have demonstrated great sacrifice, they begin to hoard. It’s what Bill Gates said that tomorrow’s success is often jeopardized with today’s success. In other words, good today stops us from great tomorrow because we settle in for that. Well, these great leaders that have accomplished great things, they lose their will, they they lose their can. They based on yesterday’s payday and what we don’t want to do, podcast listeners, what we don’t want to do, leaders, is not answer the question with a historical reference, but with a passion and a hope for the future reference. I can again. I will again. And often we find ourselves looking too much at the past resume of someone rather than the current passion and desire of someone when we look at their replaceability or not.

Chris Goede:

I’m sitting here and I’m thinking about this image as you’re talking of driving a car and we talk about rear view mirror versus looking out the front windshield. And I’m like, yeah, when I’m in the rear view mirror, I’m thinking about who’s in the back seat, what’s behind me, what all this stuff versus to your point? And I love this illustration. And leaders, if you’re out there, man, the more you can be looking out that front windshield and thinking about what is it that I can help do the organization, how can I help my leader, what’s next? What can we be doing differently that will make you irreplaceable?

Mark Cole:

I wish I had this and I should stop the podcast right now and go research it. I read a report one day that of all the wrecks that happened from somebody rear ending somebody over some big percentage, 65% or 70% is they are looking in the rear view mirror and do not see the traffic stopped. Now, if that’s true, and I got to go find this now because I’m all fired up, but it’s fascinating that most of the wrecks that happen with rear ending somebody is not that they stopped too fast, not even just that you were following too close. It’s you momentarily took your eyes off of where you’re going to look at where you have been and you crash. It’s true in leadership, it’s true in being replaceable or irreplaceable in a company. Too often we want yesterday’s success to open the door of opportunity for tomorrow. And I don’t believe that’s true. I believe today’s tenacity hope and energy is what opens the door for tomorrow, not what happened yesterday.

Chris Goede:

That’s awesome. Yeah, we need to look that we do. We’re going to do a leadership lesson on that in the future. Listen, if you follow along first, we want to thank you again for those that are a part of this podcast world. Because of you, we’re able to have impact on people around the world. It’s where we get our comments, our contents, and we’re grateful. You’re probably used to everything that we talk about is in our show notes. Well, we got a little surprise for you. If you have not downloaded the show notes, you need to go download them because Jake, our producer of our podcast, got a little surprise in there for you. John lists out ten things that he finds in irreplaceable people. We’re not going to share them with you today. John didn’t share them with you on the audio. You got to go download the show notes.

Mark Cole:

I love that.

Chris Goede:

And you’ll see those ten things in there. Well, let’s talk about the last point that John makes here about the job security and where we’re at. And I gravitate toward this, and I want to unpack a little bit because this is something that’s really important to you as a leader. And when we talk about Inside Maxwell leadership, one of the things we go after is how do we do things with excellence? How do we exceed expectations? I know that sometimes we’ll talk about one of our events. One of our favorite events every year is exchange. And this is an event that’s near and dear to your heart, to John’s heart. It’s one of my favorite events of the year. Just to attend.

Mark Cole:

Well, now to lead. So don’t just attend anymore.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, I’m not responsible for that. But two and a half days, great leadership, content, speakers, and then experiences. And every time leading up to that event, I know that when we begin to have conversations, you’re like, man, is this the best we got? Is this excellent? Is this something they can’t experience without us coming in and planning it for them? Have you put your whole heart in this? Is this the energy of the team behind this? And then I start going, we probably should have had this conversation two months ago, not two weeks out, right? Because I start maybe questioning a little bit about that. But, man, that’s so important to make sure that you’re coming to the table being excellent. Talk a little bit about that from a leader’s perspective and why that’s so important for us on teams to make sure that we have job security.

Mark Cole:

Well, first, let me say this. If you’re interested, in exchange, we will put that in the show notes. It’s a great event. It’s always full.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, we only have a couple of.

Mark Cole:

Spots, and we always only have a couple of spots because it fills up the previous year. But then we have at this time of the year, a couple of two or three people start realizing that their schedule is not going to allow it. So we may have one or two spots, but go to the show notes for exchange, and you’ll be able to see that. I love this question, and I love that we’re going to spend the next couple of minutes on this, because first of all, let me say this. How I teach exceeding expectations is much how I teach excellence. How I teach exceeding expectations is you cannot exceed expectations if you don’t have expectations. Too many people walk around, put it on the wall, put it as a claim of value. We exceed expectations. Go, really? What expectations? Well, just if we said something out there for you to say, I exceed expectations, you have got to have a set of expectations to exceed it. Now, I know that sounds elementary, but it cannot be one of your values if you don’t even know what you expect from one another, if there’s not a code of conduct, if there’s not a way that you expect your team or your business to produce, you can’t exceed expectations. There are no expectations. And don’t say it’s easy to exceed expectations if you don’t have expectations. It’s impossible to exceed expectations if you don’t have good. Now, I believe excellence is the same way. I believe excellence is subjective. Let me explain. Exchange is one of the best experiences that John and I, who travel the world, have every single year. Some of our most accomplished relationships comes to exchange. Not to get edified and encouraged, but to cheat off of us to go figure out how to do their things right. That happens all the time, and we’re fine with that. We’re on the cutting edge, bleeding edge of experiential leadership at exchange. We love it. We love to go consume it. That’s why I corrected you a while ago. You’re no longer a consumer, buddy. Fill the weight with me. Excellence for us, however, might would be somebody else that is worldly cultured, been around the world, they might come to exchange. I’ll say that was nice. Wasn’t excellence, but it was nice. And then 95% of the people say it was excellent. So I think for an organization, for an entity, for a human being, for an individual, a leader that wants to be excellence, I think they’ve got to set what is acceptable. What is acceptable? Acceptable is people coming back. 90% of the people loving the event, that’s acceptable. But excellence is when 98% say it. Before you can have excellence, you got to have acceptable. Too many people says, we’re committed to excellence. They don’t call you back, they won’t follow up, they won’t do all this. But they say, we’re committed to excellence. You know why? Because they’ve never done the discipline of it, of defining what is acceptable. When you as an organization, whether it’s running an event like exchange that we’ve talked about, whether it’s John Maxwell writing a book. Like we’ve talked about, if you don’t determine a level of what is acceptable, you won’t really be able to define what is excellent. And I think as leaders, especially in this, I want to show excellence in my work with John Maxwell. I always have. I have desire to be excellence, to keep myself desirable to John and whatever leader I was working for. The only way I know how to be excellent, in John’s eyes, is to ask him what’s acceptable. The only way I know how to exceed expectations of my leaders is to ask them, what is the expectations? When you can get acceptable defined or expectations defined, now you can exceed, and now you can go excellent. Too many people don’t have the outcomes conversation, what are you expecting from my employment on your team? And because we don’t have that clarity, I say I’m excellent. My boss says I’m not excellent. And I get surprised because they’re letting me go because I said I’m excellent, and they say I’m not even performing. And really it came because there was no discipline around the conversation of acceptable to excellence or expectations to exceeding them.

Chris Goede:

That’s good. I was thinking about how before you are asked to come speak at an organization, on the pre call, there’ll be a question that you use, which is, hey, what does success look like when I’m done with the team or the organization? And that’s what’s acceptable to whoever is making that decision to bring in Maxwell leadership for that organization. So you go, okay, that’s great. So then what do you do? You go put your effort, your energy, your focus, attention on how do I get above that so that it is excellent. Well, I’m going to throw it back to you. It’s interesting over these two episodes. For me, the word again, this is just another one of our values that kept coming back, is if you have growth. I think about each one of these ten things. If you are choosing growth on a daily basis, these ten things are going.

Mark Cole:

To show up well.

Chris Goede:

And that’s such a big part of what we do and why we do around personal growth, man. Treat yourself like a product, like something that you’re selling inside an organization, and you wouldn’t want to keep selling that same product time over time. You want to improve that product, man, you got to do that yourself. When you do that, I think you’ll have job security. And I think you and I, we probably take that phrase for granted because of what we’ve done for so long. But I just want to encourage those that are listening, that are out there on this podcast, man focus on growth and these ten things that John has taught us. Mark and I have unpacked and heard some application from him around, and if you focus on those, I. Think you’ll have job security no matter where you’re at or what you’re doing.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. Chris, number one, I get a great sense of relief as we finish two parts of how to have job security, and the first one, I was tempted to bring a pink slip, let you go. The second one, I thought you had a resignation letter. You were getting ready to move across the table, and we made it through, and we still have the same opportunity to work on the same team. Guys, podcast land. You may not know this, but Chris and I feel very accomplished right now. We didn’t resign from each other in this process. Seriously, become indispensable, become attractive, become desirable, and teach your people leaders how to be desirable. Have Frank candid conversations with them. Tell them what’s acceptable. Tell them what expectations are so that then they have the opportunity to beat it, to surprise it. That’s what John’s been talking about today, and that’s what we want to talk about in this podcast. I say it often in signing off, everybody wants powerful, positive change in their life, and that’s what we want to do with this podcast. We have a listener comment, but I love this. I’ve got to identify the listener, and this listener signs on as Smart Learners. Smart Learners. That’s the name on the account that left the comment. And I got to tell you, Smart Learners, it sounds like there’s a group of you. Smart Learners is smart because there’s multiple people, Chris, gathered around listening to this podcast, debriefing it, applying it, and making their team better. Often I get comments like this when I travel saying, hey, our entire team comes together. It may show as one download on your podcast numbers that we talk about all the time. Over 28 million downloads at this point, or 195,000 a week. But they said that might count for one of your people. But we have 5710 of our team that comes around listening. So, Smart Learners, I’m envisioning a group of you very smart people sitting around learning. But Smart Learners was listening to the podcast leaders make it happen, and this is what they said. I love this channel as it helps me deal with people with ease as an aspiring leader. Thanks, John Maxwell and team. And that’s what we want because everyone deserves to be led well.