Have you created value?

One Friday afternoon my manager comes into my office and mentions that on Monday the Site Maintenance Director will be coming to the building to perform his one-on-one goal meeting.

He asked me to be prepared to discuss everything that I had done so far that led to value creation. His request totally blindsided me! I was not prepared to talk about my projects yet alone share the value that they would create!

I was so stressed because even though I had made some great progress, I hadn’t formally documented anything. I ended up spending the entire weekend putting together a summary of all of my projects and included the potential value ($ impact). This was the highest-ranking Maintenance Leader for the entire division and as I’ve learned up until that point, you only have one shot to make a great first impression.

Fast forward to Monday, the Director came into my office, and we made small talk for a few moments. He eventually asked me about the things that I was working on. I spoke about the first project in general terms but then quickly transitioned to a presentation. I prepared more than he had expected, and he was surprised that I actually developed a summary presentation of my projects and their associated value opportunity.

Needless to say, I KILLED it!

I learned a valuable lesson that week, always be prepared to share your value but first you have to know what it is. Ever since that experience I keep a portfolio of every project I’ve created value on. It’s easier to update it once every several months then it is to get caught off guard and have to remember the key aspects of every project.

Here's an example:

Value Creation Log

.pdf

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