Today, I've got a quick tip for you to help you understand the power and the tools you have at your disposal when trying to outmaneuver brownnosers at work. 

The other night I watched a finance class talk about assets and how they are used to help a company make money.  Hum, I thought.  When it comes right down to it, we all have assets that we use to make money. They are called our skills, knowledge, abilities, education, perspectives, experience, expertise, attitudes….

Have you ever watched a brownnoser with his or her boss?  The brown-noser ALWAYS knows what he brings to the table in terms of his assets.  It may just be a word of encouragement with little substance behind it, but he knows when someone needs encouraging, doesn't he?  Isn't that why we dislike him so?  It's as if he's got a some sort of tracking device that can sniff out opportunities to get in front of the boss and look good.  Not so – he simply knows what his assets are and then puts them into play to help him make money, friends, influence people, get jobs, get your promotion, etc.

Here's what I want you to do.  Take an inventory or your assets.  How can you possibly position yourself or your ideas if you don't know what you have to offer?  Be careful – this requires some soul-searching and an honest attempt to assess yourself.  Don't discount anything and don't assume that simply because you aren't allowed to use an asset at this particular time that it should not be on your list.

Your objective here is to know what you have so you can brownnose influential people and convince them that you've got the assets they need to further their own agendas.  (Read more about positioning in other posts in this blog or read it in Brown-nosing 101.

Oh — you're happy to take an inventory of your assets but don't want to 'brownnose' to get ahead?    Would you rather be cool and bored and underutilized or would you rather use a few skills that have been proven to work in the corporate world and be happy, successful and fulfilled by the work you do? I'm not advocating you become an incompetent brown-noser, but I am advocating you use the skills that brownnosers have mastered (and most of the rest of us have not), to influence your own career.

Think about it…

Later, Linda