I recently read or dreamt about how employees will be evaluated in the future. The article basically outlined that employees will not be assessed based on what they functionally do but how they impact their company.

That’s an interesting concept. Making your personal impression within companies has always been vital to career growth but I think the measure of impact of one’s impact has changed in the New Normal.

On occasion, I remember being in late night meetings in boardrooms with much too stale coffee deciding which employees would be terminated because of an account loss or some revenue or expense adjustment. I hated it.

The Finance person would outline how much we had to cut and then we would get a list of most company employees and their salaries. I still remember vividly the questions as we went down the list. Who is (name here?) somebody would ask and somebody would chime in the red head or some other descriptor. I am sure that’s the way it happens in many large companies even today.

Then other people’s names would come up as we went down the list. What were the descriptors that saved them? They are really connected. They are in the know. They know everyone.

In the New Normal when revenue cuts need to be made there are often two great people at a company but often only one chair in the business game of musical chairs. So who gets to sit down when the music stops? The inside person or the outside person? The finder or the grinder? I suggest that it is the outside person or the finder because they offer the promise of new contacts and new revenue.

So how do you become the impact person at your company? The Go to Person? It is pretty simple. The larger your network and the more resources you have the more impact you will have.

In today’s flat organizational environments good ideas can come from anyone if your voice is heard. That is the key to survival today. How do you amplify your voice and your internal presence? How do you create work word of mouth and reputation?

First you need to network internally. In the corporate world we often don’t know each other because of cubes and e-mails. We communicate more but interact less in person. We leave less of a personal impression. The more networked you are internally the louder our voice will be. This means expanding your internal network beyond your work team and your current lunch friends.

Then you have to become the best resourced person at your company. To become the best resourced person, you have to network broadly and with diversity in mind so you are not just networking with clones of yourself and living in a homogenous world. I know some great networkers but they only network in their industry vertical. That is like being 560 on the AM radio in a Spotify world. You need both breadth and depth to your networks.

So what channels is your brand being broadcast on?

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Watch a video called: How to Rise Above the Crowd.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkO7efleWX4]