People ask me questions about Career Intensity all the time. I’ve listed some of the most commin questions on the Career Intensity site. Click here to go the the Career Intensity FAQ (frequently asked questions) page.

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People with Career Intensity are outstanding at convincing others to help implement their solutions. They are master persuaders who have a quality product – themselves and the value they provide – and the subtle skills necessary to convince others of their value. The integrity and reliability of a top performer enhances his reputation, which makes his target audience more receptive to his idea, product, or service.

In order to convince others of your value, you first must believe in the value you provide and build a foundation of integrity in all of your business dealings. You also need to learn that others process information either directly, though sound, logical arguments, or indirectly through more subtle cues. You can then learn to “read” people and position your proposal in a manner to which your target audience will be most receptive. Finally, you must develop credibility in the minds of your target audience members. When you do, you can employ the tactics of master persuaders to sell your idea, product, or service.

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The most effective marketing tool is word of mouth, and that doesn’t cost a dime. When you create awareness – through word of mouth – of the value you provide, you’re positioning your personal brand. This positive word of mouth becomes buzz – interacting individuals talking about you, your products, or your services – which you can then convert into advancement opportunities. To market yourself, you must activate the social networks and the expert networks that can generate buzz and help spread your message. The most effective course of action is to reach out at the grassroots level and try to connect with those who have large social networks and who consistently tell stories. Although everyone relates a story from time to time, “repeaters” may tell a story 100 times or more. In order to seed the grassroots, you need to uncover the patterns and commonalities of the communities you are trying to reach, and then position yourself within those communities. Hooking up with repeaters creates a groundswell that will eventually give those with a more public platform – the one-to-many communicators, or “boosters” – valuable information to include in their reports to their throngs of constituents.

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Your personal brand is the way others – your colleagues, your supervisors, and your customers – perceive you. Creating a personal branding message and marketing it is the mechanism by which you manage yourself and your career. Branding is not about you; it’s entirely about your customers. The experience they have when they interact with you – whether via email, the telephone, or in person – forms an impression and creates an expectation in their mind. You want that interaction to be a positive one that leads to future interactions and referrals.

Your goal in personal branding is to get your target market to see you as the preferred choice. As you devise a specific strategy for creating a personal brand, you should differentiate yourself from your competition; position your focused message to your target customers; develop consistent, focused marketing efforts; project credibility; strike an emotional chord; and create strong loyalty.

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Outcome-driven thinking is the process of approaching every interaction with a desired result in mind. Successful people have an idea of what they want from each meeting, each phone call, and each e-mail. By engaging in outcome-driven thinking, you will double your productivity – which will bring you closer to attaining your goals – because you won’t perform time-wasting activities, you’ll prioritize your activities, and you’ll make better decisions.

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Over the years, I have found that top performers – whether they were entrepreneurs, company executives, superstars of the academic world, or emerging leaders in business and public service – share four common qualities that draw opportunity toward them: they take calculated risks; they create a positive environment for themselves and everyone around them; they work hard at making things simple; and they expend the majority of their effort on the few tasks that will reap the most benefit. People with Career Intensity don’t rely on luck; rather, they recognize opportunities whether others see obstacles. They are well prepared and, when the moment is right, they strike with the force of a giant.

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Goal setting is the process of building a roadmap for success. I’ve found that highly successful people are relentless in the pursuit of their goals. When talking about their goals, top performers describe the need to take a single step – no matter how small – each day toward achieving their dreams.

The most effective paradigm for the goal setting process is a three-tiered methodology that I call the 3-9-27 Pyramid. The first tier consists of long-term goals that I call Overarching Goals. The timeframe for these goals should be no longer than ten years out. The next tier of goals is medium-term, meaning that they should be achievable within one year. I call these Contributory Goals, since each of the goals at this level should contribute toward one of the goals on the top tier. You should have no more than three sub-goals for each long-term goal. If you have three long-term goals, this gives you a total of nine goals in the middle tier. The final tier is comprised of weekly short-term goals, which I call Action Items. There should be no more than three supporting goals for each of the nine medium-term goals that you set. The idea is to make certain that you are taking action as frequently as possible to achieve your overall plan for the long term. Every weekly goal contributes to completion of a medium-term goal, which in turn supports the achievement of a long-term goal. This will give you a maximum total of 27 short-term goals each week.

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Strategic thinking is the process whereby you examine the implications of your choices and analyze the options available to you before making a decision. In its highest form, strategic thinking is a distinct perspective that helps you break down complicated processes into easily manageable pieces that can be arranged to present a clear set of alternatives. Engaging in strategic thinking gives you a competitive advantage in business and in life. Five factors that influence strategic thinking are time, control, experience, the unknown, and outcome finality.

The actual process of strategic thinking can be learned. When faced with a problem to solve, you must first disassociate yourself from your emotions, much like a surgeon or firefighter temporarily separates himself from the emotion of a life-or-death situation. Then, you must define what specific outcome you desire. Third, you need to acknowledge your gut instincts about the situation, after which you should research the root cause of the problem. The goal is to get to the most basic level of the desired outcome so that you can take as few steps as possible in order to achieve your goal. Having done that, you can work backwards and look for patterns in the factors that contribute to the root problem. From there, you can generate alternatives for solving the problem, assess the risks involved in each, and then select the best solution. Even after coming up with a solution, though, you should always plan for contingencies. Making plans for worst-case scenarios will allow you to deal with any unexpected problems that arise.

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The mindset of a career champion is noticeably different than the thinking of the rank and file. Top performers focus on providing value in every interaction. They realize that they are only effective if they face and defeat their fears. They are highly self-aware and know their strengths and weaknesses. Super-achievers recognize opportunities and pursue them aggressively. They channel their passion into an emotional competitive advantage that makes them unstoppable.

To develop Career Intensity, you first need to change your mindset. You must understand that you have the ability to impact every experience you have, and then take responsibility to shape your destiny. Then, you need to recognize and overcome the irrational fears that may have kept you in your current position. Perhaps you have a fear of the unknown, a fear of failure, a fear of commitment – or even a fear of success. You must see these fears for what they are – irrational thoughts that keep you from achieving your dreams. Once you conquer your fears, you must harness your imagination and consciously shape your thoughts and behaviors to move you closer toward your goals.

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The key to being an Intrepreneur or an Entrepreneur is to become a value creator for your company or customers. To become a value creator, you must be committed to what I call the Cycle of Continuous Improvement. This involves dedicating yourself to discovering ideas and strategies that you can use to improve your career, implementing them, and then marketing yourself to the world in a way that helps people understand that you are different from your peers in that you generate value that will benefit them. The trick is not to do this once, but to do it in a perpetual cycle – a Cycle of Continuous Improvement. Throughout this process, you need to mimic strategies used by successful companies and manage your career the same way a company manages its position in the market.

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An Entrepreneur is the value creator for her customers. Her high level of confidence in herself and her team affords her a high risk tolerance. The Entrepreneur is never as successful as she could be. She views the future as unfulfilled potential. She often has a strong sense of urgency that allows her to get started before actually thinking through the consequences of her actions. This drive also propels her to work long hours, which could potentially lead to burnout or health risks. Balance is critical for the Entrepreneur. In addition, brand positioning is often missing from the arsenal of the Entrepreneur. Because she generally has a laser focus on the operational aspects of her business, she often neglects the process of positioning herself and her products and services. The Entrepreneur often develops relationships with her customers. An important challenge for the Entrepreneur lies in identifying her high value customers and converting them into advocates.

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The Management Maverick has a tendency to move forward and implement solutions without the support of her internal and external customers. Occasionally, this results in a huge success. More often than not, though, she creates an undesirable issue for the company – either internally or externally. As a result, she is often perceived as a rogue and has a limited career future.

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A Workplace Warrior often has the perception of job security, primarily because there are so many people in his position. While he provides essential services to his organization, the Workplace Warrior is not creating much individual value. In truth, when his company seeks ways to cut back expenses through workforce reduction or outsourcing, the Workplace Warrior will feel the brunt of these efforts. With a little training and development, the Workplace Warrior is replaceable.

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What is the Career Intensity Matrix?

The Career Intensity Matrix is a tool that was developed to help people visualize the four categories into which most people in today’s workforce fall. These categories are Workplace Warriors, Management Mavericks, Intrepreneurs, and Entrepreneurs. Because today’s business world places a premium on the performance of the individual, a person’s ability to create value for their customer is paramount. Therefore, the vertical axis of the Career Intensity Matrix is a measurement of value creation. The horizontal axis of the Matrix represents the level of risk tolerance with which an individual is comfortable. In the Matrix, the Workplace Warrior occupies the lower left quadrant; this nine-to-fiver creates little individual value and has a low tolerance for risk. The Management Maverick occupies the lower right quadrant; although he embraces risk, he creates little value for his customer. The Intrepreneur, who occupies the upper left quadrant, feels more comfortable in a low-risk corporate environment, but creates tremendous individual value for the companies in which he works. The Entrepreneur, who occupies the upper right quadrant, has a high tolerance for risk – expressed through starting her own company – and creates enormous value for her customers. All super-achievers are either Intrepreneurs or Entrepreneurs. In Career Intensity, I’ve outlined the strategies and tactics that will catapult you from being a Workplace Warrior or a Management Maverick into becoming an Intrepreneur or an Entrepreneur.

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Over the course of my 20 years in business, I have taken my experience and education and applied it to help create a climate of continuous improvement in the projects in which I was involved. During that time, I learned about the determining factors of success in many different industries. As a result, I helped many of these businesses develop processes of continuous improvement that would ensure continued success for the future. I began to recognize that companies had strategies and continuous improvement models that helped them chart a path toward success, but that there was no such model for individuals. I began to focus on the ways in which the factors of business success were applicable to individuals. I also carefully studied the characteristics and traits that those who are highly successful share. I learned to view the world through the eyes of executives, customers, and employees in some of the world’s best-run organizations. As a result, I formulated the personal strategies of Career Intensity.

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Career Intensity is the drive for continuous individual improvement that is the hallmark of successful entrepreneurs and top corporate executives. People with Career Intensity engage in strategic thinking and planning, create and market their personal brand, and consistently create exceptional value for their “customer” – whether the customer is the company for which they work or their client.

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