Saturday March 9, 2013
Last Saturday, 1M4Youth organised the Reach-Out event and I had the opportunity to meet with three celebrity YouTubers – Chester See, David Choi and Jason Chen. These “singers” have become luminaries on YouTube with massive followings and I had the privilege together with my team from Leaderonomics to spend some time with them and got to ask them some questions about their fame.
One question I posed to them was about the “innovativeness” in their music and how they came up with good music. All of them agreed the inspiration for their music came from different sources and from their life experiences. As we continued the line of questioning and starting to discuss if they had anticipated this fame when they first posted on YouTube, they all shook their heads and said they had no idea that their work would become so popular. In fact, they went on to say that if anyone set out to be famous and popular, they would most likely fail. All three of them had a deep desire to do good quality work and their “product” which they toiled to produce was all they were focused on. Innovative work will get noticed and then fame and fortune will arrive.
In fact, it is the same with inventors. They are very much like artists and musicians. They don’t set out to be famous. Instead, they identify a problem and seek out the answer. Many of them don’t set out to be famous but instead set out to “change the world”. Orville and Wilbur Wright did not set out to be renowned, instead they set out to “change the world” through flight. And they became legends.
Likewise with Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and even Steve Jobs. They looked to solve problems and resolve issues the world was facing. Becoming a celebrity and eminent was the last thing on their minds.
This should be the same with us. As we work, we should not be focused on the promotion or the higher salary but on high quality and innovative work. If we continuously provide our employer with innovative solutions and high productivity, the higher salary and big promotions are bound to come.
I recall when I was starting out in my first few roles while I was working in the United States, my “success” was not planned. Rather it was clearly the result of being extremely innovative. In one of my early roles, I automated all my work and ended up reducing 50 hours of work weekly into five hours. I had so much time to help my colleagues automate their work. This drove productivity in the organisation 100-fold. Guess who got the big role when our boss moved on? The young punk who helped everyone complete more work in less time through automation of course! And everyone was pleased and not upset either with my promotion.
Being innovative is key to your career success. And it starts with curiosity and questioning. Every role I move into, I always ask questions – why does it take so long? Why do we do this? Why can’t we do it differently? I usually never get answers and so I try to answer these questions myself. Soon, I find faster, better, cheaper, easier ways to get work done. I innovate and soon results follow. Just like Chester See, Jason Chen and David Choi “innovated” their music distribution via YouTube and were focused on their work, likewise we need to focus on our work to ensure it is innovative. Success is bound to follow. This week in the career guide, we look at how to grow your career by being innovative at work. Enjoy the tips and career advice given in this week’s issue.
So, read on this week and we do hope you will enjoy our career guide. There are many other special articles on various other topics that we hope will inspire you to keep learning and growing every day of your life. Don’t forget to keep leveraging our amazing videos and other resources which can be accessed online at www.leaderonomics.tv or at our main home site www.leaderonomics.com.
We wish you all the best in your career journey! I have also started a site on facebook where I share daily leadership wisdom. If you are keen, go over to http://www.facebook.com/roshanthiran.leaderonnomics and subscribe. If you have any feedback on the pullout, feel free to email us at mystarjob@leaderonomics.com. Have a wonderful work week ahead and don’t forget – be innovative always!
Warm regards,
Roshan Thiran
Editor, myStarjob.com & CEO, Leaderonomics
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Growth Through Innovation - The WHY
Top 10 ways to be innovative in the workplace
The critical attributes of innovation leaders
“Qualities of an Innovator”
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