Disruptive Skills: A Key Component of Your Market Value

It’s human nature to overlook some of your own best skills and innate talents, simply because you perform them without a second thought. As noted by publisher Malcolm Forbes, “Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”

It’s critical to identify and lead your value preposition with your unique – or disruptive – skills. Rather than trade your capabilities at a discount, you’ll command the top-level premium you deserve.

Learn a Lesson from the Stock Market

Stocks that trade at a fair or premium value are those that know exactly what they are and then deliver. They are classified as either:

• Disruptive innovation – emerging growth,
• Sustaining innovation – best of breed, or
• Being disrupted – but dividend paying.

Stocks that lead with their disruptive capabilities command the highest absolute multiples. The market historically rewards disruptive innovation – emerging growth stocks with multiples of 30X or more. A premium multiple is applied to these stocks because the odds for disrupters are much better:

• 6 times greater in terms of success
• 20 times greater in terms of revenue opportunities

Translate this to your career – and be disruptive!

A focus on your disruptive skill set highlights your distinctive innate talents rather than your “me-too” skills. This maximizes your earning potential.

Defining Your Disruptive Skills

Re-evaluate your capabilities portfolio and find those skills you may not consciously recognize, but help you carve out a disruptive market niche and enhance your competitive value.

• Identify what you do reflexively well. Ask yourself, “What would I spend time doing even if I weren’t being compensated for it?” and “What do I automatically think about when I have nothing else pressing on my mind?” This may be where you’ll find your disruptive skills. Author Marcus Buckingham noted that, “Our strengths … clamor for attention in the most basic way. Using them makes you feel strong. Take note of the times when you feel invigorated, inquisitive, successful … These moments are clues to what your strengths are.”
• Find out what others see as your best skills. Sometimes the assessments of colleagues and friends will surprise you. A good place to start is your LinkedIn recommendations and endorsements. Do these differ from the core skills you list in your profile? Listen for compliments that you habitually dismiss. You may be discounting strengths that others value.

Identifying and deploying your best skills can be a career game changer. Accurately valuing yourself is critical to disrupting others’ perceptions of your worth and, ultimately, increasing your market value.

If you need additional guidance on how to highlight your disruptive skills in your career, partner with the recruiting experts at BrainWorks. We look forward to working with you!