I would say that being valued means that you are valued as a person, which includes your skill-set. It often means that they see potential for growth and are interested in that.
Being useful is where you as a person are not important, only your reliability and the tasks you complete. They are grateful for THOSE but not exactly for you...
Again a subtle but important difference as you wonderfully pointed out.
I used to think being useful would make others value me, but ironically that is not always the case. Sometimes the people who have valued me most have done so before I was doing anything useful for them specifically...
That sounds horrible. You did what you liked, with good money, but quit out of spite because you weren't shown enough vocal appreciation? Many people would be happy with either being useful, being appreciated, or being compensated well, but you need it all or just quit?
I wouldn't say "quit out of spite", I just found another opportunity and changed. And it was not about vocal appreciation, it was about whether the work we did was strategically important for the company or not. This affected not only me, but also almost all my direct reports. Data people in general want to be change makers and generators of a competitive hedge, not just sys admins and maintainers. I had to shield them the best I could from the reality to keep motivation high, always pointing at the glass half full etc.
Great post, I've been reflecting on similar themes recently. On the path to becoming valuable you have to be useful first. This was some feedback I early in my career. Without a track record or showing how "useful" one can be, any opinions of value hold zero to no weight.
Those skills never hurt for sure, and you need them if you are trying to drive change and show your leadership chain that what you bring to the table is valuable. I do think though that there is a time limit, if after a while you don’t see any signal of change, either you make peace with it or you look elsewhere
Right now, I am neither useful nor valued. 😩
you just haven't discovered who values you or what you're useful for yet :)
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. - Henry D. Thoreau
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
Time has gone
The song is over.
I thought I had something more to say."
This is a good article.
I would say that being valued means that you are valued as a person, which includes your skill-set. It often means that they see potential for growth and are interested in that.
Being useful is where you as a person are not important, only your reliability and the tasks you complete. They are grateful for THOSE but not exactly for you...
Again a subtle but important difference as you wonderfully pointed out.
I used to think being useful would make others value me, but ironically that is not always the case. Sometimes the people who have valued me most have done so before I was doing anything useful for them specifically...
That sounds horrible. You did what you liked, with good money, but quit out of spite because you weren't shown enough vocal appreciation? Many people would be happy with either being useful, being appreciated, or being compensated well, but you need it all or just quit?
I wouldn't say "quit out of spite", I just found another opportunity and changed. And it was not about vocal appreciation, it was about whether the work we did was strategically important for the company or not. This affected not only me, but also almost all my direct reports. Data people in general want to be change makers and generators of a competitive hedge, not just sys admins and maintainers. I had to shield them the best I could from the reality to keep motivation high, always pointing at the glass half full etc.
Great post, I've been reflecting on similar themes recently. On the path to becoming valuable you have to be useful first. This was some feedback I early in my career. Without a track record or showing how "useful" one can be, any opinions of value hold zero to no weight.
A good read and made sense in trying to understand where I fit in. Useful… and in a glide path to valued
That’s great, sometime value is not a given but you can educate your leadership chain and look for signals of change
Those skills never hurt for sure, and you need them if you are trying to drive change and show your leadership chain that what you bring to the table is valuable. I do think though that there is a time limit, if after a while you don’t see any signal of change, either you make peace with it or you look elsewhere