Your Personal Moat

Bodiam Castle, a 14th-century castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England

Last week we explored the ways that businesses can build an economic moat to provide protection from competition. I believe that it is also possible to build a personal moat that provides a buffer against the challenges we face individually.

Some of the key elements of a personal moat include:

• Knowledge - Information is power. If you have knowledge and understanding of important concepts in a field that is in demand, you can use that knowledge to navigate through the channels of change.
• Skills - Skills represent your ability to harness knowledge to accomplish specific goals. People who can get things done are always in demand.
• Creativity - Creativity is the ability to synthesize ideas from multiple sources into a new idea or a new solution to a problem. 
• Relationships - It's not just who you know. It's how you have treated them and how they feel toward you. Treat everyone you meet with respect and kindness.
• Resiliency - We all have difficult days, even difficult years or decades. But the only hope of success is to keep pushing forward with new attempts and new strategies to succeed. In the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill told the world "If you are going through hell, keep on going!"

With the rate of change accelerating rapidly, the value of a personal moat grows everyday.

What are you doing to enhance your moat?

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 I recently listened as a sales executive described the difficulty that she is having in filling an open sales position. Her company is in a period of transition as they replace a simple and declining set of products with more complex products requiring technical understanding. She had interviewed a number of personable candidates with industry experience, but when she discussed the changes happening in her industry, they were lost with a “deer in the headlights” look.

Are experienced sales and management professionals and making themselves unemployable by refusing to embrace current business and communication methods? In today’s world, all but the most basic products are software driven and impacted by network and web connections in some manner.  A sales lead is more likely to come from a text message, Tweet, LinkedIn connection, Facebook chat or an email than through a telephone call.

Many younger workers are digital natives who embrace new technologies without fear or hesitation because they have used similar tools their entire life.  Many other people have jumped in with enthusiasm to learn and master a connected lifestyle. But what happens to those who don’t bother to keep their skills up to date.

During the 1990s, a website became a litmus test for the viability of a “real company.”  A company that didn’t have a nice website of their own was considered suspect, too small to be of any real importance.  We may be on the verge of a similar test for individuals.  Is a person who doesn’t have a complete LinkedIn profile too out of touch to employ? Is hiring someone in the 21st century without strong social network skills analogous to hiring someone in the 20th century who couldn’t use a telephone.

It’s usually not difficult to stay up to date on the latest technologies in your own industry. And the most popular social networking sites are free.  It really boils down to making a decision and a commitment.

In what areas are you falling behind the times?  What is your plan for catching up?