Career Intensity: Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs Hardcover – May 17, 2006

Increase your Career Intensity

In his new book, Career Intensity, David Lorenzo challenges readers to channel their passion into a competitive career advantage.

Don’t call David Lorenzo a "workplace warrior." In the vocabulary of this business performance strategist, a workplace warrior is someone who just puts in his time on the job, watching the clock and collecting his paycheck. Lorenzo is anything but a nine-to-fiver, as evidenced by his meteoric career and his passion for motivating the workplace warriors of this world to embrace a process of continuous self-improvement and engage in what he terms "career intensity."

Throughout his career, Lorenzo has taken note of the strategies and continuous improvement models that helped companies chart paths toward success. He has also studied the mindsets and attitudes of the movers and shakers in those companies – the super-achievers who seem to have a competitive advantage over the rank and file. He has found that highly successful individuals employ many of the same mechanisms that companies use to position themselves in the marketplace. Using this as his framework, Lorenzo has formulated and mapped out personal strategies that virtually every person can use to take control of his career, gain personal fulfillment, and enjoy financial success. Those strategies can be found in Lorenzo’s soon to be published book, Career Intensity (Ogman Press, 2006).

The theory behind Lorenzo’s career strategies lies in the changing nature of the business world. Past generations could spend their entire work lives with a single employer that looked out for their employees’ best interests in exchange for company loyalty. In contrast, businesses today concentrate on both their current bottom line and their ability to sustain growth and profitability for the long term. As a result, the focus has shifted from businesses balancing the needs of their employees against the needs of their bottom lines to a nearly exclusive focus on how the individual can best serve the needs of the company.

Who, then, is ensuring that the needs of the employee are met in this "Individual Economy"? According to Lorenzo, when it comes to managing their careers, today’s successful businesspeople – even those in corporate America – are thinking like entrepreneurs. "They don’t wait for a roadmap to guide them or for a supervisor to tell them what to do," he says. "They work to increase their individual value and differentiate themselves from their competition by staying out in front of the latest initiatives."

According to Lorenzo, these achievers continuously analyze their performances and adjust and improve them accordingly. "In two words, they implement the practice of career intensity," he says. "In using this approach, they are rewarded with promotions and advancement. In effect, they are building equity in themselves – and that equity is portable." He postulates that this is why today, a successful 40-year career is likely to include tenure at multiple companies and a personal competitive advantage gained from focusing on value creation through continuous individual improvement.

In order to emulate the success of today’s top achievers, Lorenzo advocates that businessmen and businesswomen position themselves in such a way as to generate individual value within their organizations. "People in the workforce fall into one of four categories," he says. "They are either workplace warriors, management mavericks, intrepreneurs, or entrepreneurs. Only two of those categories generate individual value – the intrepreneurs and the entrepreneurs."

Lorenzo describes workplace warriors as the backbone of any large organization. The workplace warrior puts in his time and may provide essential services to his company, but has little individual value. Although he has little tolerance for risk and has a perception of job security, the workplace warrior is subject to staff reduction from budget cuts or outsourcing. "With a little training and development, the workplace warrior is replaceable," says Lorenzo.

While management mavericks are not risk-adverse, they have a tendency to move forward and implement solutions without the support of team members and superiors. Lorenzo says that a management maverick is often perceived as a rogue, whose value is often misunderstood or unrecognized by those in authority. "Often, her own perception of the value she is creating is greater than the perceptions of her supervisors or customers," Lorenzo says.

According to Lorenzo, the intrepreneur generates tremendous value within an organization. He’s similar to an entrepreneur in many respects, although his low tolerance for risk makes him feel more comfortable working in a corporate environment. "The future is bright for the intrepreneur," says Lorenzo, "since he consistently develops new ways to improve the value of his company’s business, is a master persuader, and gains advocates along the way."

The entrepreneur is also a value-creator, although instead of creating value for a company, she creates value for her customers. She typically demonstrates a high level of risk tolerance that comes from the confidence she has in herself and in her team. "The entrepreneur has the ability to change or disrupt an entire industry," says Lorenzo. "For example, a drycleaner who provides same-day service and stays open until 9:00 p.m. to catch people returning home late from work could blow her competition out of the water."

In Career Intensity, Lorenzo outlines the universal drivers of career value upon which all workplace warriors or management mavericks who aspire to be successful intrepreneurs or entrepreneurs should focus. They include being persistent, adopting a strategic mindset, developing and working toward meaningful goals, and using preparation to take advantage of opportunity. He places equal emphasis on demonstrating and promoting the value that is created. These drivers of value perception include leveraging the personal brand, building a web of advocates to get the word out, and pitching ideas to others in ways that will make them more receptive to the personal branding message. Ultimately, though, Lorenzo’s message is simple. "I want to help people create value, capitalize on opportunity, and always let the world know how great they truly are!"

It's Sunday evening and you've just finished eating dinner. Your weekend is behind you and the coming workweek looms large. Tentacles of dread creep over you as you feel that all-too-familiar dull pain in the pit of your stomach. The ache and anxiety are signals that you've strayed from the path of your career potential.

You know what you want. You want a fantastic, engaging, productive, and financially rewarding career that fits in with your life goals. Other people have achieved this kind of success. What is it that separates the best from the rest? More importantly, how can you join this group of achievers and reap the satisfaction and rewards that they so obviously enjoy?

The hallmark of successful entrepreneurs and top corporate executives is Career Intensity – the drive for continuous individual improvement. Super-achievers are highly self-aware, know their strengths and weaknesses, and recognize and aggressively pursue business opportunities. They channel their passion into an emotional competitive advantage that makes them unstoppable.

Career Intensity isn't a genetic trait; it's a strategy that you can learn and employ in order to find your way back to the path of your career potential. From there, you can go on to achieve the success you so richly deserve.

This book is designed to level the playing field. It is a guide that will provide you with the framework to begin a lifelong process of continuous improvement and growth. You will apply principles and best practices used by business superstars to your own life and for your own benefit. Just as super-achievers draw a straight line from where they are to where they want to be, Career Intensity will maximize your career value and unwaveringly guide you to your dreams.