Take Off Your Career
In today’s business environment, where fewer people have to do much more with much less, you have to create your own opportunities to succeed.
You can’t afford to be fixed in your thinking or expect your responsibilities to remain the same.
Increasingly, career success depends on how creatively you think, how well you present your ideas and how easily you adapt to change. You can’t afford to be fixed in your thinking or expect your responsibilties to remain the same.
Tips for executives who want to advance in their careers:
Sell Yourself By Making Others Feel Good About You.
The biggest mistake I see people make is failing to promote themselves positively. Your peers’ perceptions of you are as important as the merits of your work because they often influence your manager’s opinion of you.
• Be honest and open with colleagues and your manager.
Nothing travels faster at a company than a good reputation, and good reputations are based on character and hard work.
Hiding information from fear or as part of a power play to defend turf is a mistake. Companies stress the importance of teams, and teams can only function when each team member knows what the others are doing for the team.
If a problem emerges with work for which you are responsible, tell your peers and manager immediately. It also pays to suggest a solution, so your manager can move on your idea rather than spending time thinking for you.
By cultivating and tending to your reputation, your strengths will show themselves . . . and the people with whom you work will respect you.
Become Indispensable.
In every organisation, there are a few employees the company would be hard-pressed to
replace. As a result they are well taken care of by the management.
How to become one of these people:
• Help your managers. Give your bosses what they need to perform effectively. Identify what is important to them — whether it’s listening to their problems, executing tasks flawlessly or providing them with creative ideas. Get to know their work syles, so you can communicate wih them better.
• Show that you are ready for a job with more responsibility by anticipating problems and solving them before they arise. Take the initiative, and learn much more than your job requires. Always ask for feedback and be prepared for criticism.
• Become an expert in a critical area. Become someone to whom your colleagues turn to. Find something nobody else is good at and develop an in-depth expertise in that area.
• Be accessible. You can’t be indispensable unless your door is open and you make yourself available. Be in frequent contact with colleagues, help others at staff meetings, join committees, contribute ideas and give people the opportunity to know and respect you.
Come To Work Inspired.
You can’t succeed without being optimistic, enthusiastic and motivated. How to become inspired:
# Make time for creative thinking.
Do things differently and find new ways to solve old problems. You have to work at it.
Challenge yourself daily to look at things differently. Do this on your own time, if necessary. For practice, look at a problem and then brainstorm several ways to solve it.
# Look on the bright side of any mistake or failure. I told a famous investor how sorry I was to hear he had failed in a major bid to purchase a company. He replied, “I didn’t fail. I may not have bought the company — but I sure know how to buy it now.”
# Learn from your mistakes. Start by allowing yourself to accept bad experiences as things that simply happened, without attaching emotions. This strategy will keep you from being afraid or ashamed. Ask yourself what went wrong and what it would have taken to succeed. You’ll quickly find that you’re able to change and adapt.
# Draw on your past accomplishments. We have all been inspired in our early years in school or hobbies. Reactivate these feelings of interest by drawing the parallels between your prior experiences and your work now. If none exists, create it on the job.
Get Informed And Stay Informed.
No one in a vacuum becomes better at what she does. Read newspapers and relevant magazines. Staying informed also requires that you visit people in other departments. Ask questions and listen to answers.
Associate With People Who Will Motivate You To Improve And Excel.
A mentor used to fulfil this function, but today, you can’t expect one person to be an adequate teacher. The best people don’t have time to cater to you.
So create a personal board of advisers who can counsel and inspire you. In many cases, these advisers exist outside your company. Go through your name cards and make a list of 12 people whose judgment you respect and trust. Call or lunch with these people once a month. A good move is to bring ideas and suggestions that might be helpful to that person.
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