In the past ten years of coaching and training professional women, entrepreneurs, and emerging leaders, I’ve had a window into the lives of people who are dreaming big, and wanting more and getting it by action to promote career success. I have learned from how Tom Peters promote career success.
Through this lens, I’ve observed several key actions and behaviors that continually pave the way for greater success and expansion. I’ve also witnessed and experienced behaviors and beliefs that sabotage success, and guarantee failure.
Career management isn’t just a nice-to-do, it’s a must do, if you expect to gain maximum success and happiness from the hours you invest in work.
Face it; you are likely going to work 40 hours a week for your entire adult life. Why not make them the best 40 hours that you can create?
Career management in which you plan and work to obtain new skills, capabilities, and experiences, is the answer. Share your goals with your boss, and you have created a partner who can help you broaden your experience.
You are chock full of talents and skills. Continuing their development will stretch your world and enable more of your unique contribution.
This, in turn, will make your career success and progress a cornerstone in your fully-developed life. Does your world get any better than this? Not really.
You can continue to experience career growth by taking the lead in investing in your career development and progress. Here are a few ways in which you can collaborate with your boss to manage your career.
Job shadow other employees in your company to learn about different jobs.
Explore lateral moves to broaden and deepen your experience.
Hold book clubs at work to develop knowledge, and share terminology, concepts, and team building with coworkers.
Seek a mentor from a different department that you’d like to explore.
No matter what your professional goals and visions are, six core actions will support you to achieve greater success and fulfillment over the long arch of your professional life.
These actions will help you understand what you truly want to be in life, take the right action to build your desired professional identity, and get the support you need to sustain you through the tough times.
I spent over 40 years in coaching, mentoring, and assisting in employee career development. And I got the question about the fast track career development many, many times.
More than one employee wanted to set goals for senior management/ executive positions with timetables attached. I always frowned on these plans. And my answer never changed to a successful career.
I believed (and now more than ever) that employees should pursue jobs for maximum job satisfaction and not worry about the advancement rate. Why might you ask?
My answer was always that such rapid career advancement always depended on a high degree of chance. So why fret and stress about it.
That does not mean you should not focus on career development, however. This is especially true today more than ever. Why is that you may ask? As Clay Shirky describes the digital internet age, it is far from minor and not optional.
Right on the mark isn’t it? This description is particularly relevant to the need for continuous learning and personal development for long-term success.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years. EVERY TWO YEARS. The top 10 jobs that were in demand in 2013 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that don’t yet exist. All this to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
Scary, isn’t it? So development planning is more relevant than ever for career success.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a famous French writer, once said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Achieving career success requires more than luck, more than hard work — it requires a plan. And the great part is that your plan doesn’t have to be difficult to create or complex.
See our article on Learning to Learn.
When it comes to improving career development, here are my 18 tips to build the best opportunities for rapid corporate career growth:
Peters promote career success … use initiative
Always be on the lookout for actions that have been overlooked and show initiative to get them done.
Early career research.
Continuous learning
Know what your skills are and what they are not. Keep adding to it all the time – with both your development and surrounding yourself with others who complement your talents.
Remember to focus on your strengths and set your weaknesses aside.
Peters promote career success … focus on results
Deliver objectively unmistakable value that transcends opinion.
This should be your number one priority.
Peters promote career success … maintain a positive attitude
Learn what attitude is, what aspects of your life are controlled or directed by your attitude, and how to determine your attitude at any given moment.
Know what specific strategies make a positive attitude a permanent habit in your life.
Peters promote career successwith strong relationships
Build beneficial relationships with many people. Networking and making friends is the name of the game.
Peters promote career success … have a vision
Invest time to imagine what the future is going to look like and how you’ll need to adapt to fit into it.
Remember though, vision without action is a daydream. No matter how big your plans and dreams, they’ll never become a reality until you act on them.
Peters promote career success … try one new thing at least weekly
Your life will be in constant change mode, and that is a good thing if you lead change in the direction of your success goals.
To do that most successfully, you should try lots of new things continually. For things you like, get very good at them with lots of practice. But keep trying new activities.
Peters promote career success … gaining clarity
Bar none, this is the most important action if you want to achieve anything significant in life. You must understand exactly what you want and what matters most to you – what you’ll give up everything for.
It can’t be some vague, nebulous notion like “I want to do something meaningful” or “I want to make a difference.” That’s a great start, but you need to drill down deep and peel the layers to understand what “meaningful” signifies to you, personally and specifically.
The reason so many people fail today to create fulfilling and exciting careers is that they simply won’t do the inner and outer work to determine how best to “connect the dots” – to uncover their unique talents, skills, and passions, and find the right career fit that will draw on those talents and passions.
They also won’t do the work to see how they are contributing to and co-creating their problems and challenges.
Committing yourself 1000%
To be successful in life and work, it takes a commitment that doesn’t wane. It takes believing that you can create movement in your life and business, even when the waters are still and the three-dimensional world is giving evidence that you’re not going to make it to your destination.
And it demands risk.
That doesn’t mean that you should continue on your course blindly, crashing into the rocks without modifying your course. It means that you know when you need help, and you ask for it before it’s too late.
You commit yourself to your goals without doubt, without reservation, and do what’s required, while at the same time learn to be flexible and avoid overly attaching to how it has to look or one particular outcome.
Professionals who realize they have vulnerabilities and gaps in their knowledge and ability, and work diligently and committedly to close these gaps, succeed at a much higher level than those who hide their heads in the sand.
Peters promote career success … nurturing empowered relationships
Highly successful professionals understand that they cannot achieve their visions alone or in a vacuum. They invest time and energy in building mutually-beneficial relationships, and solid bonds and energizing partnerships that last over time.
They also develop an empowering, engaged community that paves the way for their success.
These relationships are built on trust, honesty, integrity, and common values.
Get to know who I am as quickly as possible
Your life will be in constant change mode, and that is a good thing if you lead change in the direction of your success goals. To do that most successfully, you should have a good understanding of who you are and what direction you are going.
Certainly, you must know your strengths and weaknesses pretty well.
All of these lessons on success get better when you have a strong foundation in knowing how to stay happy.
One big part of being successful in happiness is learning how to share kindness. It costs you nothing and you’d be surprised how much in can do for your happiness.
Learn to be great at listening
It doesn’t seem like a lesson that should be in the top ten to most of the younger generation, or that difficult to be an effective listener.
But most of us are wrong on both counts. Everyone needs to make listening to their #1 core competency. (see our article on how to achieve this important goal.)
Peters promote career success … consistently wear your enthusiasm and passion
All of us can be enthusiastic and show passion for our favorite topics and our best days. The secret sauce is to be as consistent as possible and make it contagious to friends and teammates.
There is a strong correlation to the item of kindness and happiness.
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Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
