Your Brilliant Career
Module 3: Where am I now?

Skills and Qualities

Do you know the skills and qualities you should be demonstrating at work in order to progress? Do you know what your manager judges you on? Is it solely on how much work you do? Is it also on how you do it – your attitude, the enthusiasm you exude, your professionalism for example? What are the valued qualities in your organisation?

For example at GE it is high energy, the edge to make decisions, ability to energise those around them and ability to execute decisions – they are called the 4 Es.

If you want a promotion what attributes would you need to demonstrate and how far away from achieving them are you?

This is what differentiates the people who achieve success and those that do not. The ones that excel have a clear idea of:

1. Where they stand now – their current position
2. What they need to be like to get to the next level – their future position
3. What they need to do to get from current position to the future

This is what managing your career is about.

From a personal note I’ve had an number of promotions (my goal is to gain a promotion every 18 months) and when I look back the reason I got them was that I was able to clearly articulate the three points above and demonstrate that I was in control of myself and my career. It also helps your manager to identify how they can help you, for example what training courses you may need, what extra experience would help you, any projects that may be useful in order to close the gap between your current and your future position.

Feedback

Understanding where you are now is something you can do by yourself but it mustn’t end there. The best way to get a clear picture of yourself is to get feedback from other people. What do they think of you?

In most organisations the only feedback one gets is from a manager, maybe once per year when it’s time for pay reviews. Usually this is focussed on what you’ve achieved, the tasks you’ve completed and the ones you haven’t. What it lacks is a discussion about you as a total person. The total you is a combination of your skills and your personality.

Obtaining feedback can be difficult. Many people are uneasy about accepting feedback – usually the negative variety. How else are you going to improve if you don’t know where to focus? Negative feedback should never be seen as bad and something to avoid. Actually think of it as medicine – you know you won’t like but it will make you better!

Let me be so bold as to say that you should ask for one piece of feedback that highlights something you need to improve on. If you are prepared for this, it will actually make the person giving the feedback more uncomfortable than you! Explain that the reason you are asking them for the feedback is so that you can improve – not that you want to put them under pressure or start an argument.

One last point on feedback. It is important that you accept feedback as it is given. You must take on board everything that is said and not challenge it but understand it. A natural human reaction is to challenge back and argue against the feedback you’ve been given. A mature reaction is to take it on board and ask open questions to probe a little more.

• Ask for examples of when they saw you acting in such a way.
• Ask what you could have done differently.
• Really explore the feedback so that you have a clear understanding of how you can improve.

If you can do this effectively and consistently you really will transform yourself and your career.

Your Personal Assessment

So what are some of the areas you should consider in your personal assessment? These are areas you need to consider in your current situation and for your future positions.

1. Technical Skills

• What technical skills and qualifications do you need to have or be good at? For example use of spreadsheets or computer systems. Specific knowledge about your organisation or industry?
• What knowledge or skills does your manager need to have to do their job?
• Is there any skill or knowledge that could give you an advantage over your peers.
• Is there any skill that is highly valued in your organisation that you must be great at?

2. Personal Qualities

Examples of qualities that you would need to consider are:

• Drive
  • How much ambition do you have?
  • How much do you want success for you and your organisation and how determined are you to get there?
  • How much do you want to make an impact where you work?
  • Do you make things happen at work or just do what you are told to do
  • How many ideas do you come up with?
  • Who is the most driven person you know. What do you need to do to be like them?
• Accountability
  • Are you accountable for your responsibilities?
  • Can you be trusted?
  • Do you get things done?
    This is a key attribute especially if you want to move to the next level.
• Maturity
  • Can you deal with all types of people, whatever their job, level and rank?
  • Are you confident in the way you speak whether it’s to the head of your organisation or someone who works for you.
  • Do people ask your advice?
• Impact
  • Do you have impact in the organisation?
  • Do people know who you are, what you do and what you do for them?
  • Do you go out and ensure you get noticed?
    You may get noticed through your personality or by your work.
• Influence
  • Do you have influence?
  • Do you have ideas that people listen to?
  • Can you influence decisions where you work?
• Business Awareness
  • Do you just focus on your job and your department or can you think about the whole organisation?
  • Do you understand what the business goals are and how you fit in and can make a difference?
  • In everything you do, do you think about how it impacts on the whole organisation?
• Energy
  • Do you have high energy levels at work?
  • Do you want to get things done?

To summarise, if you can develop yourself and create drive, an accountable and mature attitude, work with impact and influence with great business awareness and energy you have the attributes of a great leader.

This is a huge step on the way to a successful career and life

Can I do my managers job?

A good attitude to have in constantly challenging yourself in your career is to ask yourself if you could do your bosses job today.

What if your boss didn’t come into work – could you step in? What if your boss was promoted –could you take over? Are you ready for that.  Obviously it would be a learning curve but would you be at least 75% ready to do it?

Do you think if your boss was away that you would be asked to stand in for a short period of time? That should be a clear goal if you really want to get on in your career. You need to get yourself ready – your skills, your qualities, your personality to be as good as your boss – that’s when you will show that you have great potential to do more.

A clever strategy to have, is to be so good in your current role that you start taking on some of your managers responsibilities. Yes, you should ask to take on some of the jobs your manager does. Your manager won’t say no if someone shows enthusiasm and takes some workload off them. You must demand extra responsibility. Go out and seek it and when you take it on and absorb it and get some more. Very soon you will get the recognition and the rewards you deserve.

It’s music to my ears when one on my team shows enthusiasm and wants to do something or get involved in something that is my responsibility. If they do it well it shows me that are beginning to step up and I give them a little more responsibility. Soon others around the organisation see that something I used to do is now being done by one of my team which creates a great impression for that person.

You just need to be brave and have a go. You’ve  got nothing to lose as you are stepping outside your normal comfort zone.

The future position

Now you have your goal do you know what attributes are required to get there? If you want to be Head of Marketing in five years time what skills and attributes do you need?

You need to be thinking about them now and over the next couple of years go out and seek them. This is how you manage yourself to manage your career. Look at the Head of Marketing, study him or her and build a picture of what they have and what you need. Talk to people over time to understand whether you picture is the accurate one and how people such as your manager can help you build these skills and move to towards your goal.

Be the Best

I want to finish by sharing a personal philosophy of mine. My attitude and one I instil in my teams is that I strive to be the best of my team and my peer set. That doesn’t mean I’m not a team player or over competitive but it’s a standard I’ve set myself to fulfil my potential and rise above my peer set so that I am noticed. When the managers above me need a replacement they will  choose the best of the bunch below them.

Being the best means standing out, being the one your team turns to when wanting advice and guidance and more importantly the person above the others your managers seeks for advice, guidance and a deputy.

Actions of the Week

1. What are your pluses and minuses?

Write down some pluses and minuses that  would describe you. Do you exploit your pluses everyday? Do you work to improve your minuses?

Pick one minus and think about how to improve it.

2. Personal Characteristics

For each one of the characteristics describe rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being excellent.  Ask somebody at work such as your manager to review your answers and give his opinion. Ask for feedback and remember to ask for one price of negative feedback. Note down actions for improvement and take action on  one within the next two weeks.

3.What do you need to get to your future position?

Think about what you need to do to get to your future position to achieve your goal. What kind of person do you need to be? What can you do now to start to move to that new you?