Here’s another great guest post piece from Free Money Finance reader Mike Hunt.
As a follow up to my previous post, I’d like to list some tips on how to advance your career based on my personal experience, presented in no particular order:
1. Approach your work and projects with the mindset that you want to do the best you can to help the company. This can mean to improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue, or it could mean looking to minimize scrap or waste to help in delivering company profitably. It is important to understand the linkages of each business objective and metric into the top company objectives (assuming you are working for a for-profit institution) of revenue, profit and cash flow. If you are unclear about the linkages you need to ask and find these out.
By focusing your effort and communicating on why you are doing this, you will increased the value of your personal brand within the company.
2. Always make your boss look successful and do everything you can to make his or her life easier. This can be counter intuitive to many people as there are many bad bosses in this world. But even with a ‘bad boss’ your objective should not stray. In a healthy environment when you succeed your boss succeeds as well and in turn your department reflects that success. If your boss is observant he will be delighted with your performance and will look to reward you and grow your career. If your boss is mature he or she would be open to having you grow within the company in another role although they will try hard not to let you go- which is not a bad thing.
The way to do this is to understand the way your boss is measured and make sure you go the extra mile to ensure that your contributions deliver results for your boss. Also you may find that your manager isn’t aware of some risk items or opportunities in your department and that you would be willing to help. This attitude is not about kissing up to your boss as that isn’t the point- it’s about making sure your function is running effectively.
If you can’t stand your boss try to transfer or find another job. Many people try to sabotage their boss to get them thrown out. Doing this will most certainly backfire and take you both down. All bad bosses have qualities you can learn from, even if you become aware of behaviors you can’t stand you can use this to ensure you never copy these behaviors in your career.
3. When you complete an activity let the results speak for themselves. Nobody likes credit stealers or people who trumpet their horn but if your activity or project delivers results by all means communicate the data and result. This can be done via email or normal summary reports but should definitely be written up in your appraisal.
4. Be friendly with the office receptionist, executive secretary and office manager. These people often are aware of general information or happenings in the office and are often close to people who are influential in the organization. If they find you as a friend they can be a powerful ally. This is more the case in informal / matrixed organizations where the organizational structure is not clear. Often being polite, respectful and friendly with these people can pay big dividends. Those who act rude or superior to these functions do so at their own risk.
5. Find a mentor if you can in the organization. This may be your direct manager or it may not but should be someone who is more senior than you and has a lot of experience in the organization. It is often good to find someone who is slightly outside your job area so you don’t step on any toes. The idea is to use someone to help you in your career development and can provide general coaching on your development. A lot of this is informal and is done through meeting for lunch or coffee and talking about things outside of work. Make the time fun for the mentor and respect this persons time.
6. If you have subordinates make sure you coach and develop them. The goal is to have your subordinates skilled enough so they can take over for your job. Otherwise if there is an opportunity for an internal promotion you may not get it because you are too critical to stay in your position. There is always a slight risk that you will be made redundant if your subordinate can do your job and there is a downturn in the company with not enough work to do. However that is a risk you should take as most good company leaders will become more aware of your potential and want to keep you in the company. If you are made redundant your skills in developing people will make you more attractive in a new company.
Typically when you first start your career your success or failure depends on the results you can deliver by your own efforts or ideas. This was particularly true for me as I started out as an Engineer. However, as you progress in the organization your success now rides on how well you can manage people to deliver results for your organization or department. People really are the biggest asset in every company!
7. Be a team player. That means maintain respect for other people, regardless of their level. Everyone has a job to do in the company and it is important for you to respect people for who they are and what they can deliver for the company. That doesn’t mean you have to like everybody, but you should be able to work with people you don’t like from time to time. If you take the time to get to know people and approach them with an attitude of mutual respect you will find that we are all not so different. Everyone has strong and weak points and having a positive attitude will set you apart from the pack.
8. Be a continuous learner. This may manifest itself in the form of learning a new product line, a new corporate system or learning a new technology. Today the world is so dynamic that you need to adopt an attitude of being open to learning new things otherwise you will be passed by. Once you have a few of these chapters under your belt your confidence will improve and you won’t hesitate to take on a new challenge. It actually gets easier the more you do it. As a personal example, I moved to Southeast Asia 3 years ago and took the effort to speak, read and write Thai. It was very tough at first and by no means am I an expert. However the act of doing this has opened doors to other job opportunities and given me more credibility with the locals. It’s also was quite fun and has helped to keep my brain active and mind fresh.
9. Lastly, be passionate but remember when it comes to working it is based on a business relationship. You are there because it’s mutually beneficial to you and your employer and this should be the case over the duration of your career. If this changes for a length of time then it is ok for you or your employer to initiate a change (either within the company or to move on somewhere else) and this isn’t meant to be personal. Keep some perspective and have fun during your career.
I was happy to see number 8 up there. I've always tried to think of myself as a student in a big way. It keeps you humble and of course it keeps you on top like Mike says.
Posted by: Alex | June 15, 2009 at 07:24 PM
These are all good tips, but I should add that the moment you are not genuine about any one of those things, everyone will be able to tell.
I would add "be grateful" to the list, but it's not exactly something you can work on.
Posted by: Ryan | June 16, 2009 at 08:19 AM
Ryan,
Good comment. You should always be grateful but for me that is an 'internal' emotion rather than an outward displayed behavior.
And you are correct- people can spot a fake a mile away so you have to really believe in these things for them to be effective. At least you can experiment and try and see what works for you.
-Mike
Posted by: Mike Hunt | June 16, 2009 at 01:29 PM
Thanks for the post, Mike!
6 is one of my favourites. I do everything possible to stimulate people's personal initiative taking (this includes making them stop seeing you as their boss). It's a motivator second to none, and it results in a kick-ass team (which is also good for you as the boss).
This experience comes from a leisure activity (I don't have any subordinates at work - I am the subordinate!), but I'm convinced it works there too (to see this at work check out Ricardo Semler's 7 Day Weekend). One issue I see is that you can only give as much autonomy/power as you have yourself. So it helps if you're the CEO or founder (as was the case for Semler, and for me). The potential is less if you have a whole hierarchy above you that doesn't get it, but it's still worth it if only because they'll love the measurable business results that come out of it.
Posted by: F | June 16, 2009 at 02:12 PM
As for what I'm taking away: I bookmarked this on Delicious with the following comment:
Understand the way your boss is measured and make sure your work gets results for him, or help him in areas where you see an opportunity for him to deliver more, or just make his life easier so that he can focus on delivering.
Posted by: F | June 16, 2009 at 02:22 PM
F,
You got it. Sounds like you are well on your way to developing your career effectively.
I try to give people as much autonomy as they can handle and even then a bit more to stretch them. But you have to periodically follow up to make sure they are not drowning and doing the right thing. Most people are up to the challenge.
-Mike
Posted by: Mike Hunt | June 16, 2009 at 09:08 PM
My God!! This could be the business manual on how to win the "Brown Noser of the Year Award". Tell the thousands of people layed-off or downsized that they didn't do a good job. If you work for someone else you are just a number, disposable when necessary. We pimp out our life an hour at a time for a pay cheque. Remember it is the position that rates that pay level not the person. If you are smarter, more energetic and better liked then you are seen as a threat to your boss, he/she will remove you. I have worked 30 years at one company, believed what they said about pensions, merit raises and benifits, worked the long unpaid hours, put my family second because I believed I was doing it for them to have a better standard of living. It was all a lie. I sit here everyday as a senior manager, yes I clawed my way up the ladder, waiting for another phone call from HR telling me who to fire next. I fear after I fire my quota of good hard working, dedicated employees my boss will get a call to fire me, excuse me, downsize. To get to my positon I constantly did these 9 tips, look at where it got me today. I have one tip, be you own boss and fire yourself when you have obtained your financial freedom.
Posted by: GG | September 17, 2009 at 12:22 PM
When I started my career I made a big mistake. I tried to convince everyone in the company. I call this as a mistake because while doing that i missed my prime goal of learning. So its better not to show that you know everything. If you take a responsibility and do not complete on time its negative for you. So please try to learn first.
Posted by: Steven Francis | October 26, 2009 at 12:18 AM