January 21, 2011

The Bold Guide to a Fast Track Career

If patience is not one of your virtues and you have a strong desire for success, than a fast track career is for you. As a matter a fact, I barely meet anyone who doesn’t crave a fast track career, in which they can grow like a kid on steroids.

Well, a kid on steroids is not a healthy thing, but a fast track career, provided it grows organically, is. I know plenty of people who were successful managers by 25, top managers in Fortune 500 companies by 29 and flourishing entrepreneurs at 33.

It can be done and there is a recipe for it. Here are the key ingredients, from my perspective, of a fast track career.

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

I find that most people start off with big career dreams, but they forget about them quickly enough. They get distracted by the comfort a safe and warm job, the free cookies and the company teambuilding programs, and career progress stops being a mental priority for them.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a coach is that once something stops being a mental priority, you pretty much stop working towards achieving it. This is the sad little story of the careers millions of people have.

If you want to have a fast track career, it’s essential to keep your eyes on the prize and never forget your goals. Enjoy the benefits a particular job, but don’t let them sidetrack you: mentally, emotionally or behaviorally.

Don’t Stay In One Place Too Long

The people who make really fast progress in their career and get to a place most only dream of, all have one key trait in common: they are predators.

They don’t let anything keep them in one place for long. When they’ve learned a job, they immediately seek advancing in the company. If they discover they can’t advance in the company, they immediately start looking for another company. They act fast, they move fast and they are ferocious about it.

Fast trackers don’t let senseless norms keep them from moving forward. In my experience, this is in huge contrast with the behavior of the average employee, who will bitch about a job with no growth potential but will stay in it for years.

This doesn’t mean fast trackers have no ethics. If a company invests in them for two years and helps them become top professionals, smart fast trackers know to pay their dues. However, once their dues are paid, they seek the bigger better thing without delay.

Put Your Needs First

The fundamental thing that stops most people from being predators and having a fast track career is that they care too much about the needs and opinions of others and they put those first. Thus, they sacrifice their own goals to help the team, to not seem selfish and so on.

If you want to make fast career progress, it is essential to learn how to gain confidence and put your needs first, without ignoring the needs of others. This is commonly referred to as assertiveness, and it is one of the essential life and people skills to master.

Probably the most important part in becoming assertive is a mental leap: realizing that you do not exist in this world primarily to serve others, but to serve yourself and make the most out of your life.

 

This is not bad or immoral, it is the mature and healthy attitude that people with self-respect have. It is also the way to fast career progress.

Image courtesy of EdoM Photography

Filed Under: Attitude, Career, Success Tagged With: , , , , 6 Comments
August 31, 2010

The Corporate Person’s Guide to Loosening Up

In my experience, there are a lot of stiff people in the corporate world. Their manner is so formal, their words are so contrived that they often give the impression of robots made on the same production line, having no people skills.

Whenever I find myself interacting with such a person, I have a somewhat hard time feeling relaxed and trusting them. And I find that most people feel the same way. Their conduct seems so fake and insecure that it’s hard to feel otherwise.

A Good Idea Gone Insane

Ask a corporate person about their manner which appears stiff to you and they will often tell you it is a business and professional manner: “This is how corporate people behave”. While there is some truth in this, I believe the formal corporate conduct has gone way beyond reflecting professionalism.

Dig a little dipper and you will discover a conduct which prevents people from enjoying their interactions and working well together. It is a conduct rooted in:

  • A false image of professionalism and the professional image;
  • A tendency to blindly follow traditions and conventions;
  • A fear of being authentic in business interactions;
  • Giving too much significance to clients, colleagues, bosses and their opinions.

My Top Ideas for Loosening Up

I think that loosening up as a corporate person is something anyone can benefit from and an excellent way to improve your business people skills. Here are my top ideas on how to loosen up:

1. Don’t wear a formal suit all the time. Nobody likes to wear a formal suit all the time. Not even James Bond. And the fact that official company policy may demand you wear a full-piece suit all the time is not a good excuse in my view. This is one policy you can bend. Try dressing in a way which still reflects professionalism, but is less formal.

2. Relax your body. Many corporate people I know have this really stiff posture and body language, which they force on themselves. A corporation is not the same as the army. It’s OK to relax your body and even slouch a bit, and you can do this while still marinating dignity in your posture.

3. Do joke once in a while. Some corporate people hardly make a joke in a business meeting or in a discussion with a client. They take their work and their professional image that seriously. Learn to have fun while interacting with others in the business environment and joke about things once in a while.

4. Do talk about other things besides business. It’s OK to be focused on results; it’s not OK to do so without adding a human side to your interactions. Make personal conversation with your clients and your colleagues; get to know each other as human beings. It is this human component which often strengthens the business side.

5. Avoid using clichés. The signature trait of a stiff corporate person is the fact they talk in clichés. They are so afraid to say the wrong thing and be improper that they end up only saying the old, over-repeated and predictable things which add no real value. Avoid this and speak your unique truth.

6. Do work you love. The more work you do which you are passionate about, the more you become passionate in your general conduct. The fact you enjoy what you do gives you more positive energy and more confidence to express yourself as you are. The most relaxed people I know are those who don’t care and those who are very fulfilled.

If you happen to be a somewhat tense and stiff person in your manner at work, I can tell you now that changing your ways and improving your people skills in this area will take a degree of persistence. However, you will see it happen.

As a final thought, consider this: you will be spending about 1/3 of your life working. Don’t you wanna express yourself and have some fun with it in all this time?

Image courtesy of DaveAustia.com

Filed Under: Attitude, Career, Communication Skills Tagged With: , , , 8 Comments
April 28, 2010

The Simple Guide to Conscious Learning

When you are able to learn effectively, you pretty much have living the life you want in your pocket. Oddly enough, very few people are good conscious learners. Some may know a lot of stuff, but when it comes to actually developing, their learning gets stuck.

There is one thing I found out about a long time ago, which helped me a lot in improving the way I learn and make more, faster progress. It is also something I constantly talk about in my training and coaching programs.

This thing is a simple, powerful model of human learning and personal development. According to the model, our competencies develop in 4 stages:

  1. Unconscious Incompetence – you don’t know, and you don’t know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you are not aware of your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.
  2. Conscious Incompetence – you still don’t know, but at least you know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you’ve realized your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.
  3. Conscious Competence – you know, as long as you practice consciously. This is the stage when you have discovered how to improve, the specific changes you need to make, and you practice them consciously.
  4. Unconscious Competence – you know, without even thinking about it. This is the stage when you have practiced something so much that it became automatic and you now do it naturally.

Of course, once you reach the last stage in one area and you have a new skill, there are other areas where you are at the first stage and where you can evolve through the 4 stages. So this is not really a learning cycle, it’s more of a learning spiral which can go on your entire life.

What effective learning means is moving from one stage to another. Effective learning is conscious, step by step learning. And it’s about skills, attitudes, not knowledge, which is just an intermediary step in the process.

If you look at human learning through this model, you can realize that all human failure in learning is triggered by certain personal or process flaws which make us get stuck at one of the first 3 stages:

  • People who get stuck in stage 1 don’t even think about where they can improve, are not very self-aware or they are too proud to see their flaws.
  • People who get stuck in stage 2 know what they can improve but don’t decide to do anything about it, they try to figure everything our by themselves or they use the wrong ideas and methods to improve.
  • People who get stuck in stage 3 don’t act sufficiently and consistently enough, they don’t plan their practice, they get distracted and they procrastinate.

Look at this model of learning and think about the stages where you tend to get stuck. We all tend to have at least one which is our sticking point. Becoming more aware of this and working on perfecting your learning process is one of the best ways you can use you time and energy.

When you are able to learn effectively, you pretty much have living the life you want in your pocket. Oddly enough, very few people are good conscious learners. Some may know a lot of stuff, but when it comes to actually developing, their learning gets stuck.

There is one thing I found out about a long time ago, which helped me a lot in improving the way I learn and make more, faster progress. It is also something I constantly talk about in my training and coaching programs.

This thing is a simple, powerful model of human learning and personal development. According to the model, our competencies develop in 4 stages:

  1. Unconscious Incompetence – you don’t know, and you don’t know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you are not aware of your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.

  1. Conscious Incompetence – you still don’t know, but at least you know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you’ve realized your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.

  1. Conscious Competence – you know, as long as you practice consciously. This is the stage when you have discovered how to improve, the specific changes you need to make, and you practice them consciously.

  1. Unconscious Competence – you know, without even thinking about it. This is the stage when you have practiced something so much that it became automatic and you now do it naturally.

Of course, once you reach the last stage in one area and you have a new skill, there are other areas where you are at the first stage and where you can evolve through the 4 stages. So this is not really a learning cycle, it’s more of a learning spiral which can go on your entire life.

What effective learning means is moving from one stage to another. Effective learning is conscious, step by step learning. And it’s about skills, attitudes, not knowledge, which is just an intermediary step in the process.

If you look at human learning through this model, you can realize that all human failure in learning is triggered by certain personal or process flaws which make us get stuck at one of the first 3 stages:

  • People who get stuck in stage 1 don’t even think about where they can improve, are not very self-aware or they are too proud to see their flaws.

  • People who get stuck in stage 2 know what they can improve but don’t decide to do anything about it, they try to figure everything our by themselves or they use the wrong ideas and methods to improve.

  • People who get stuck in stage 3 don’t act sufficiently and consistently enough, they don’t plan their practice, they get distracted and they procrastinate.

Look at this model of learning and think about the stages where you tend to get stuck. We all tend to have at least one which is our sticking point. Becoming more aware of this and working on perfecting your learning process is one of the best ways you can use you time and energy.

Filed Under: Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 8 Comments