Career Ownership

I've been saying for years that people, especially women, need to drive their own careers. Career ownership is vital to success. If we don't take an invested interest in our own careers, nobody else will. But how do we steer our careers so that we are the drivers and controllers?

There are several things that you can do to make sure you keep ownership and accountability in your career.

* Own it! That's right. The first and most important step is to take ownership. Be accountable for your own choices. If things are not going the way you expected them, don't blame someone else. Look in the mirror and then decide what you are going to do to fix it. Be accountable because nobody else owes you anything in this world. You want it, make it happen.
* Make Decisions- It's up to you to decide what is best for your career. Sit down in a quiet place and gather your thoughts. On paper, free write for at least five minutes. Write the things you hope to accomplish, things you will accomplish short term, things you will accomplish long term, what is needed to reach these accomplishments, and who you need to know to make it happen. It doesn't need to be in any specific order. Once you get it all out, put it in a clear plan. Set deadlines for each one. Make the decision on which goals are most important and focus on those.
* Develop and manage key relationships- Once you've made your decisions on your goals, you need to find and build relationships with key people who can help you in your career. Now, do not target people you can use. The objective is to get to know these people and include them in your network. Work to build a real give and take relationship with them. If you go into the relationship with impure motives, believe me, it will soon be brought to light. Be honest and realistic with them and your self. Once you build these relationships, treat them as the valued prizes they are.
* Get a Mentor- Find one or two people who are where you want to be in your career. Reach out to them and let them know who you are and what you hope to accomplish. A mentor relationship is much different than a key networking relationship in that a mentor will be there to guide and advise you. Be realistic about your choices because everyone is not cut out to be a mentor. Create an interview process. Seriously! A mentor relationship is very important and not one you should enter into lightly. There needs to be a fit between the parties. Make sure your mentor fits.
* Make your work (and results) more visible to those who matter- This doesn't mean arrogantly tooting your own horn every chance you get! Doing great work alone is essential but not sufficient when it comes to getting recognition and visibility around the organization. A key ingredient to success is also making sure you are getting visibility for the work you do. You can get visibility outside of the company by speaking at conferences, participating in networking events, sharing your expertise with your peers, volunteer, and by writing articles. A note of caution. If you choose to blog, please be cognizant of what you say. Remember, the "internet" has a long memory so be careful of how you represent yourself there. Finally, look for assignments and projects that allow you to showcase your expertise.
* Brag on yourself- When important milestones happen for you, share them. Sharing your accomplishments allow you to let others see what your capabilities are. And, it could potentially lead to bigger and better things for you. Don't be afraid to toot your own horn.
* Get educated!- Get the credentials and education necessary to help you achieve your goals. Whether it's a continuing education course, going back to school for your degree, or certification, it all counts. Don't go into extreme debt, but don't "skip school" because you feel you can't afford it. Look for scholarships, grants, tuition reimbursement, a sponsor or any other means that will allow you to get the education you need.

There is no one size fits all plan for taking ownership of your career. But if you take the steps above, you can be in control of your destiny and pave your own path. Remember, your career starts, progresses and ends with only you. Be accountable. Own your career.

Make The Elephant Jump

"Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing."
Tony Blair

Leadership is not about getting people to do what they want. If they did what they want, you wouldn't be needed as a leader. Instead, leadership is about getting people to do what they don't want to do (or don't think they can do) – and be ardently committed to doing it.

This paradox lies at the heart of all great leadership.

Unlike management, which involves simply the care and feeding of your organizational elephant, great leadership gets that elephant to jump.

Anyone who knows anything about elephants knows that they may run, they may stand on their hind legs, they may kneel on their fore legs, they may roll over; but they don't jump.

And that's what leadership is all about: getting organizations to do what they usually can't do, i.e., getting great results consistently.

Now, you can't do the jumping yourself. The elephant must do it. You can't push the elephant into the air. It must jump of its own volition.

Making the elephant jump involves cultivating a special relationship between the leader and the people of the organization.

Many leaders misunderstand that relationship. They try to use fear and pain to spur the activity needed to achieve consistently great results. "Sure, I'll get this elephant to jump. Just give me a cattle prod!"

But inducing fear and pain are habit forming and ultimately destructive both to the leader and the people.

To make the elephant jump -- not now and then but consistently, i.e., to lead people to consistently to achieve great results -- deep, human emotional bonding between leader and people must take place. And fundamental to that bonding is the nature of the heart of the leader.

This is the secret: You can't get the elephant to jump unless you have a kind heart. Kindness in leadership means following the Leadership Imperative: "I will lead people in such a way that we not only achieve the needed results but they become better as leaders and people."

Most leaders focus on the first part "getting better results" and forget about the second part. But in truth, when you have a kind heart, getting results and helping people be better are not two things but one.

From now on, see every leadership challenge you face as a way of having people increase their knowledge, their skills, their courage, their tenacity, and their leadership abilities. Cultivating that perspective is a kindness.

But don't mistake kindness for being nice. Don't mistake kindness for having people simply feel good. Don't mistake kindness for allowing people to indulge the worst aspects of their character, laziness, inconsiderateness, selfishness, etc.

Furthermore, you may be kind and have people be frustrated with you. Many great leaders I've had relationships with got me frustrated as they had me go through the trouble of tackling challenges I might not otherwise have tackled. (In fact, deep, human, emotional bonding cannot happen without a great deal of frustration.) But I was motivated despite my frustrations because I recognized that they essentially had my best interests at heart.

Yes, through skill, persuasiveness, understanding, forcefulness, education, and guidance, you can get the elephant to jump -- as long as you do it through the kindness of your heart.

Changing Habits

"Character is one factor that will guide all our actions and decisions. We invested in uncompromising integrity that helped us take difficult stands in some of the most difficult situations."
Azim Premji

Human beings are creatures of habit. We get into a routine that we are comfortable with and we stick to it unless something big comes along and shocks us out of it. Our daily habits often force us to put up with all kind of degrading and destructive events, all in the name of keeping things comfortable or familiar. We would rather put up with the habits we know because we can put up with them, rather than create new habits that we have never experienced before.

The excuses for clinging to our habits range from almost acceptable to completely neurotic. For example, staying in a job that you don't like so that you can continue to pay the mortgage and feed your family is almost an acceptable excuse for staying at your job. It would be just foolish to suddenly quit and start thinking about how to pay your bills.

But it is wrong to think that this job that you dislike has to be it for the rest of your life. Sure it's comfortable, you know you can do it, but don't you owe to yourself, your family, and your employer to get out and do a job that is right for you?

Nothing will change if you don't change. The first step is recognizing that change is necessary. Secondly you have to figure out where you would be more fulfilled in your career. Maybe you have to do something more creative, something outdoors in nature, something that allows you to be in different places, or maybe you have to be the one making all the decisions with your own business. When you are clear about what it is that you really want from your career, you have to start taking steps towards it.

A new job is not going to come running to you just because you're unhappy with your old one. If it's a new industry you may have a lot to learn before even thinking about applying for new positions. You may have to take classes at night while you put up with your dull job during the day.

If it's your own business that you dream of, you may have to start from your home. Working during the night and weekends to move closer to doing it fulltime and leaving your old job.

Just because we are familiar with something is no reason to continue doing it. It's easy to get caught up in day to day living - especially if you have a family to take care of - and to put off any changes that could improve your life. Change can invoke fear, insecurity, and feelings of loss in people. Make the change anyway!

Life is not pausing for you while you are putting up with something that you dislike. Life is passing you by while you waste it doing the wrong thing. There's no rewind button, there's only now, and if you're not happy with your now, Change it!

3 Simple Steps to Communicate Better

Communication failure is one of the biggest problems faced by businesses today, especially by their managers whose job it is to solve these communication problems; if you learn how to communicate better you can prevent these communication difficulties happening at all.

You know you are heading for communication problems when it appears that the other person has stopped listening to you even before you have finished talking. You get the hint when you can’t attract everyone attention when you speak at meetings or when you are not getting anything back from the other person with whom you are attempting to have a conversation.

You can’t blame other people for this and you can’t change the way that people listen to you; you need to improve your own communication skills.

Pause for thought
People are only capable of listening for so long. That attention span becomes shorter if they disagree with you or become confused, so when you see your audience’s eyes glazing over, you know it’s time to stop talking. Hopefully you will have stopped before that point. If you really want to communicate better, you have to listen too. Find out what other people are thinking; not only is that the polite thing to do but it also enables you to find out what people do not understand or what the resistances are to what you are saying.

Keep to the point
State your points clearly and simply with no mistakes in order to be easily understood. Signal what you are going to talk about from your very first sentence by stating your aim right away. Then the rest of your talk should be the way you expand upon it and illustrate your point of view. You can ask for feedback later or allow brainstorming of ideas if you wish, but make your point clearly first to avoid confusion. At the end, you should summarize any decisions that are made and make each person’s responsibilities for action clear. Make sure each person that needs to do something after the communication has a SMART target.

Watch your tone
You should speak to others as you wish them to speak to you, without arrogance, hostility or sarcasm. Make sure you speak loud enough to be heard but not so loud that your tone appears aggressive. Speak with authority, having thought out your words; you will be much more credible to your audience. If you have a strong regional accent you should try to soften that and make your dialect and accent more standard, to avoid confusing your audience who may not be from the same region.

You don’t have to neutralize your accent completely as an accent can be very endearing, but you need to make sure the way you speak is standardized enough to be understood by others.

You need to learn how to communicate better because communicating well is the best way to ensure that you are listened to and understood by others.

I hope this help you, Best of Luck.