Lessons for a Successful Career

It’s surprising, frustrating, and disappointing when our strengths, (“I’m so organized;” “I’m very decisive”), turn out to be our weaknesses (“He’s so compulsive!” “She’s so dictatorial!”).  Do any of the following apply to you?

Career lesson #1:  No one likes the smartest kid in the room if the smartest kid makes other kids look dumb.

When you’re launching your career it’s important to establish yourself as someone who is quick, bright, and eager to get the job done right. After you’ve gotten some experience under your belt, your employer and colleagues expect you to be a team player and individual contributor. As you continue to progress you’ll be asked to manage and mentor others. To be successful, you’ll need to shift your focus from being center stage to showcasing the talent of those you lead. Encourage them, reinforce their achievements, and give them the visibility they need to progress in their own right. Bottom line: The smartest kid in the class is the one who learns how to maximize the potential in others.

Career Lesson #2: Talk a good game but play a better one.

Talk is cheap. Walk is style. Performance is substance. You’ll need all three to succeed in any job. Bottom line: Under-promise and over-deliver.

Career Lesson #3: If you want to lose time, resources, and profitability, cut first, then measure.

Whether you’re the tinker, tailor, cabinet maker, or the CEO of a major company, you’ll need to access information available to you from sources that can provide it for you. If you don’t or won’t, you’ll squander time, talent and loyalty; qualities you and your company need to survive.

Career Lesson #4: The best communicators work at the intersection of Speaking, Listening, Reflecting, Probing and Responding.

Communication is a process through which information is exchanged. How clearly it is transmitted, how accurately it is translated, how well it is received and effectively responded to, are functions of the communicators involved. Good communication takes time, patience, courage, and compassion.

Career Lesson #5: Leaders manage and managers lead.

In a perfect world, leaders dedicate their time and attention to conceptualizing the vision and mission of their companies. They don’t concern themselves with the obstacles, pitfalls, and blind-spots to success; they leave those details to employees hired to look out for them.

Wake up call: it’s not a perfect world, it’s a real world. Leaders, worthy of the name, pay for it with honesty and integrity. They ask the tough questions and listen to news they’d rather not hear. They make the changes they ought, doing the right things for the right reasons. They accept accountability along with responsibility and learn from experience.

Career Lesson #6: Members of the “Been There Done That” Society need fresh perspectives to survive.

The best employees thrive on challenge, opportunity, and possibility, whether it’s fixing what’s broken, simplifying what’s complex, or creating what’s never been. They need managers who maximize their potential, demand their best and reward their success.

Career Lesson #7:  The boss doesn’t fire you, your direct reports do.

Ouch. That’s the zinger that always stings. Managers looking for career longevity aren’t going to make it if they’re playing up to the boss while kicking around their employees. The manager’s job is to be appropriately responsive to all employees, no matter their position or power. The manager’s job is to be accountable to every person, challenging fairly, promoting accordingly. Playing favorites with some while abusing others gets you a ticket to the unemployment line, and that’s something you don’t want to get punched.

Career Lesson # 8: It takes more than a week at the beach to have a balanced life.

If you’re a much different person at home than you are at work, you’re out of balance. If you give much more to your employees than you do to your family, you’re out of balance. If you deprive yourself in service to others, you’re out of balance. Give yourself a break. Give your brain some time to absorb, collate and file the information you dump into it everyday. Give yourself time to separate what’s important from what’s making the most noise.

The most successful people plan for tomorrow by leaving time for today.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

New Year’s Resolutions

It was hard to find much to cheer about in 2009. People and institutions seemed to let us down on a regular basis. Rather than place blame, let’s figure out what we can do to make 2010 a better year than the one we just left.

Get better. Get better at making promises, keeping promises and delivering more than you promise.

Get real. Find facts and face them. Face facts and deal with them. Deal with facts and take action on them.

Get moving. If you can’t run, walk. Put one foot in front of the other. And if that’s more speed than you can handle, take baby steps, just keep moving.

Listen more: Listen to what you don’t want to hear. Listen to what you need to hear. Listen to clarify, to understand, to fill the gap between what you see and what others see differently than you.

Agree more. Find reasons to agree, occasions when you share common ground, and times when there’s more that connects than separates you from one another.

Trust more. Trust facts. Trust others. Trust your gut. Trust more than you doubt, more than you dare, and more than you care to admit.

Open up more: Wherever you are, be there. Let people see who you are, know what you want, acknowledge how you feel and why you care as much as you do.

Clarify. Say what you mean. Say what you want. Say why it’s important to you.

Deliver. If you say it, do it. If you do it, do it right. If you do it right, do it on time. If you do it on time, do it with grace.

Confront. Go there. Be there. Address the issue that stands between where you are and where you could be. Find a way to accommodate what you want with what someone else needs.

Resolve. Get it done. Get it finished. Get it out of the way to make room for what’s next.

Work smart. Put most of your time where you get most of the benefit. Put most of your effort where you put most of your time.

Work hard. Work on what is worthwhile. Work on what you value. Work on what creates value for others.

Turn your talent into strengths. Turn what you do most easily into what you can consistently do well. Turn what is a gift into a treasure. Shape what you take for granted into what defines you.

Work more in your strengths: Do more with what you do best. Learn more about what you enjoy most. Give more of what is easiest for you to give.

Be credible: Create more substance than style, more actions than words, more outcome than expectation.

Be relevant: Stay in the conversation. Stay in the game. Learn more today than you knew yesterday. Advance your thinking by expanding your perspective.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Fences Make Good Neighbors…Sometimes!

Good fences make good neighbors. Sometimes.

I’ve been living at the same address for over twenty years. The fence moved in before I did. It was sturdy, redwood, interwoven, and taller than I am. I knew my back neighbors only by the top of their hats: baseball in summer and woolen in winter. They couldn’t have known me by much more.

One day we met, kind of. The top of my head spoke with the tops of theirs and we talked about our enduring fence and what if we just… took it down. We considered the pros and looked at the cons and decided the whatif’s? were greater than the sowhat’s?

Whatif I got a dog and you got a baby? Whatif you sold your house or I sold mine and one of us needed a fence because the new neighbors were mean and nasty? It’s too risky. It’s better to leave well enough alone. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way. After all, good fences make good neighbors…

In late spring, a storm came, and when it left, it took the fence with it. For many days we busied ourselves in the aftermath, chopping, stacking and hauling until finally, we looked up and saw ourselves face to face over a space that once had separated us.

Nowwhat? How would we relate without the walled protection of whatif’s and sowhat’s?

Across the country companies are consolidating their holdings and closing the divide that separates departments and business units. The motive to merge comes from a logical look at the bottom line; it’s cheaper to operate under one roof than many. If you work in closer proximity to what you make, market, and ship you’re more likely to talk to each other about what you know, do, and need. Or so it would seem.

People tend to hold onto the old ways, the established, institutionalized ways; the good fences make good neighbors ways. Instead of crossing over invisible lines, departments and business units remain protective of what was. Barriers, real and imagined, remain in place.

What can you do to remove internal blocks to communication, whether real or perceived?

Observe that it’s happening.

Point out the obvious.

Point out the obvious to the oblivious.

Get together with the oblivious and the obtuse.

Learn their objections.

Overcome the obstructions.

Develop mutual, agreed upon objectives.

Reap the benefits

If what you do is what you did, what you’ll get is what you got.

Communication is the most basic, fundamental, foundational, no cost, no frills tool you have at your disposal. Use it wisely and use it well.

“This is what we do over here and (keep it simple) this is how we do it. Here’s what we need from you to do our job and to help you do yours. What do you do, and what do you need from us?”

If you insist that good fences make good neighbors, the least you can do is install a gate that opens both ways.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at www.thecoachingassociation.com.