Get on the radar of decision makers

The common assumption is that if you do your job well, you will get opportunities for advancement. However, in addition to good performance you need to show that you have the mind-set and maturity to move higher by doing the following;

SEE THINGS HALF FULL: When faced with problems or difficult situations, look for what’s working rather than what’s not. Do not overstate what’s not working. This does not mean that you deny the reality of what is happening but rather that you choose to be optimistic by maintaining a positive outlook on issues.

GO BEYOND THE JOB DESCRIPTION : Go beyond your prescribed role to see where you can contribute more by applying other skills you might have or contributing your energies to other organisational projects. Stay aligned with how your organization is evolving so that you can adapt accordingly and remain relevant. Also familiarize yourself with how decisions are made and priorities decided so that you are in a position to prepare to take advantage of potential opportunities.

MOVE THINGS CONSISTENTLY FORWARD: Determine to break out of any ruts and not to allow any difficult situations to remain unresolved. Bring new ideas and solutions to the table. Demonstrate that you can adjust to change, work through challenging times and make your voice heard. Acknowledge even little steps of progress. Take some positive risks to make your workplace a better environment.

DON’T WEAR YOUR FRUSTRATIONS ON YOUR SLEEVE: Be level-headed; increase your self-awareness and reflect on your own behaviour especially how you react when you feel pushed outside your ‘preference or comfort zone’. When people sense that you are too emotional or panic easily they may not take you seriously. Make sure your actions are worthy of the business setting.

BE A THINKER AND A SAFE PAIR OF HANDS: Show that you are fully invested in the organization and its future; that you are capable of leading and inspiring new perspectives in others, challenging processes that no longer work and can be counted on to do important work well and promptly.

Now take action: Make a plan for developing the above ‘competencies’.

Shake off boredom on the job

It’s not uncommon to experience spells of boredom on your job; but staying bored could undermine your career. Working to get out of a ‘boredom rut’ is worth the effort; because it helps you avoid the ‘routineness’ that undermines growth.

Here are some suggestions for overcoming boredom.

ACT SWIFTLY: When you are bored you cannot afford to stay put otherwise your mind will ‘shut down’ or go into ‘recession. This will obviously not bode well for remaining relevant in your organisation or marketable in the job market. Avoid staying in the same job for too long especially where you are doing the same thing.

LOOK FOR NEW RESPONSIBILITY: Find assignments that will push you to become more alert, to apply your skills in different ways and most importantly to get new mental stimulation and new tasks that will shift you out of your old mindsets. You may even consider revising your daily schedule so as to suit your energy levels to how taxing the tasks are.

WORK WITH PEOPLE UNLIKE YOU: This may feel uncomfortable but it’s a good way to challenge your thinking, to learn from how others think. Go out of your way to interact with people very different from you in outlook, in skills-sets, in interests. This is likely to give you new perspectives and enable you interact in ways that stretch you.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW: Learning a new skill for example is always an excellent use of time and effort. The learning opportunities available may not be what you are interested in or be directly related to your job; but go for it anyway because getting out of the stagnation is the more important thing.

CHANGE JOBS: Where there’s little scope to try new things in your job, it may be time to explore opportunities for another job within the organization or failing that in another company. The longer you stay stuck in a rut, the more difficult it’ll be to get out and the more challenging it’ll be to deliver what is expected of you or advance.

Now take action: Identify two ways for staying ‘fresh’ on your job?

Managing former peers

Promotion to manager is great news but when that elevation puts you in charge of former friends and peers things can get very tricky. Your greatest challenge is to reinvent yourself from peer to ‘boss’. How? Here are some suggestions.

UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR NEW ROLE IS: People management is a different professional relationship so be clear about the job and what you’ll need to step up on. There is no reason why you can’t continue to be a peer in your social interactions. On the job however, you need to make sure the relationship allows you to be able to treat all of your reportees fairly.

DON’T PRETEND NOTHING HAS CHANGED: Don’t just plunge in and start working. Have a conversation with your direct reports as soon as possible and communicate how you expect to operate; get their feedback on your planned approach, find out their expectations and what their suggestions are for making the new relationship work. You are now going to be overseeing their work and need to be confident that you’ll be friendly but professional in your dealings.

ESTABLISH YOUR AUTHORITY SMARTLY. This may feel like walking a tight rope. Whatever you do, don’t flaunt your authority or use it to settle scores with former peers you did not get along with. However, use the understanding you have of your (former) peers, their concerns, their fears and their motivations to build trust with them. Listen and empathize and be careful you don’t make assumptions about what you think they may be saying to you or thinking because you believe you know them.

REFRAME THE PERSONAL ERELATIONSHIPS: This is important so that you don’t sacrifice genuine friendships as the price of promotion. Accept though that in many cases the relationships will have to become less personal at work. How well you make this transition will be your biggest test of your new promotion. Show that you can do the job by deftly handling your people management responsibilities.

Now take action: What would you do differently if you were to manage your peers?

Learn 'lines' that take you upwards

The way up is hardly linear or straightforward. But if you want to rise certain skills can help you get there. Infact often, you must show you have those skills before getting a shot at that higher job. Here are a few to start developing.

BOTTOM-LINE RESPONSIBILITY: These are usually functions with big direct impact on business results for good or bad. Bottom-line roles call for competencies such as leadership, financial wisdom, sound decision making and judgement, problem solving, customer relationship development. No single job will give you these at a go so look for opportunity to work on projects to build these skills and to work with individuals who will challenge you and help you step up.

'LINE OF SIGHT' ABILITY: This is ability to connect the dots, to achieve synergy by finding a way to see how things are linked or can things work together. It’s drilling down and focusing on things really makes a difference; identifying the most important issues in a complex situation and coming up with concrete practical actions from what might seem like a ‘maze’

LINE MANAGEMENT: Managing others is challenging and rewarding at the same time. It’s the opportunity to enable others to do their best job and fulfil their potential. By managing others, you effectively become a ‘multiplier’ with responsibility and opportunity to motivate better individual performance and influence the development of the most important resource of any organisation- employees.

CAPACITY TO 'DRAW THE LINE': The higher you go the better able you should be to make the tough decisions, take the risks and chart a way forward. You will hinder your effectiveness if you agonise over too much detail or fail to sift through the clutter and make choices about what matters. There will always be grey areas to work through but don’t get stuck there. Ask for help and make progress rather than leaving things unresolved.

Now take action: Identify one way to start developing one of the above skills

Hold your own during change

Change is difficult especially when it’s coming at you full speed and you feel you have no control over it. What you cannot afford is to be a ‘passenger’ during change. Here are ways to respond right from the start.

CONFIRM HOW THE CHANGE AFFECTS YOU: Even though change in an organisation tends to affect a lot of people, your priority is understand the change and how it’ll affect you whether directly such as your role changing or indirectly through impact on your team.

HAVE A VISION OF WHAT YOU'D LIKE: When you understand how you are likely to be affected by the change, investigate what your options, opportunities or even what the costs to you are. Reflect on these and keep close to the process so that you know how things are unfolding and what decisions you need to be making.

ACCEPT WHAT YOU CAN'T CHANGE: Focus on what is possible and have a positive attitude. This can challenging especially if change is not going to be beneficial; but you must find a way to do so because if the change happens you don’t want to lose out by getting stuck on what you can’t influence.

NEVER SEE YOURSELF AS A VICTIM: Sometimes it can feel very much like that. Allow yourself to deal with any difficult emotions you may be feeling, frustration, even anger (don’t throw any objects please. Make sure you are working out a forward direction amidst the change.

GROUND YOURSELF WITH SUPPORT: A change process can be complicated whether it affects you directly or not. It helps to create a support network to help you adjust. It might help to get someone to look at the situation from a detached position and to help you adapt your perspective in a way that's helpful.

ENGAGE OPENLY AND HONESTLY: Don’t sit on the fence. Engaging can take many forms from playing an active role in the change process to simply sharing your honest opinion about what’s going or staying open to how the change unfolds.

Now take action: What one thing can you do to handle change better?

What kind of team mate are you?

Premium is placed on team-working in the workplace and rightly so. But when we think of team work many tend to think about others and whether they are team players. I believe for strong teamwork to happen, we must start with ourselves. So how do you assess if you a team player? Below are some thoughts.

YOU ARE RELIABLE AND ACCOUNTABLE: Because you want you and colleagues to succeed. You are helpful, loyal and able to positively reinforce the impact of the team. Sometimes, this might mean for example knowing a little more than your area of core responsibility in order to give an informed perspective, be a sounding board for a colleague, make choices that are considerate of others or help out when colleagues are in distress trying to meet deadlines.

YOU EARN CONFIDENCE AND TRUST: Because others have faith in your ability to do your part of the team task on time and to the standard required; to pull together with the team, soak the pressure that might come with any work overload, working out the most time efficient way to get assignments done and working with minimum supervision and sticking to commitments.

YOU SHOW EMOTIONAL MATURITY: By giving credit where it belongs, not taking things personally, managing your own morale, improving your communication style and receiving constructive feedback graciously. Also not acingt in a way that suggests that you see your job as more important compared to others’, being the colleague you expect others to be, not being quick to judge others or place too much importance on your own opinions in team decision making.

YOU ARE SELF-MOTIVATED: By setting self-imposed deadlines and demonstrating a strong organised effort, push and energy to do what it takes to get things done; moving forward on your own initiative, demonstrating enough drive to set your own ground rules and live by them, anticipating needs of the team, showing ambition to perform, focusing on what matters and being highly productive.

Now take action: Identify one way in which you can become a better team player

Unlearn what no longer works

Learning new things is important for one’s career but so is unlearning things that may be retarding your progress; habits, attitudes, knowledge, ways of doing things and that may be stalling your advancement. Not easy to do- here are ways to start.

IDENTIFY YOUR SACRED COWS: These are the beliefs, ideas etc you hold dear but which no longer are helpful. How often do you ask if the way you’re doing something is as effective as it was when you started doing? What critical feedback will you reject because you have decided in advance it’s unjustified? What tasks will you not let go off because you believe its best done a certain way? Where do you need to be more open-minded in order to shed what no longer serves you?

THINK LIKE A BEGINNER: It’s good to pride ourselves in what we know but sometimes an attitude of ‘I am the expert’ can get in the way of weeding out stale, unfruitful thoughts, knowledge and attitudes. When you go over things with a ‘fresh innocent’ mind, you are able to identify blockages and ask basic questions that challenge your status quo, leave the dysfunctional behind and enable you move yourself forward.

STICK WITH WHAT GROWS YOU: Be committed to growth so much so that you can be ruthless with things that take you back. Your past success even in the same environment may not necessarily be a predictor of future success. Stay curious and use the principle of growth to judge what’s useful to you or not.

BE A WORK IN PROGRESS: Unlearning things you’ve done for a long period takes time and so does developing an attitude that is willing to prune any ‘dead wood’. So don’t feel you have to unlearn whatever overnight. Avoid getting into auto-pilot mode so that you don’t revert to the old things. Adopt ‘alternatives thinking’ which will make it easier for you to identify and weigh options and be able to let go what does not work.

Now take action: Identify one thing you need to start unlearning this month