Invested in Your Job or Just Doing It? 7 Acts of Ownership | Embracing Crises

Some days our jobs feel mundane. The work has become repetitive, our colleagues predictable, and our roles unchanging. Our don’t-rock-the-boat boss gives us less and less room to be creative or engaged beyond our daily tasks.

When this happens, it’s tempting to just put your nose to the grindstone, follow the job description to the letter, and lower your career expectations.

Deep down, you know this strategy isn’t good for you.

It’s your job, so work it.

Remember how important it was to get your job and the effort it took? Whether your job is one of a kind or one of many, it’s a specific area of the business that’s in your care. The way you perform matters.

If your job weren’t important, the company wouldn’t be willing to pay you for it. While your job description states the duties, you, personally, bring your standards, commitment, and honor to the work.

Recently, some terrible tragedies have been in the news. In the U.S., there was a devastating hurricane and an unfathomable mass shooting of elementary school children and their educators.

No first responder or school teacher has a job description that includes duties to perform when threats to human life fall upon him/her in enormous and unanticipated scale.

Most of us don’t have to face life and death situations in our jobs. But there are situations that we won’t/can’t tolerate–circumstances that call us to action.

It might be:

• Bullying, bias, or discrimination of coworkers
• Business decisions based on faulty or incomplete information
• Product defects, known or suspected
• Unsafe equipment or procedures
• A sudden calamity in your work area, a stricken coworker, or destructive weather

When we’re faced with such situations, we discover how invested we are in our jobs based on the actions we take.

7 intervening actions

Owning our jobs in a crisis is not about being a hero or heroine. It’s about responding in ways that align our strengths and capabilities with  needs.

The teacher who steps in front of a gunman to protect her students and the first responder who wades through waist-deep water to save a life follow an inner drive compatible with the calling that drew them to their jobs.

We have a calling too. You may know today how far you would go to intervene in a crisis while others of us may not know until we’re in that crisis moment.

Here are 7 actions to consider. One or more may be what you’d be prepared to do:

1. Step forward–Take charge; lead others; put fear aside and do what you believe is right
2. Buy time–Deflect incoming negatives; implement stop-gap measures; negotiate options
3. Steady the ship–Follow established procedures/protocols; create stability through regimen; reduce panic by reliance on routine
4. Provide comfort–Keep a cool head; settle others using calm counsel; meet the emotional and physical needs of others; rally optimism
5. Gather forces–Foster collaboration; collect and share input needed for decision-making; engage others able to help; create community
6. Test solutions–Pilot test potential remedies; get feedback; fine-tune the fixes; build on successes; capture lessons learned
7. Communicate relentlessly–Develop and deliver credible messages; keep everyone in the loop; listen and address questions/concerns; reduce the stress of not knowing

I’ve always felt like I owned the responsibilities stated or unstated in my jobs. If I saw a workplace injustice, I spoke up and then tried to do something about it. When people were upset about major workplace changes, I offered perspectives that would help ease the worry.

We all have some kind of help to offer in a crisis.

Embrace the moment

All crises are not created equal. No matter how big or small, when things go wrong, those affected are off-balance, fearful, uncertain, and even confused. That’s probably you too. But you have a chance to embrace the situation in your own way, using your skills and instincts to help fix things.

Please take a moment to think about your job and your investment it. What do you think you’d do in a crisis? I suspect it will be something very good.

Photo from mycos2012 via Flickr

Fixing Your “Boss Problem” with Self-Supervision

“Sometimes you’re the windshield/Sometimes you’re the bug.” Remember that lyric from “The Bug”  by Mary Chapin Carpenter?

Well, it’s true at work too. Sometimes your boss is the problem and sometimes it’s also you.

Sizing up expectations

It’s pretty typical to make the boss the center of our job universe. We somehow expect the boss to be what we need him/her to be so we can succeed. When they fall short, we get frustrated.

In truth, although there are plenty of great bosses, there are many who:

• Simply don’t, won’t or can’t supervise
• Over-control or micro-manage
• Misuse or abuse their authority
• Can’t make a decision, waffle on or retract them
• Pay no or too much attention to you

More often than not, employees with bosses like these start feeling like “the bug.”

We set ourselves up to becoming frustrated when we expect our bosses to:

• Tell us what to do in our jobs and how
• Care about our growth and provide opportunities
• Put our ideas into practice
• Communicate everything going on in the company
• Adopt an interpersonal and/or leadership style that we like

The hard reality is that they are the boss. They don’t have make any changes just to accommodate us. However, we can do plenty to turn things around to our favor.

The art of self-supervising

To be successful in our jobs, we need to do things that makes our boss’s life easier which includes not having to be preoccupied with supervising us.

This means learning how to supervise yourself by looking at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it just, as your boss does.

Start by looking at how your job impacts your boss and the company. Then work each day to:

• Deliver on the high priority output/impact goals in your job
• Hold yourself accountable for results (no excuse-making)
• Be a positive force when working with others (setting ego aside)
• Make decisions/take actions that make sense all around
• Show respect to the organization and its leaders
• Follow procedures, processes, and policies (even when you might disagree)
• Communicate with your boss routinely on your work activities; seek direction

If you conduct yourself as a self-managed employee, your boss will see you more as a colleague than a subordinate.

Remember: Your boss has his/her own boss to contend with (which may be no picnic) as well as the company’s performance expectations and the needs of their other employees.

Your boss wants employees who understand the needs of the business beyond just daily tasks. S/he doesn’t want to babysit employees and deal with a lot of nagging complaints. That’s a sign of ego-centeredness when what’s needed is collaborative teamwork.

Talk the talk as you walk the walk

When you self-supervise, you necessarily look at yourself at arm’s length. You’re taking a big picture view of your work and an objective snapshot of the way you’re going about it.

In some ways, self-supervision is like creating an out-of-body experience with you looking at yourself from a distanced vantage point.

The beauty of self-supervision is that it is actual supervision with you practicing on yourself. It also means you’re critiquing your work using the language of a supervisor.

It’s important that you meet routinely with your boss, so please get in the habit of scheduling time for that, proposing specific agenda of topics. (Keep the meeting to no more than 30 minutes.)

Talk about your activities and projects in terms of goals achieved, decisions made or anticipated, new ideas, and process improvements.

Give your boss to an opportunity to talk with you like a colleague. Help him/her realize that you understand the pressures s/he is under. Offer your support when needed.

Your boss can help or hinder your progress and you can do the same for him or her. A wise bug avoids the windshield. Let that be you.

Photo from Leonel Macias via Flickr

Supervising a Bad Apple? Consider Making Applesauce | Handling Problem Employees

“A rotten apple spoils the whole barrel,” it’s said. That means someone let one bad apple rot. Who?

Sadly, I’ve heard plenty of supervisors whine about problem employees and then, by doing nothing, let them spoil the work environment and their careers too. There’s no excuse for this.

Apple analysis

Supervisors are responsible for all the apples allocated to them.

Not every apple is crisp and shiny. Some have dark spots from bruises. Others have shriveled from their time in the barrel. A small number are decaying under the weight of the other apples.

So we need to pick through the barrel and:

• Put the good ones in the frig so they’ll last
• Turn the bruised ones into applesauce or pies
• Discard the truly rotten ones

This way we save most of the lot, getting full value from it.

Unfortunately, when it comes to “bad apple” employees, the first inclination by many supervisors is to come up with a plan to “throw them out.”

They use strategies like:

Passing the buck: The supervisor tells HR the employee is simply a bad fit and asks them to find the employee a job in another department.

Building a case: The supervisor starts to “keep book” on the employee, logging every performance and behavioral misstep, negative impacts on coworkers, complaints about them, and “potentially dire consequences” to the company if retained.

Driving them out: The supervisor makes the employee’s life as miserable as possible by either ignoring or constantly confronting them, nitpicking, reassigning work they like, and creating a no-win environment until the employee can’t take it anymore.

In these scenarios there will never be applesauce or pie.

Giving every apple a chance

Remember those bruised apples and the shriveled ones? Part of a supervisor’s job is to preserve them.

Here are some approaches:

Stop using the label: Whether you’ve hired or inherited a” bad apple,” stop using that label to describe him/her. It’s a negative that stokes dislike, fosters bias, and blackens their good points

Get over your dislike: Take your emotions out of the equation. Your job is to direct, correct, motivate, communicate, and provide feedback that will turn unacceptable behavior around.

Focus on actions: Discipline yourself to deal objectively with your employee’s actions and his/her  impact on the company and coworkers. What you see and hear is what matters, not what you suppose or interpret.

Insist on improvement: Provide specific feedback on areas of improvement, options for achieving it, and milestones to be met. Create clear accountability for making improvements in work output and relationships, with stated consequences if not attained.

Do what you say: Be trustworthy by delivering on your commitments to support  the employee’s improvement initiatives and on the actions you’ll take if they don’t turn around.

Employees who have successfully become bad apples stay that way because they’re getting what they want.  Unfortunately, for some, it’s a badge of honor that they flaunt. Some may be bullies, slackers, or malcontents.

The truth is that some of these employees have gotten themselves in a “negative identity” box they can’t get out of. Sometimes it just takes an effective supervisor to do what’s needed to help them get onto a better path.

Consider all the “bad apple,” ” bad actor” athletes who bounce from one team to another, until there’s that one coach who turns them around. There are examples everywhere that supervisors can follow.

Bad apple employees aren’t usually any happier in that role deep down than the supervisors who have to deal with them.

At least make applesauce

It’s easy to look into the barrel, see one rotten apple, and decide to throw them all out. No business can sustain that and no supervisor can justify it. Our job is to get the best out of our employees, recognizing that all of us have flaws that, if ignored, can be ruinous.

We need to deal with every employee in an open and fair way, helping them to realize their full potential. Perhaps they’ll thank you for helping them with a shiny red apple.

Photo from t1nytr0n via Flickr

When You’ve Had Enough, How Far Should You Go? | Managing Emotions

No one likes criticism or unfair treatment. Most of us just suck it up until one day we’ve had enough. Then watch out!

Think twice

Knee-jerk reactions never pay. When we’re fed up, we need to keep our wits about us. Most of the time, we’re reacting to situations that have been brewing.

I’m a big proponent of not becoming a doormat for anyone at anytime. We’re entitled to respect and fair treatment, both of which we need to stand up for in the right way at the right time.

I’m also a big proponent of understanding the consequences of the actions we want to take. Too often, however, people let their emotions get the best of them, shooting themselves in both feet.

If you choose to act on a workplace issue, you may be, at the very least:

• Implicating your boss who is responsible for the work environment
• Subjecting your performance history to review in light of the issue
• Challenging the company’s practices and their overseers like HR
• Setting up your motives and credibility for dissection

These daunting considerations are intended to sober your emotions not negate the legitimacy of your issue.

I’m a passionate believer in doing what’s right and fair. But we shouldn’t  be stupid about it.

A clear head, an understanding of workplace realities, and a good plan set you up to do what needs to be done. A little internal leverage with influential people doesn’t hurt either.

Know what you want

Just getting your issue noticed isn’t enough. If you’re going to stir the pot be specific about the remedy you want.

Here are two interesting cases:

My client, Annette, from a Fortune 100 company was promoted to lead a work group in another state while she maintained a home office. The prior manager had built a culture of favorites; that manager was now Annette’s new boss. The perceived loss of “favorite” status by one employee resulted in a public outburst during a workshop that included insults aimed at Annette. She turned the matter over to HR: Disciplinary action followed.

Impacts: Annette’s new boss felt the sting and so did the punished employee. Other employees assessed the situation through their respective lenses. HR validated Annette’s action, noting, however, that this was a severe step considering how new Annette was to the position. Will there be subsequent fallout? Time will tell. In this case, Annette had everything documented and took swift action. She was willing to risk backlash because setting a standard of professional conduct mattered to her. What would you have done?

Next there’s Victor who was receiving poor performance reviews from a boss who didn’t like his approach to handling complex technical projects. Victor saw his boss as uncommunicative, a poor leader, and politically motivated. Victor’s reviews got progressively worse; he was put on notice to improve or else. He wanted to defend himself by reporting his boss to HR or anyone who would listen. He considered suing. Ultimately, Victor was terminated..

Impacts: Taking on the boss would mean proving that each aspect of Victor’s negative evaluation was wrong and making a case that the boss had something against him. If Victor successfully makes the “bad boss” case to the company, chances are no other manager there would want Victor. If he could manage to negate the performance criticisms, he would likely end up pointing an accusing finger at some coworkers, creating bad blood. To sue the company would leave a permanent mark on Victor that could be an obstacle for future jobs. Victor chose to move on. What would you have done?

Remember, it’s business.

Our emotions can cause us to do reckless things. When it comes to our jobs, caution makes more sense. It may feel great for the moment to tell the boss to “take this job and..,” but that only gives the control back to him or her.

We need to know how to size up each situation, identify our options, and chose the one that’s going to help us get what we want or cut our losses. Please, keep it together, okay?

Photo from Roberto Kaplan Designs via Flickr

 

How “Now-I-Get-It” Discoveries Expand Career Savvy

Careers are mysterious. We skip naively into them, assuming that our generally optimistic assumptions about the company, our boss, and coworkers are true. Then wham, the gilt flies off the lily.

That’s okay, actually. Careers teach us to pay attention continuously.

A pulse exists below the surface of every business. It may be:

• Unseen or foreign to us
• Outside our understanding
• Separate from the work we perform daily

That pulse drives business all decision-making, actions which include both simple and wildly complex variables.

Directly or indirectly, that business pulse impacts us in ways we either like or don’t. When we “get” what’s going on, we’re better positioned to respond or react in ways that are good for us, building our savvy.

What you see v. what is

Marketing is the juice. The business markets its goods and services for profit; we market our capabilities for reward.

We are also marketing targets even when it’s not obvious that we are. When we feel the pulse of it, we’re likely on the verge of a “now-I-get-it” moment.

Consider this: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but several colleges have stepped out lately  in some wild, new football uniform styles and designs—from helmets to jerseys to shoes.

Journalist Mo Rocca did a piece for the CBS Sunday Morning Program (January 8, 2012) featuring the gridiron wear of the Oregon Ducks who won the Rose Bowl. Rocca’s piece described the Oregon Ducks as looking “less like football players and more like comic book superheroes, sporting mirrored ‘special edition’ helmets that had never been worn before.”

In fact Rocca reports:

This regular season alone, the Ducks wore eight different jerseys, six pants, five helmets and four different shoe and sock colors . . . a staggering number of possible combinations.

The Oregon football team isn’t the only one sporting snazzy new unis: Notre Dame and the University of Maryland did too.

On the surface, you would think the change to more high-tech gear was strictly for on-field performance, safety, and durability. Well, as Coach Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend!”

ESPN’s Paul Lukas explains to Rocca the story behind the new uniforms move:

…when you and I were kids, you couldn’t go and buy a jersey. That market didn’t exist…They hadn’t figured out that someone would drop $200 for a polyester shirt.

And…now that they know people will do that, ‘Well, you already bought this year’s jersey. Well, what if we change our jersey next year?’ You’d go and buy another one.

The “now-I-get-it” discovery is that this change was about merchandizing and not just great TV optics.

Savvy up

There’s a secondary story about most everything in business, that’s why you need to be savvy to the underlying pulse and needs of the company you work for.

Think of the last time you didn’t get hired or promoted. It’s likely the decision wasn’t all about you. The successful candidate may have been:

• Representative of an under-represented constituency
• Identified for a growth assignment
• Someone’s favorite
• Passed over once before and due a second chance
• A non-controversial choice

We all want to think hiring is purely about talent and capabilities, but that would deny the existence of the pulse.

Human beings create and lead businesses in service to other human beings who buy from them. The human element creates the pulse. To succeed ourselves, we need to keep our fingers on it!

Photo from Monica’s Dad via Flickr

Can You Handle the Heat? A Mental Toughness Test

Pressure tests our self-confidence and mental discipline.

Life is good on the job when predictable conditions give us a clear path for showcasing our talents. That’s when we’re convinced we have what it takes for our next step.

Unfortunately, the unpredictable is also predicable. Are you ready for it? Do you know how you’ll handle the heat?

Rings of fire 

No job is immune from surprises that test you. On any day and at any time, things can go up in smoke and your job will be to find your way through the flames.

Disruption emerges from:

• Your boss and coworkers
• Customers, clients, and vendors
• Performance reports and financials
• Software glitches and system failures
• Policy and procedure errors
• Communications breakdowns and stymied negotiations
• New regulation and legal decisions
• Marketplace competition and under-performing products

We can either crumble or rise to the occasion when things go wrong. In either case, everyone will be watching.

Gut it out 

Great models for developing mental toughness are athletes in individual sports, like golf and tennis. It’s always the player against the opponent and the conditions. To succeed, one will contend with adversity better than the other.

These athletes live by routines which become a kind of rhythm of play. It’s how they tap into muscle memory and keep their visualization patterns humming.

Golfers and tennis players are frequently disrupted by:

• Weather delays, causing them to stop, wait, and restart
• Crowd noise during play or reactions unsupportive of them
• Persistent or sudden injuries
• Excessive heat, cold, wind, or rain
• Disrespect or gamesmanship from their opponents

There are hundreds of examples where certain athletes blow leads, implode, or even retire from play because disruptions overcome them.

Our mind can either weaken or strengthen us during adversity. We just need to know which one we want it to be when it’s our time to be challenged.

Assess your mental toughness 

When the heat’s on, how do you react? If you answer “yes” to any of the following, consider taking the next steps in parens.

1. “I get stressed out and lose concentration when I’m told my project is due by noon instead of the end of the workday.” (Clear out all other distractions, defer other tasks, avoid interruptions, and focus only on the project.)
2. “When my boss gives me negative feedback, I lose motivation.” (Think about the contributing factors in the feedback; develop and implement a plan to change what you’ve been doing.)
3. “When I’m accountable for a team result, I micro-manage to avoid things going wrong.” (Stay away from the details, refocus on the big picture, provide support and cheerlead.)
4. “In a conflict situation, I usually back off.” (Ask questions to understand the issue; request time to think about what you’ve heard; come to terms with your position; and set a time to meet again to resolve.)
5. “If I make a mistake, I’m reluctant to try again.” (Learn from each mistake and commit to trying again as soon as possible. Ask for feedback. Work at the fix until you’ve mastered it.)
6. “When a problem arises, I wait for a coworker or my boss to take the lead.” (Commit to taking the reins, especially when you have the expertise.)
7. “If I get a poor rating on a performance factor, it takes me weeks to get over it.” (Reset your performance goal for that factor to meet expectations. Commit to immediate actions to turn the rating around.) 

Action is the marker 

Mental toughness is the outgrowth of committed action. It demonstrates your willingness to keep pressing forward, drawing on your capabilities, and being averse to quitting no matter how difficult the challenge.

You have to act to build and increase mental toughness. Each step you take increases your self-confidence and your business fitness.

Mental toughness builds on itself but it takes your efforts to get the ball rolling. Once you do, everyone will take notice and your career will benefit.

Photo from Ben Sutherland via Flickr

Turning Employees Around—What It Takes | Feedback Power

Under-performers are part of the landscape in any workplace. You know who they are and so does your boss.

None of us is perfect. Without guidance, it’s easy to adopt behaviors and habits acceptable to us that, ultimately, don’t wear well with others.

As employees we need feedback from day one. There is no better (or cheaper) way to teach us the skills and behaviors we need to be successful.

Performance feedback is one of the most important roles of any supervisors. It’s how problems are nipped in the bud, skills are polished, misbehavior is corrected, and a continuous performance growth culture is built.

Getting through 

Supervisors resist giving feedback because they’re uncertain about:

• What to say
• How employees will react
• What to do if there’s pushback
• Whether they’ll make matters worse

Employees resist feedback because they:

• Don’t want to change
• Don’t get it
• Don’t respect their supervisor
• Don’t see any upside or consequences

To make the situation stickier,  employees may perform exceptionally well in some areas like production but terribly in others like on teams.

As a supervisor you need all employees to deliver value in all aspects of their jobs. That’s what you’re paying them for. To accept poor performance in one area is to accept paying a full salary for only part of the job.

“Can you hear me now?” 

Delivering feedback is one thing. Getting employees to hear and act on it is another.

That means you need to:

• Follow up on your feedback to make sure it’s being implemented
• Reinforce it through repetition, review, and discussion
• Reward or deliver consequences based commitments

Feedback only works when you have your employee’s attention. It starts with a conversation where you and your employee talk to each other. Each needs to hear what the other is saying and come to agreement on next steps.

It takes real commitment from both supervisor and employee. And often it takes repeated effort, time, and sometimes consequences.

Michael Vick, a dramatic case 

Michael Vick was a high performing employee as the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons football team. He could throw and also scramble for yardage like few others.  Vick was a superstar who came from a rough background where he, as a kid and young man, he struggled to avoid the vortex of the streets.

After he went into the pros, he remained tethered to some unsavory people from his “old life.” For years he received feedback from coaches and others about his need to break those ties. He didn’t heed the feedback.

In 2007, he was implicated in a dog fighting ring and pleaded guilty to federal felony charges that resulted in 21 months in jail. Feedback didn’t get his attention but the consequences of not listening did.

Vick had to come to grips with what he’d done and turn it into advocacy. He had to restart his NFL career and recover from bankruptcy. Coach Andy Reid of the Philadelphia Eagles gave him a job as a back-up QB in 2009 where he faced relentless negative public reaction. It was another round of feedback, often painful,vitriolic, and deserved.

It took positive performance to turn things around for Vick.

On Sunday, September 11, 2011, Michael Vick snapped the ball as the starting QB for the Eagles, winning the game 33-13 over the St. Louis Rams. He ran for 98 yards and threw two touchdown passes. He’s now playing with a multi-million-dollar contact, his life clearly on the upswing.

Michael Vick took a long time to hear it and paid a big price for ignoring feedback.

Hearing feedback pays 

It’s one thing to listen to feedback and another to hear it. It’s one thing to hear feedback and another to act on it.

Good feedback generally comes from people who care about us—people who want us to perform well, so we can experience success and growth.

Each of us is both a giver and receiver of feedback. We are positioned to help others turn around and ourselves too. There’s power in feedback. Let’s commit to using it well.

Photo from Matthew Straubmuller via Flickr

Afraid to Innovate or Don’t Know How? | Problem-solving Skills Pay

“Innovativeness” is one of those performance appraisal categories that often befuddle supervisors and employees. 

We often don’t know how the term actually applies to us. After all, we’re just doing our jobs. Innovation seems to have more to do with creative work (maybe in marketing) or in science (like in a lab somewhere). Too often we just don’t think of ourselves as being innovative as we go about our daily work.

To innovate, though, isn’t as overblown an action as it may sound. It just means “to begin or introduce something new.”

All it takes to be innovative is:

• Our idea for doing something in a new way
• Introducing it to others whose involvement or approval we need
• Setting it in motion once we have the okay

That’s not so hard, right?

Now, what is it again?

Innovative ideas, large or small, take many forms like a:

• Fix for things not functioning well
• New plan to refocus a faltering job
• Redesigned process that increases efficiency and effectiveness
• Workaround to keep work flowing until a lasting solution is achieved
• Message that reduces turmoil or raises optimism

In order to innovate, we need to:

• Look at our work with fresh eyes and see if there’s a better way
• Be willing to make an effort to influence our boss to accept our idea
• Overcome the fear that our idea may get rejected
• Accept accountability for our idea if it doesn’t work

Your innovativeness is a sign that solving the problem is personally important to you.

Inherent in innovation is your commitment to doing things right. Each of us has the power to innovate if and when we want to.

A draining idea 

I live in a 200-year-old, log farmhouse situated in a hollow where the water table is close to the surface. Most of my basement floor is dirt. During extended periods of drenching rain, the water table rises up and visits my basement.

This happens infrequently, but when it does, it’s a big issue. For years I managed the “big” water with three sump pumps and a French drain. But if the power went out I was literally sunk. (I’ve had as much as 3 ½ feet of water there.)

I explained the problem one dry summer’s day to my contractor, Pete. He asked to look over the situation and think about it. The next day he said, “I think I can fix your problem by creating a gravity-feed drain that runs from the lowest point in the basement, out to the street.

He set up his transit in the basement, shot the angle, hired two young guys to dig the inside trench, hired another guy with a backhoe to dig a trench to the street, laid the perforated pipe, and then we waited for two years.

You can see in the photo here that it worked amazingly. To me, Pete’s a hero.

What Pete did was innovation. He had an idea, introduced it to me (his customer), convinced me to go ahead, and took responsibility for the outcome. Not only did his problem-solving skills work, they saved me money and anxiety.

Why bother 

Each time you find a better way, you increase your value on the job. Your innovativeness becomes a major part of your personal brand identity, and it will likely create evolving:

• Buzz about you
• Exposure to movers and shakers
• Opportunities for unique assignments
• Recognition and reward
• More business

Of all the strengths that you can develop to enhance your career, innovativeness is likely to do the most for you. To be innovative is to effectively demonstrate such traits as problem- solving, analysis, influencing, initiative, and calculated risk-taking.

Whenever you can deliver an idea that makes the workplace and the business operate more effectively, you are contributing in ways that make you stand out. The more business fit you are, the more tools you have in place to bring out your inner innovator. Now go for it.

Unleashing the Career Superstar in You—Ready?

Superstars aren’t just sports and entertainment icons. They’re also us. Every workplace and every career has its superstars. There’s no reason why you aren’t among them.

By definition superstars are individuals in prominence who attract attention. Look around: That’s lots of people you know.

We have to perform well and consistently to be considered a superstar in our line of work. On-the- job superstars are those indispensable coworkers and leaders who:

• Solve our IT problems in the nick of time every time
• Always exceed sales quotas to help keep the business profitable
• Deliver projects on or before every deadline
• Defuse unhappy customers and employees consistently with effective messages

There are superstars in every industry, company, department, and work unit. Everyone knows who they are and we can’t imagine work without them.

Clearly, we need all the superstars we can find in this struggling economy, so now’s the time for us to raise our bar.

What it takes 

Paul McCord, internationally recognized authority on sales, prolific author and blogger, wrote in his compelling book, SuperStar Selling:

“You don’t have to become a superstar overnight. It’s not one giant leap, it’s one step at a time.”

That’s true for attaining superstardom in every career. We need to keep our eye on the ball and dig deep to keep it in play.

To start we need to build and maintain a high-achievement mindset. It’s always our attitude and performance that stand out, get noticed, and ultimately create our prominence. No one gets to be a superstar without doing the work.

McCord makes this important point:

“Looking at the big picture is daunting. Looking at just what you need to accomplish on a daily and weekly basis is not such a hurdle to overcome.”

He adds that the three characteristics of a superstar are: desire, commitment, and belief. Do you have all three?

We live in a “what have you done for me lately” and a “what’s in it for me” world. That’s where the pressure to perform at a high level comes from.

This reality tests your desire to achieve, your commitment to stick with your goals, and your belief in your capabilities.

All success is a process. The twelve keys to becoming a sales superstar in McCord’s book apply to us too. Superstar sales professionals own their careers and operate with an entrepreneurial mindset.

We need to own our jobs/careers too and set goals for ourselves that demonstrate our value.

McCord spells out his twelve keys elegantly, providing fascinating case studies and powerful tools, particularly useful to salespeople. (If you’re in sales, you really must read this book.)

His keys are the underpinnings of every achiever, especially those who have become superstars in their line of work. Here’s my take on how the twelve keys can help you become a superstar in your career:

1. Turn past experiences into learning and data that can move you forward
2. Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. Build on and fix what’s needed
3. Invest in your career—time, learning, tools
4. Figure out where you add value and position yourself there
5. Showcase your strengths/value in the right way
6. Set realistic goals that build on one another over time
7. Develop and apply your capabilities systematically
8. Stay visible and top of mind with those you impact
9. Continuously develop and expand your skills
10. Convert your big ideas into small steps to achieve them
11. Seek help from advisors, mentors, and experts during uncertainty
12. Adopt and maintain a positive mindset 

Sell yourself tall

Too often we set our sights too low. We think that it’s other people who become career superstars. Yes, we sell ourselves short, instead of tall.

McCord makes this powerful point:

“In essence, we are what we believe we are; we do what we believe we can do; we are who we believe we are.”

When we believe there’s a superstar in us, we make a huge leap. When we take action to unleash our inner superstar, we’re on our way to becoming one. Now go!

Photo from cletch via Flickr 

Disappointment Got You Down? Dig In. Bounce Back.

Things don’t always go our way at work. Sometimes it’s because we haven’t: 

• Mastered all the skills we need
• Performed well at the right time
• Solidified our support system
• Been realistic about our readiness 

That leaves us open to disappointment when we don’t: 

• Get hired for a job we really want
• Promoted to a position when we believe we’re the best candidate
• Hear our name mentioned as a key project contributor
• Get included in issues discussions around our areas of expertise 

These letdowns make us feel like we’ve fallen short.  So we: 

• Berate ourselves with a pile of negatives that make us feel worse
• Let our performance decline by slowing our pace, losing our creative energy, and allowing our drive to wane
• Give up putting ourselves “out there” for future opportunities
• Ignore the lessons about what we can do better and how we can bounce back 

Everyone gets discouraged. 

We often forget that everyone gets smacked with disappointment. Some hide it well and others make a drama out of it. 

The big lesson is that disappointment is the cause of performance decline. Successful people don’t let that decline hang around very long. 

Professional sports let you see, literally, how disappointment hurts performance: 

I’ve heard Patrick McEnroe, ESPN commentator and former U.S. Davis Cup Team captain, report that losing the first set in tennis often causes a temporary lowering of player performance. 

Some professional golfers who have blown leads in major championships fail to make the cut at their next tournament. 

Basketball players who miss key shots at the end of tight games will often pass the ball rather than shoot in subsequent games. 

It’s about attitude and confidence.  

Winners know how to manage disappointment and preserve their confidence. They quickly come to terms with disappointing situations by putting them in perspective. They: 

• Analyze the contributing factors—their knowledge, skill, experience, the environment, situational politics, and/or relationships
• Examine their choices—what they did and said, their timing, strategy, and plan
• Consider their expectations—how realistic were they, how appropriate,  how egoistic, and how balanced
• Weigh the results—how important are they in the short and long-term, what are the implications on their careers, what will it take to get another opportunity 

We tend to give our disappointments bigger significance than they deserve. We feed ourselves negative lines like: 

• I’ll never get another shot at that job.
• I blew that promotion interview, so that hiring manager will never consider me again.
• I must not have what it takes to succeed in this company. 

For some reason, we think we have the inside track on why things aren’t going our way. If that’s you, then here’s your next step: 

Ask your boss or HR or your mentor or a trusted coworker what the real issue is. 

Believe it or not, sometimes our expectations aren’t met because of business situations that we simply don’t know about. Things don’t always have to do with us. 

In our careers, we can only control what we can control, and that’s our performance. 

You can’t allow your disappointment to cause your productivity to decline, your creativity to slump, or your attitude to darken. 

The people in your organization who disappoint you know it. They don’t like it any better than you do. That’s just how things happen in business and in life. 

But they do watch how you bounce back from it. Showcasing your can-do, will-do, want-to-do attitude in the face of disappointment is a sign of what you’re made of. 

Athletes complete the game no matter how far behind they are. That’s what the crowd pays to see—not quitters who walk off the field of play. 

Our employers hire us to work in good times and bad. They expect us to stay in the game with them. 

There’s no pride in giving up or beating yourself up when things aren’t working out your way. Instead, show your bounce. 

Photo from CJ Isherwood via Flickr