The need to identify your career success drivers

Ensuring a successful and rewarding career is not simply about gaining some specific piece of knowledge and then taking on a role that appears to be appropriate. Knowledge is only one component of any career role that you have to take care of and manage - no matter what it is. Depending on the role itself others components (to varying degrees) include;

1. Ongoing demand for that role in the economy/organization

You cannot assume you can continue to perform your current role, in its current form, forever and gain the same financial reward. You need to determine why your role is in demand and ensure you move along with what is and will be required.

2. Leadership and management ability and understanding

This is just not about being a leader or managing others - it's about understanding and having empathy with those who lead and manage you. There are many styles of leadership and management and both as a leader and someone being lead you need to comprehend what is best and how to adapt to the varying styles with which you will be faced.

3. Time and stress management

Put simply, if you do not manage or your time or stress levels then your career performance will suffer. Two key drivers of performance are focus and dedication - being stressed and not allocating time to important tasks will not allow you to be either.

4. Networking

More and more careers are requiring some kind of networking to be undertaken - even if it's inter-departmental. Don't shut yourself off in your cubicle, home office...These days it's very much who you know as much as what you know.

5. Personal presence and confidence

Personality plays a large role in career success, no matter how knowledgeable you are in your role. If you want to progress and develop in and beyond your current role you have to be confident (not cocky or bragging) that you can handle your role and more. This is just not about ensuring promotion in your career. If you wanted a flexible work arrangement for say family reasons, there is even more reason to appear that you are confident you can perform in this situation.

6. Health and well-being

More and more evidence points to the fact that if you are strong physically it will allow your mental capabilities to be fully utilized. Mental health and well-being is also a critical component of performance and you must ensure meditation and relaxation is scheduled into your week.

7. Identification of re-education required

Associated with Point 1, experience will only take you so far - as the world changes, the economy changes and thus demand for goods and services changes. Your knowledge of today will not suffice for what is required tomorrow and you have to ensure you keep yourself up to date - this can mean subject matter knowledge, marketing and sales techniques, IT etc. If you don't, then you run the risk of becoming redundant in terms of skills on offer and career options will be limited.

8. IT ability

You need to assess the basic level of IT skills required now and in the future. This basic level will continue to rise so don't think being young means you automatically know everything required.

9. Perseverence and drive

This is one of the most important components. You need to work hard and smart and don't regard failure at any point as the end of the journey but as part of the journey. Success is not achieved overnight and you cannot assume that once you have achieved one thing that it will not disappear if you don't continue to perform. You need to understand your motivations and values for performing.

If it was only knowledge that was important then those with the highest IQ would have the most successful careers - and this is not the case. Aspects of emotional and social intelligence play a major role in success apart from IQ.

The next three important steps are the following; (1) identifying the rank and percentage of the total current role related to the above components, (2) produce a plan on how to improve your performance of each and (3) do the last two things for your next planned career moves. It's no good finding out you don't know how to drive or drive well when given a car....you have to plan in advance.

You get out of life what you put in...a little gets a little, a lot gets a lot....

.....but don't give up if the results you expect do not appear immediately.

I came across an article today talking about the impacts of the economic downturn in the US. I pulled the following quote:
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For those who need to abruptly curtail spending, that leaves a major void, said James Gottfurcht, clinical psychologist and president of "Psychology of Money Consultants," which coaches clients on money issues.
"People that have been ... identifying with and defining themselves by their material objects and expenditures are losing a definite piece of their identity and themselves," he said. "They have to learn how to replace that."
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Without putting your hand up who would say that (1) your public response would be to reject the notion that you would behave in a similar way to this but (2) have internal anguish if you had to change your spending habits and thus your current lifestyle. Of course I won't be posting my answer here but let's just say I've been fortunate enough to live a good life the past few years and the recent change in economic winds is having some impact. Reading this article made me think a little about having to change my habits and what I could be doing to really grab hold of the challenges life is presenting and ensure that I am pushing myself to move foward.

Well for one it would be to ensure I am involved in many meaningful activities that I can still be involved in without spending money. This could be working hard at the full time job or part time job, spending more time on studying new knowledge for the future, spending more time with my girlfriend and friends and volunteering for charities. I believe if you put in a lot of time and focus on things that have meaning to you then you will get a lot of satisfaction from the results. Now the difficult answer is to know what is 'meaningful' and this is a process I go through a lot with my clients; it is very important to separate 'meaningful' from 'interesting' and 'fun' - because they are not the same.

Now I read the above about spending and think how little you put of yourself into such a task. Because the self development gained from shopping is so small you don't get a lot out of it and thus the benefit is not long lasting. Volunteering for a charity a year ago can still provide satisfaction, winning new business last month can still bring a smile to your face but thinking back about your shopping expedition last month will probably do little for most of us (some people would disagree).

So my advice during this economic period is to reassess how you're developing yourself from a personal level and make sure you give a lot of yourself to whatever it is you do. Be patient and believe the long term results will be achieved. Remember, the downturn will not last forever and you'll come out the other end a stronger individual.

Why you need to identify each of the 'components' of your career

Ensuring a successful and rewarding career is not simply about gaining some specific piece of knowledge and then taking on a role that appears to be appropriate. Knowledge is only one component of any career role that you have to take care of and manage - no matter what it is. Depending on the role itself others components (to varying degrees) include;

1. Ongoing demand for that role in the economy/organization

You cannot assume you can continue to perform your current role, in its current form, forever and gain the same financial reward. You need to determine why your role is in demand and ensure you move along with what is and will be required.

2. Leadership and management ability and understanding

This is just not about being a leader or managing others - it's about understanding and having empathy with those who lead and manage you. There are many styles of leadership and management and both as a leader and someone being lead you need to comprehend what is best and how to adapt to the varying styles with which you will be faced.

3. Time and stress management

Put simply, if you do not manage or your time or stress levels then your career performance will suffer. Two key drivers of performance are focus and dedication - being stressed and not allocating time to important tasks will not allow you to be either.

4. Networking

More and more careers are requiring some kind of networking to be undertaken - even if it's inter-departmental. Don't shut yourself off in your cubicle, home office...These days it's very much who you know as much as what you know.

5. Personal presence and confidence

Personality plays a large role in career success, no matter how knowledgeable you are in your role. If you want to progress and develop in and beyond your current role you have to be confident (not cocky or bragging) that you can handle your role and more. This is just not about ensuring promotion in your career. If you wanted a flexible work arrangement for say family reasons, there is even more reason to appear that you are confident you can perform in this situation.

6. Health and well-being

More and more evidence points to the fact that if you are strong physically it will allow your mental capabilities to be fully utilized. Mental health and well-being is also a critical component of performance and you must ensure meditation and relaxation is scheduled into your week.

7. Identification of re-education required

Associated with Point 1, experience will only take you so far - as the world changes, the economy changes and thus demand for goods and services changes. Your knowledge of today will not suffice for what is required tomorrow and you have to ensure you keep yourself up to date - this can mean subject matter knowledge, marketing and sales techniques, IT etc. If you don't, then you run the risk of becoming redundant in terms of skills on offer and career options will be limited.

8. IT ability

You need to assess the basic level of IT skills required now and in the future. This basic level will continue to rise so don't think being young means you automatically know everything required.

9. Perseverence and drive

This is one of the most important components. You need to work hard and smart and don't regard failure at any point as the end of the journey but as part of the journey. Success is not achieved overnight and you cannot assume that once you have achieved one thing that it will not disappear if you don't continue to perform. You need to understand your motivations and values for performing.

If it was only knowledge that was important then those with the highest IQ would have the most successful careers - and this is not the case. Aspects of emotional and social intelligence play a major role in success apart from IQ.

The next three important steps are the following; (1) identifying the rank and percentage of the total current role related to the above components, (2) produce a plan on how to improve your performance of each and (3) do the last two things for your next planned career moves. It's no good finding out you don't know how to drive or drive well when given a car....you have to plan in advance.

How to ensure a satisfying career

Amongst us there are those who have completely fulfilling careers, both professionally and personally, those who have satisfactory careers and lastly those with careers that are disappointing from both a professional and personal level. The question that needs to be answered is how do you achieve option 1 rather than option 2 and definitely not option 3.

The start of the career path for each of us starts from a different place due to a number of factors; family wealth, educational background of parents, socioeconomic status etc but this does not guarantee you have a satisfying career. There are many people coming from a background of wealth and privilege who are underachieving, unmotivated and not satisfied with their career and career path. Likewise there are those from ordinary and disadvantaged backgrounds who would say they have fulfilling careers.

From what I have studied the responses given may or may not be based on expectations but we may have to consider that has some influence but it is also important to note that purely considering financial rewards does not result in a guaranteed positive response or likewise a negative response if the financial reward is low. It appears the key drivers to a satisfying career are; having control over the career path, having your personal goals satisfied, feeling useful, receiving meaningful benefits, and knowing why you are undertaking the career you are in. It is also known that if you consider your career satisfying your performance will be high and you should receive personal benefit. High performance will be achieved simply because you want to perform well and this will ensure your focus and dedication is strong.

So what this means is that you have to be clear on why you are undertaking your job and what you are gaining from both a personal and professional perspective, not just undertake a role for the sake of it and assume it will provide you with what you want. It is up to you to take the time to identify what aspects of a job are important to you, from a principle point of view, and ensure you align these with the career you undertake. The consequence of not doing this is dissatisfaction and lack of motivation, perhaps not initially but over time when you are not achieving what is important to you - however at that time it might be too late to change.

Are you a consistent decision maker?

What I am referring to when I say 'consistent decision maker' is whether your approach/process/internal model in making decisions is applied the same way each time when making a decision? Would you cross the road against the lights if no traffic every single time, invest in a product you do not understand 50% of the time, decide to continue or dissolve a relationship based on same underlying reasons....the bottom line can you predict your decisions ahead of time or not?

If you are looking to develop and improve it's an interesting concept to think about - if you are consistent but want to change it is quite easy to identify the decision making drivers needing development. However if your decision making process is varied and not based on a consistent 'internal' methodology, then identifying what needs to be changed and predicting the result of the changes can become challenging.

My belief is that the fields of coaching and psychology, by themselves, cannot determine and recreate a decision making process with the goal of improving one's decision making (DM) capabilities. When I say 'improving' I refer to the act of a DM process that is more likely to allow someone to achive their goals - down to a very specific level. Rather coaching and psychology combined can perhaps achieve this due to the fact that one is more centred around action and effect and the other analysis and cause.

Making life decisions based on consistent or inconsistent decision making can make the difference between a life of fulfillment, goal achievement and clarity rather than stress, frustration and lack of understanding as to why results occur as they do. I am not saying that a consistent decision making methodology will result in the correct decision more than inconsistent - but self analysis will be made easier if the same decision making principles are made time and time again.

A consistent decision making process is necessary, even critical, in many occupations. Most sports, trading, manufacturing, agriculture....all require a consistent basis behind the decision. It's not about saying your life is inflexible due to this approach but rather you give yourself the opportunity to understand the 'inner you' a little better - and I don't know anyone who wouldn't see an advantage in that.