12 Winning Ways
to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
Quick tips to constantly stay ahead at ever evolving & demanding work environments
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#1
Display & Demand at all times..
The 3 E’s: “Energy, Energize & Edge”
Be that catalyst with boundless drive who constantly fills teams
With optimism to compete & execute..
Individuals who lack energy as well the capability to energize others, would
eventually find it difficult to sustain growth. Boundless energy, both physical(number of hours) put to work & Intellectual (ideas, ideas, ideas!!) are core to
professional success. Have restlessness & enthusiasm in everything you do.
Have that infectious energy & vigor which make team members truly believe in
what they are doing.
Additionally, have a unique & “special edge” in your style & skill sets which will
be difficult to copy.
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#2
Have a “Data Driven” & Systematic
Approach to Problem Solving
When you confront a problem, do not jump into solutions quickly.
Use data, analysis & structured methodology to arrive at a
solution
It’s commonplace for establishments to look at structured methodologies as non
relevant & pure Academics. Its not the case always. Measurement & data driven
approach can help you arrive at sustainable solution to business problems.
Visible Symptoms of a problem can really mislead you, ask “What is the
problem?” as well as “What has the Problem?” Go to the depth & root causes.
Address them. A problem which took months to surface, will take a at least a few
weeks of structured treatment to be solved with sustenance.
Demand a numbers & measurement based culture at your workplace.
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#3
Push yourself for Multi Industry
& “Dynamic Specialization”
Understand that in the long run, the guy with a larger basket of
Tools, skills, competencies & adaptability will reign…
Darwin was right!!
Reminds me of the Chinese frog story. You put the frog in a open boiling plate.
Increase the temperature of the flame very slowly. Frog’s brain & nervous
system can not sense very slow incremental temperature rise. He will boil to
death sitting right there. This is what we are prone to be subject to if we stay in a
role or a job ad-infinitum. Somewhere learnings stop as the challenges stop .
Ensure that you deliver in every role or job you take but keep an eye on growth &
learning. These are often inter-related. Specialize in many areas in your
professional careers. Growing economies like India & China thrive on the same!
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#4
Be inclusive, expansive & above
all be “Boundaryless”
Be open to people & ideas from diverse cultures, domains
& nationalities… Take global assignments..
Like all living species, we are territorial by nature. We defend our intellectual
territories & allow no one to come near them. We condemn any best practice or
an alternate way of problem solving which is from outside the industry or
function we are aligned to. “Path dependency trap”.. We will continue doing
more of what we do best!! Remember how the wind-based ships tried effortlessly
fighting with steam ships in 18th century.. till the cloth, mast & wood required to
compete with steam ships actually sank the wind-based ships themselves.
“Out of the Box” ideas come when you socialize with professionals from diverse
backgrounds. Understand the “strength of weak ties”.
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#5
Constantly “Innovate” & leave a
legacy behind.. in every role you
take
Leave behind practices which others can use
Its commonplace to see professional complain about not growing in their
careers despite putting mad number of work hours. Ask yourself, did you just
follow instructions in your daily business transactions or you found a smarter,
quicker way of doing the same? Did you eliminate non value adding steps? Did
you think processes? Did you improve systems? Did you display better Client
Intimacy or Customer Centricity in your way of functioning?
Try and develop scorecards, templates & frameworks which encompass your
domain knowledge & learnings in a given environment. Best part is, while you
have moved to bigger jobs, someone will not have to reinvent the wheel!
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#6
Understand the importance of
Character, Integrity & “Virtues”
Human values, character & virtues distinguish leaders
as you reach the top of the ladder..
Protect your professional reputation like hell!!
It’s well said- Integrity is like pregnancy. You can’t be 90% pregnant!!
In commercial areas, dealing with external agencies like clients, vendors,
distributors & dealers as well as internal stakeholders, like employees &
colleagues, it’s essential that professionals maintain highest levels of integrity.
As the decision making powers increase & time to make those decision
decreases, depend upon your moral compass to help you always do the “Right
thing” not the “Good Thing”!!
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#7
Execute with “Velocity” &
Make the Bad news travel
fast
Eliminate what slows down.. Think Velocity!
Observe a billing counter at a mega mall moving at snails pace. Shoppers
looking around helplessly waiting for their turn to come. What a waste of
national resources. Any enterprise is like a factory. If you do not run it efficiently,
it starts producing “wastes”. Like waiting. Waiting kills! It can kill a business, it
can kill an entire economy. “Time-to-Produce”, time to “Go-to-Market” can
distinguish a successful enterprise from a not so successful one. Koreans &
Japanese production floors are the best examples of the same.
Be proactive in raising “Red Flags”.
If you are going to miss your sales targets, go tell your manager in advance!
Build products, processes & systems for Speed, Reliability & Precision.
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#8
From Employment to
“Employability”.. Read & Re-skill
There is no future in History!
Stop resting on past laurels, stripes & stamps
Learn from as many & as different sources as you can!
If our education made us employable, why stop educating ourselves once we
take up employment? It’s hard to find middle management professionals who
read & make an attempt to write once they start tasting middle management
success. Professionals who create news in long run are often voracious readers.
One needs to constantly upgrade his/her very own knowledge repository &
information base through internet or print sources.
Learn a new sport, pick up a new hobby. Ask yourself- “When was the last time
you did something for the first time?”
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#9
Think Career, Not Jobs..
Run a “decathlon”, Not a sprint…
As you embark on the journey, Have a real long term “Keep
the End-in-Mind” view of who you want to be, what you want
to become.
1984 Olympic games, Daley Thompson a black British sportsman won a shiny
gold for Decathlon race*. He was not best at all the individual sports. He didn’t
finish first in any of them. Overall, by staying in top 3 in all individual sports, he
won the coveted medal.
Look deeper in the past 3 decades of professional careers of successful business
leaders- Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca, Sam Walton, Indra Nooyi & Howard Schultz or
India subcontinent’s Sunil Mittal, Narayan Murthy or Vijay Mallya – They have all
played a successful sport of Decathlon!
Olympic Decathlon race* consists of 10 sports: On the first day of competition, athletes compete in 100-meter dash, long
jump, shot put, high jump & the 400-meter run. On the second day, participants attempt 110- meter hurdle race, discus
throw, pole vault, javelin throw & 1500-meter run.
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#10
Use Strategic Tools, Frameworks &
Other “MBA Stuff” in day to day work
Provoke Management Thought through everything you do.
Demonstrate what a good mix of theory & practice can create!
Can the traditional inventory replenishment model be used in hiring planning
critical skills or in planning seats for growing IT business? Can the quick check
processing model at BPO be deployed at a Retail Chain struggling with brimming
counters? Can the Poka-Yoke tools be used in my retail banking business? Can
the macroeconomic laws of diminishing returns be applied to ever falling
employee motivation levels or to my IT strategy? Can the Porter’s 5 force analysis
be used for consolidating my struggling lines of businesses?
Take a tool out of traditional context & try applying in a new one. “Thought
leadership” is key to vitality of any business! Its key to your growth!!
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#11
Forge mutually beneficial
“Alliances” at work & outside
To be effective in long run, you need 3 C’s: “Concepts,
Contacts & Competence…” Do you make enough
deposits in your Contacts & “Social Networks”…
Managers leading large islands of functions are required to dissolve the
boundaries between those mighty fortified islands. Coming out of the silos of
powers & collaborating at work is often the hardest thing to do.
Same applies to social networks. We sit complacent with our social contacts
from current professional engagements, not reviving our old school, college or
alumni networks enough. Never looking forward to what kind of network, in
terms of competencies, you will require 3-5 years hence.
Successful professionals treat each contact as that’s the only contact they have.
Always spending that extra energy in building those relationships over years.
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12 Winning Ways to Stay Ahead in Professional Careers
#12
AND FINALLY,
Forget your weaknesses &
Build on your “Strengths”!!
Use them like your secret weapon of choice.
As Peter F Drucker argued in his 1978 HBR article.. “you can spend a lifetime
trying to improve upon your weaknesses… instead… build upon your
strengths”. So true!! Look at some of the most successful managers around
you, you will spot few weaknesses. Look deeper, you will find a compelling
special quality or two this leader would have built his entire career on. It could
be one of the following, but not limited to: hard work, compassion, process
centric, compliance, people-oriented, task based or filled with new ideas.
Find out what makes you special! And you can build an entire career around
that compelling unique quality.
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