15 Things Successful Professionals Do: Part 1 of 3

Ilya Pozin wrote a great post on LinkedIn titled, “15 Things Successful People Do.”  Here is the Career-ology version of Pozin’s list with a focus on your career and professional success.

1) Fail – At some point in your career, you will encounter failure—your position is downsized, you get overlooked for a promotion or bonus, you choose a job that isn’t the right fit.  You cannot have success without failure. Stop.  Assess. Adjust. Keep moving forward.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures.  So I did ten times more work.  ~George Bernard Shaw, Playwright

2) Set Goals – You must identify and develop the critical career skills with the same discipline of your formal college curriculum.  As a professional, you are responsible for establishing and working towards your goals.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine. ~Brian Tracy, Author

3) Don’t rely on luck – Luck is only one small part of the professional success equation.  Without mastering the right skills, you cannot rely on luck alone.

I am a great believer in luck.  The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have. ~Coleman Cox, Author (interesting note: Thomas Jefferson is often incorrectly cited as the source of this quote)

4) Track progress – Like setting specific goals, tracking your progress against your career goals is important.  Make adjustments when required, but stay focused on your progress.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. ~Benjamin Franklin

5) Act – This is your career.  Take responsibility and take action.

If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. ~Michael Jordan, Professional Athlete

Stay tuned for “15 Things Successful Professionals Do: Part 2 of 3” next week.

 

MOOCs for Your Professional Development

Continuing education is a critical part of your professional development.  There are many opportunities to further your education including a formal graduate degree (on campus or online), a professional certificate program from a college continuing education program, or a MOOC.

What is a MOOC and how can you utilize a MOOC for professional development?

A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aiming at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and TAs. [Wikipedia]

Last November, the New York Times declared that 2012 was The Year of the MOOC.  The leading MOOCs are Coursera, edX and Udacity.  These platforms are

One thing at a Time

This is a natural follow up to my post last week, Focus on Focus.  Tony Schwartz‘s post on the Harvard Business Review blog challenges the common practice of multitasking and claims that we are more effective and efficient when we focus. Schwartz estimates we a task takes an average of 25% more time when we divide our attention and the drain on our energy levels are even more costly.  Schwartz offers suggestions for both managers and individual contributors:

For managers:

1. Maintain meeting discipline.
2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day.
3. Encourage renewal.

For individual contributors:

1. Do the most important thing first in the morning.
2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically.
3. Take real and regular vacations.

Focus on Focus

Harvard Business Review wordmark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done, has written two outstanding articles for Harvard Business Review | HBR.org which focus on, well. . . focus.  New professionals and CEOs will benefit alike.  After implementing these habits, you will gain laser-like focus in as little as 10 minutes per day.

In Two Lists You Should Look At Every Morning, Bregman recommends creating two lists: 1) Your Focus List; and 2) Your Ignore List and reviewing them every morning.  These are not to do lists, but rather major areas of focus for your life and serve as a guide when deciding how you spend your time each day– “because time is your one limited resource and no matter how hard you try you can’t work 25/8” as Bregman notes.

In The Best Way to Use the Last Five Minutes of Your Day, Bregman recommends reserving

Four Destructive Myths Most Companies Still Live By

Tony Schwartz, the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything, identifies four myths found in many organizations:

• Myth #1: Multitasking is critical in a world of infinite demand.
• Myth #2: A little bit of anxiety helps us perform better.
• Myth #3: Creativity is genetically inherited, and it’s impossible to teach.
• Myth #4: The best way to get more work done is to work longer hours.

Are these myths present in your organization?  It is easy to adopt the practices and habits of the organization in which you work– is this how you want to work?

Read the full post.

The Bad Habits You Learn in School

After spending many years and many dollars attending college, it may be difficult to think that you graduated with bad habits.  In The Bad Habits You Learn in School, John Coleman HBR.com contributor, highlights a few of these habits:

Lessons from the Olympics

The Summer Olympics are over and already I miss watching these amazing athletes.  While watching the post-event interviews with the athletes, there were several themes that you can apply to your career:

• Practice is Everything – The athletes had practiced 8+ hours per day for many years in order to prepare for their event. How much time do you dedicate to practice for important meetings, presentations, speeches related to your career?  Do you practice the skills that are necessary for professional success such as writing, public speaking and networking?
• Individual Responsibility – Most of the athletes acknowledged the invaluable contribution and support of their coaches and teammates.  None of the athletes blamed anyone else for their own poor performance.   Do you take responsibility for your own career or do you blame your boss, colleagues or the organization when things don’t go your way?
• Focus and Excellence – Many of the athletes described a level of intense focus and standard of personal excellence that is often overlooked in today’s organizations.  Do you focus on your work like an athlete focuses on their game, event, competition?  What if you did?  What is the standard you set for yourself when it comes to you career?  Do you strive for excellence in your career?

These lessons from the Olympics are at the core of Career-ology.

Go Team USA!  See you in Buenos Aires in 2016.

Don’t Miss the Moment

Last week while on vacation at a beautiful Florida beach, I went “offline.”  I didn’t check email or voice mail and only went online to find a local restaurant.  It was great!

Being without my iPhone, made me hyper-aware how other people were using their smart-devices.  The most striking example was the teenager at the beach who was texting for hours at a time.  While I swam in the surf, listened to the sound of the birds and watched a pod of dolphins swim along the coast, this teenager was so focused on his smartphone that he missed it all.  He was at the beach, but not really at the beach– he was missing the moment.

While this blog is not a commentary on teenager’s behavior, this vivid example, made me think about how professionals divide their attention especially during a meeting.  Humans cannot effectively divide their attention between two similar, complex tasks such as reading and listening.  No one can read an email on their smartphone while simultaneously listening to someone speak during a meeting.

Get in to the office early or stay late, but don’t text, send or read email while participating in a meeting with other people– don’t miss the moment to hear what is being said or weigh in with your own opinion on the subject.  You’ll miss the moment like the teenager on the beach.

READING LIST: The Startup of You

Reid Hoffman is the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn and knows a thing or two about the power of networking.

The Start-up of You is not a technical “how to” book about the world’s most popular professional networking site, but instead a philosophical discussion about approaching your career with the mindset of entrepreneur.  Hoffman along with his co-author, Ben Casnocha suggest that you consider your career in permanent beta– as a professional, you are never complete, but instead always aiming to grow, expand and improve.

Who should read this book?

In-person conversations need to happen

Last week, while discussing an earlier blog post, Downsides of Digital Conflict Resolution, with a young professional, I used the following example which really seemed to bring Tjan’s point to life and wanted to share it here.

Imagine sitting in the same room with a good friend.  You and your friend sit  back-to-back and you may only communicate by passing written notes back and forth. No verbal communication or sounds are allowed and of course, you cannot see each others face.

Think of how much communication would be missing from that interaction.  That is what happens during an email exchange.