HOW TO TURN THINGS AROUND.............In your new Job or Position!

ENTERPRISE: Career Success!

In many organizations, getting promotion and rising up to the management cadre can be daunting.  

This is especially so in professional organization, like firm of Chartered Accountants or Engineers, where many of the staff are qualified professionals  and so in terms of qualification and experience, most employees are at par, the only difference being, their post qualification work experience.

People have challenges getting started on a new job, especially when there is no work experience or when the supervisor is impatient. A young recruit has this to say: "I joined three weeks ago but have found it hard to get to grips with the work, the systems and processes are very different from what I’m used to, no one has explained them to me properly, and I’ve made several mistakes. 

Last week my boss pulled me aside to say he needed to see an improvement, but I made another big error when he was out of the office yesterday that he doesn’t know about yet. I’m so disappointed it’s not working out and stressed up because of the many stupid mistakes I have made and it seem, as though I can’t face my boss.  

I’ve had a really bad start in my new dream job, she continued and don’t know what to do next. The question is "What is the way out"?

How to turn things around in your new job!  

I am going to discuss how people should approach a new job or position and gradually gain mastery of the duties and functions expected of them on the job. Please follow me!

In most well structured organizations, competition is known to be keen and nothing could be so discouraging as being abandoned in a position for years. This would mean that most of your colleagues would rise to higher positions before that person and worse still, some of your subordinates would eventually boss you in the course of time.  So, there are many good reasons to seek rapid promotion in the workplace.  

So the guy that want to obtain promotion and move up the leadership cadre must therefore make conscious effort to achieve it, among them are:

1. Financial independence and progress

2. Career growth and development

3. Moving into leadership cadre with all the perks

The truth is that rapid promotion is not the bread for everybody.  It is given to people who have proved they understanding the purpose of the organization and its business.  They are ready to contribute to its progress with hard work, creativity and efficient service delivery.

Rapid promotion is meant for the employees that have distinguished themselves over time.  Imagine someone moving from an officer to full manager in a quoted company within a space of three years. It comes by doing the right things and achieving better result; knowing what to do and doing them well consistently. I have seen this happen to people again and again, so it can happen to you where you work, especially if it is a well structured organization.

Can I shock you, even in a smaller business, you can even move faster with strong entrepreneurial skills business foresight and the drive to succeed. Whenever these three factors are at work, you will see new opportunities, partnership and new products being developed to meet identified market needs. This, of course translates into high sales turnover, improved service delivery and huge market expansion. You can even become a General Manager within years with official car and house.

The under-listed steps and actions are carefully tested and tried pathway to rapid promotion.  These “sweet work attitudes” will enable you unleash your knowledge and skill to the right things that will produce result quickly. Understand them and internalize them, so you can produce good results consistently irrespective of the organization.  See our earlier articles for how the entrepreneurial worker operate.

If you are the promotion seeking Officer, here's what to do and do it consistently that it becomes your lifestyle.

When it comes to promotion and rising in a competitive environment, there is no short cut, the man that desire a promotion must examine himself, and appraise his skills and ability as well as the expectation of such height he wants to attain. In so doing, you will discover the sacrifices you need to make in your skill and ability in order to meet the merit standards of the position sought for.

So, basically, you start by: 

1. Knowing Yourself

A. Who are You? - Yes, it starts with you. Perhaps the most important part in the ‘promotion process’, you need to know what you want - and why you want it. If you’re aiming for the next rung up purely because you think you should, but the different work involved actually doesn’t appeal, it won’t be a match made in heaven - so think hard. But convince yourself, and you can convince others. Take an honest look at yourself - your achievements, credentials and skills. If you have confidence in your future role as well as your current job, it will show itself at all stages.

B. Develop Good Work Habits - Sense of Urgency Perhaps the fastest way to bring yourself to the attention of your superiors is to develop good work habits. You need to develop the habit and ability to get the job done fast and accurate. Getting the job done fast and having a sense of urgency is not only a profession al attitude, but it is a sure career success habit.   

2. Know your organization, its product, people and processes

A. Study your organization: This guy first step is to understand the organization in clear details, its history, structure, and products and culture. The culture will guide your behavior and conduct in the organization.  

B. Understand the purpose the organization is established to fulfill and the structures it has established to fulfill its mandate.  Understand their position in the industry and its major competitors. Understand the works your departments do and how it relates to the goals of the organization.

C. Study your department: Understudy your department and understand the work each unit of the department does.  Don’t be naive!.  Whatever it takes you to understand what everyone in your department is doing, it is a worthy investment for the man or woman that wants to lead one of the units and the department later in the future. Having known the duties and processes in your department, your next move is to take a look at your position classification and job description and note the different jobs that will be directed at you.

  

D. Study your Job description: Note the weight attached to each of the activities you should perform and ensure the action with higher weight receives your attention.  In a well structured organization, they will review your performance based on your job description, especially the important aspects of your job.

Then review the actual jobs flowing to your office daily and all its varieties and note the important ones.  Take time to understand their requirements and their time sensitivities.  Having known your duties and all its varieties, set your own response time for attending to documents (work) passed to your desk daily.  May be ten minutes whatever…make sure that nothing is left pending on your desk at close of business.  If you need to spend additional minutes to clear them, please do so.  

E. Treat all jobs assigned to you on a daily basis.  Whatever job get to your table should be processed and completed same day.  Have a register of the jobs you receive in your computer or manually and endeavour to treat all of them same day.  If there are issues with a particular work, report the matter to your boss and record it in a register for that purpose. Have a professional attitude to your work continually and you are on the way to becvoming a professional, you are ready for leadership.

3. Interview your boss carefully (Know Your Boss) 

You don't have the priviledge of choosing your own Boss.  If you had that option, I would have asked you to make sure you are working with a good man that has positive attitude and orientation.  But you don't have such a priviledge, the option you have left is to study your boss and intelligently interview him.

This is one of the greatest ways to win your boss. You work closely with him and carefully ask him some job related questions that will reveal what is critical and the jobs he does not want pending on his table or in the department.  This is purely job related and is done gradually as you have opportunity. Another way to know what is important to your boss is for you to treat all assignments quickly and return to him and observe his countenance and comments.

When you know the jobs that are time sensitive and process them without delay, you are working in tandem with your boss and he would be impressed with your services.  You also have to set your priority rating for such job as 'Top Most'. You will do yourself a lot of good by attending to those important and urgent matters as they come, bending over when you need to do so to ensure they are processed on time.

If you develop a reputation for speed, dependability and quality work, you will immediately stand out from the crowd in your unit. For many reasons, people respect those who get the job done quickly. When you develop a reputation as a competent professional who deliver job accurate and timely, the system will eventually reward you with time.

4.   Be a Team Player: Respect your boss and colleagues and support them with their work when necessary. This attitude brings favour and acceptance unto you. You must maintain a friendly attitude, no quarreling, bitterness or anger, let any of these not be found in you as you seek promotion and to lead the unit or department.

Team play is an important criteria in a small sized organization.  You must have the mindset to share and back-up your boss and subordinates freely and willingly.  A team player does not complain when there is need for put-in extra hours or days.  One of the things I always tried to do was to be available to help co workers and clients. Seek to help first. Helping others reach their goals will help you in the long run. Your customers and clients will come back to you and your reputation of being a team player will spread among your co-workers.

5.   Learn How to Make Money and influence the cashflow: Do a research on how best to win business and influence the cashflow and the bottomline.  This is very important , for with that, the senior management will soon know your name.

This is very important irrespective of the unit you find yourself.  Similar to this is the need to understand the products very well and also master how to market the products of your organization.  You cannot be a passive employee. Passive employees do not get to leadership position. You must have a hand in the cashflow and sales position of your organization. 

Get it settled in your heart that you must be in a position to influence the company’s income, to somehow increase revenues or cut costs and yet be the professional you are, in every sense, don’t allow errors in your report and be well organized and timely.

6.   Goal Getter - If you claim to be good and skillful when your boss says you are not good enough, beloved, you are deceiving yourself.  It means you are not good enough. You are not yet a goal getter and your best is not good enough.  

Positive thinking is the very first step towards success. Cultivate positive emotions because happy people are easily motivated and they perform better. Approach your job from a strategic standpoint. Know the impact of your job on the unit and the organization as a whole, so you adopt a strategic approach to delivering on your target.  This will allow you to reviews you steps after a while and then improve on areas of weakness.

7. Hard Work:  A successful career begins with hard work. Talent is good, but it’s just not enough to be talented if you don’t put much effort, you remain at the baseline.  Hard work is therefore that determination to do things in a better way, produce better results, even with little resources.  Hard work is that power to stay focused and committed to what you are doing until the set goal is achieved.

Complain Less-When you complain about a situation, you miss the possible positives that can come out of the situation. Also, the last thing you want to be known for is dragging around negativity everywhere you go. Learn to keep complaints to yourself or, even better, turn negatives into positives.

Be Reliable: – I wanted a reputation of being someone that could get the job done as well as someone you could count on to help. Having that reputation will help you stand out when your superiors are contemplating on who to promote next. Calling off or constantly coming in late will not get you a positive reputation

8. Don't follow the Pack: - Do things differently and better.  Do not follow the pack who gossip and spend office time chatting and browsing the net.  Also avoid using office hours for your own work, it is ethically negative.  

Do you know why? You will reap your reward when it hurts most.  This is why many have started their own business after paid employment and failed woefully.  See yourself as the unit leader or even the owner of the business, so you are not contented by yesterday's result. Be eager to break new grounds every day - good is not good enough, the best is yet to come. so you are consistently seeking new opportunities and openings to grow the unit or business.   Press to the top (Best) and remain there, whether you are recognized and rewarded or not.

9. Positive Aggressiveness:- In your mind, Rome was built in a day, so what heights people think is impossible is leveled by your creative thoughts and imaginations till you reach the top and occupy. Winners are people who win again and again.  

10. Networking: -  You need a mixed bag of important people, for instance professional colleagues, leaders from different fields, experts, friend and relatives networking together to provide you with good advice and access to new opportunities that can help you achieve your goals in the short and long term.

11.  Extra Effort: - Put extra effort to make sure the unit is leading in productivity and efficiency. See the unit as your own unit and imagine you’re the unit head and daily work and function as one and it will surprise you how your thoughts and action will change positively.

In order to achieve your goals, you need to “be persistent like a bear”. This metaphor works quite well considering that a hungry, highly determined bear would do anything to get its prey whereas a lazy human wouldn’t try as hard before giving up.

12. Go to School, acquire new skills

If you don't have a Bachelor, get it. If you have, consider earning a Masters or PhD, but only if one of these qualifications will help you achieve your career goals. Don't just go back to school for the heck of it. Instead think about what programs will help you climb the corporate ladder.

Sometimes specialized professional designations or licenses can be far more important to getting a promotion than degrees, and sometimes you may just need to take some classes to improve your computer skills or accounting ability, for example. There are a wide range of education programs available that allow you to go to class in the evenings or on weekends, and there are also ample opportunities for accredited self-study and online learning.

What's more, your employer may reimburse you for certain tuition expenses, so it may be possible for you to expand your knowledge at no cost to yourself.

Learn a second/third language. Due to the increasing globalization of the world in general, more and more companies will be looking for people that know multiple languages. Learning more than one language also means you don't need a translator, which opens up international posts (such as a manager for an entire continent, as opposed to a state or small country).

Take on temporary projects. Temporary projects can be a great way to broaden your skills and network with people from other areas of the company. Many people feel uncomfortable volunteering for these assignments because they can be challenging and can force you out of your comfort zone. That's the point.

Volunteer. If you're not getting new skills at work, consider volunteering your spare time to a non-profit organization. Large, well-recognized non-profits almost always offer a wealth of opportunities to learn new things, and smaller organizations may also have suitable projects you could work on. Successful non-profits typically look to fill volunteer positions with people who are qualified to do the job, but with a little persistence you should be able to find an opportunity that uses your existing skills and helps you build new skills. Your community involvement can also be a plus toward your getting your promotion  

13. Leading a Unit or Department:  

If you are placed in a leadership position, create a positive and healthy work environment for your staff to express themselves while working. No matter how difficult the assignment may be, don’t  strifle their creativity, instead welcome new ideas and creative solutions.  Have an open and friendly environment. 

14. Seek out new skills. This point is very critical for managers and supervisors. You must continue to learn new skills and process when you are leading others. Its a disaster for a leader in a department to be behind your subordinates in jobs skills, approaches and methods. You must be current with THE latest industry news, processes and technologies. 

Even if you are not the leader, you need to continually acquire commensurate skills to do your job better than you are doing presently.  It's not enough to be great at your job; you also have to develop marketable skills that prepare you for more responsibility. 

No matter how good you are, make sure you’re not the smartest person in the office.  If that’s what you have, there is a problem, which you solve by developing one or two employees to a new level, so you can have a creative workforce that can deliver high quality result.  Managers, please surround yourself with creative and competent people and the result will blow your mind.

FIRE...