Business

Raising Your Career Trajectory

When everything inside of you cries out that you can achieve more, make your goals more challenging

Published

7 months ago

December 12, 2021

Jeff Davidson

As you progress in your career, the goals and aspirations that you had during earlier years often don’t match the ones that you now have. You might seek to take on more responsibility at work and to be paid more for your services.

More Challenging Goals

Here is an issue which is subjective and simply isn’t the same for everyone, yet there are common indicators that point to the right times to ‘up’ your goals

If you’ve achieved some of your challenging goals in a fraction of the time you originally allocated, that’s a strong indication that you could set even more challenging goals, or keep them the same, but decrease the time frame for reaching them.

Chip Eichelberger, formerly Tony Robbins’ International point man, has been a motivational speaker to 1000+ groups. He says that as your competence and expertise develop, and the ease with which you perform compared to others in your profession or industry is notable, that is as good a sign as any that it’s time to make your goals more challenging. Some notable examples will bring this topic to life.

Oh, Oh, Oh, It’s Magic

When Michigan State sophomore Magic Johnson won the NCAA basketball crown in 1979, he entered the NBA and became the starting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. Among many other rookie stars that year, he sought to make his mark in the pro leagues, and be a major contributor to his team.

During his first season, he received rave notices for his passing ability and leadership skills. During the NBA finals that year, against the Philadelphia 76ers, when All-Star center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was forced to miss the sixth and deciding game because of injury, Magic Johnson filled in at the center position.

In an amazing performance, he scored 42 points and was named the finals MVP. As his Lakers team was crowned NBA champions, it was apparent even in his rookie season, that one championship for Magic wasn’t going to be enough. Any earlier goals he might have had regarding his performance, how the Lakers would fare, and what kind of champions they might be, suddenly became outdated.

Consumer Advocacy Redefined

Ralph Nader had been a one-man crusader for consumer rights in the middle of the last century. In the early 1960s, when he challenged the automobile industry through the court system and with his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, he was quickly hailed as a consumer advocate par excellence. The book, which went on to become a bestseller, documented the known risks and engineering shortcomings of the nation’s most popular selling cars.

Whatever goals Nader had as a consumer advocate, following his sparkling victory in compelling the auto industry to increase its safety standards, soon became surpassed. Nader realized that one well-presented jury case was more impactful than 10,000+ protesters clanging on fences outside of General Motors headquarters.

Not resting on his achievements, Nader initiated the Public Interest Resource Group (PIRG), which ultimately launched a branch in every state. He founded Common Cause, an organization and national magazine directed at illuminating the practices and procedures of special interest groups, in particular, when they ran contrary to the “common causes” that benefitted so many more people.

After that, Nader became an unbowed advocate of environmental protection. He relentlessly exposed corporate and multinational interests that appeared to act contrary to the wants and needs of larger society.

Even More Challenging

In perspective, Nader’s whole career was one of choosing goals, and then by enlisting the dedication and support of legions of followers, – primarily volunteers, making his goals even more challenging.

When everything inside of you cries out that you can reach your goals, and achieve even more, it is an appropriate time to make your goals more challenging.

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Business

Delegation: An Ongoing Phenomena

Failure to delegate effectively often happens because team leader don’t trust the people with whom they’re working

Published

5 hours ago

June 29, 2022

Jeff Davidson

For most of your career, you’ve read or heard that one of the key approaches to getting things done is to delegate effectively. This presumes that you have others to whom you can delegate. In my contact with more than 950 organizations over the last two and a half decades, I’ve found increasingly that people have fewer resources, a lower budget, and less staff people. If they want to get something done, often they have to do it themselves!

Assuming you have others to whom you can delegate, the first or second time you personally tackle a particular task yields useful information. You learn more about the nature of the task, how long it takes, and whether or not you enjoy doing it.

By the third time, a task of the same ilk as those you’ve handled before often becomes best handled by someone reporting to you. Such tasks could involve updating a database, completing an interim report, or assembling meeting notes.

All that You Can

On the path to getting things done, your quest is to identify all those things that you can possibly delegate to others and then prepare those others so that they have a high probability of succeeding. In the course of your workday there may be only a handful of things that you alone need to do because of your experience, insight or specialized knowledge. Everything else that can be delegated should be.

Some people feel they have to take care of everything themselves and to this day haven’t been able to break the habit of “doing it all.” If this someone is in your seat right now, recognize that as a category of one, you can only get so much done.

Many managers and supervisors fail to delegate effectively because either they don’t fully trust the people with whom they’re working, or they’ve always been get-it-all-done-by-myself types.

Take Time before You Assign

Prior to delegating anything to anyone, take the time to actually prepare your staff for delegation. This would involve assessing an employee’s skills, interests, and needs. You could even ask people what new tasks and responsibilities they would like to assume. You might be surprised at the wide variety of responses you receive. There may be people on your staff right now who can help you with tasks you’ve been dying to hand off to someone but didn’t see how or when you could put them into play.

While you want to delegate to staff people who show enthusiasm, initiative and interest, or have otherwise previously demonstrated the ability to handle and balance several tasks at once, sometimes you have to delegate to someone who has not exhibited any of the above. In that case, delegate on a piece-meal basis.

Ensure that the staff person is able to effectively handle the small task or tasks he’s been assigned and does not feel swamped or overloaded. When the staff person demonstrates competence, you can increase the complexity of assignments and even the frequency with which you delegate.

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Business

Multi-tasking: More Harm than Good

In this day and age, where so much competes for our attention, it is easy to stray!

Published

2 weeks ago

June 16, 2022

Jeff Davidson

I belong to a local health club, and while I was there one day, I saw a woman get on the Stairmaster. I watched as she whipped out an mp3 player and started listening to music. Then, to my surprise, she reached into her gym bag, pulled out a book, and placed it on that ledge to read. I almost asked her if she would like a piece of gum!

Today, when so much competes for our attention, it is easy to stray! More often than we care to pretend, in the office and at home, we invite more than we can handle, and then act as though we didn’t. As individuals, throughout society, we are trained to believe that the ability to multi-task is a great attribute. Unfortunately, that’s a big mistake. Here’s why, and how to avoid multi-tasking in the future.

First Things First

What’s the fastest and easiest way to handle six tasks competing for our attention? Identify the most important task, second most important, third most important, and so on, then tackle the first and finish it all the way, move on to the second and complete it, then move all the way down the list.

Any other way of tackling those items, whether they are tasks for home or work, is simply not as efficient. The catch is, any other way is more psychologically satisfying. Why? It’s almost as if juggling projects, switching gears unnecessarily or abruptly, or leaving a job unfinished to start a new project gives you the opportunity to say to other people, “Hey, look at me! Look how involved I am! Look at how busy I am! I’m great at multi-tasking.” A multi-tasker, however, can’t compete with others who tackle their to-do list, one item at a time.

What about doubling up as a procedure for tackling a number of routine items or very simple tasks? You can eat dinner and read a book at the same time. Eating and reading at the same time is relatively harmless.

How about driving and talking on the cell phone at the same time? Driving requires your sharp attention, as does carrying on an intelligent conversation with someone else who is not present; doing both at the same time spreads your attention too thin, with often disastrous results. The same is true for projects you’re working on that require your best thinking.

Tips:
* give yourself 5 to 10 minute intervals to focus on the task at hand
* safe-guard your immediate environment to avoid interruptions
* acknowledge yourself whenever you stick to one task and finish it
* repeat all the above, often, knowing that ‘more often’ is better!

Your Undivided Attention

When you’re working on a new task, brainstorming, engaging in first-time thinking, or doing creative work, it’s vital to offer your complete and undivided attention to that one task before you. To dissipate your attention or otherwise stray means you are not going to do your best work.

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