The perfect career : all you need to get it right first time
Wrote by: Max Eggert
Published by: Arrow Books in 1994
Borrowed from: NLB - Pasir Ris Library
B11273601J
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2002.08.24 Finished reading entire book.
Please review and check the below or summary wrote in my note book (big).
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=========Strategy=========
01. Stay mainstream 1---------------------------------
02. Goals and targets---------------------------------
03. One shot---------------------------------
04. Make mistakes early---------------------------------
05. Stay mainstream 2---------------------------------
06. Deal with what you can touch-----------------------
07. Two types of pay---------------------------------
08. What's next?---------------------------------
09. Pick your boss---------------------------------
10. Seeing is believing---------------------------------
11. Take charge 1---------------------------------
12. Take charge 2---------------------------------
13. Failure goes with trying but so does success-----
14. Get known for skills sets---------------------------
15. Don't stay to enjoy your success---------------------
16. The organizational man---------------------------------
17. The brigadier and the general------------------------
18. Which jobs are for comers?-----------------------
19. Use meetings---------------------------------
20. B a rodent---------------------------------
===========Working with others==========
21. Work for your boss---------------------------------
22. Network---------------------------------
23. Don't share your long-term ambitions-------------------
24. Get advice but be selective------------------------------
===========Working with self============
25. Be personally responsible-------------------------------
26. Self reward-------------------------------
. Psychologist tell us:
. What gets asked for get done
. What gets measured gets done better
. What gets rewarded gets done best of all
. So for your career the implications are obvious:
. Set yourself targets
. Make them quantifiable and time bound
. Reward yourself for their achievement
27. Stick with your strong points--------------------------
. You don't have to be perfect to have a Perfect Career, in fact it is impossible.
. The advice is do not worry too much about your weaknesses but always play to your strengths.Whenever you can, make sure you have a subordinate or a colleague who is good at those things you are not so hot on.
. The higher up the management tree, the easier it is to build round you the elements of the perfect team for you. This means that you can always play to your strengths and look as if you are perfect.
28. Interpersonal skills------------------------
. One of the many things that is interesting about organizations is that the criteria for success continually change the highter up the ladder you go.
. On the lower rungs of the organization the emphasis is upon technical and professional competence - being able to do things well and get things done. If you are good at this then your promotion is almost assured.
. On the next level, that of management, technical competence is still important but interpersonal skill begin to take on a greateer significance.
. Once you start being responsible for other people, interpersonal skills including those of persuasion, motivation, and negotiation grow in significance.
. What is important here is the skill and ability to get other people as well as your peers to do things well for you.
. At this stage in your career you are rather like a player-manager.
. At the next stage interpersonal skills are important but on the inside and coming up fast are strategic skills. . Being able to see further than anyone else.
. Being able to appreciate the implications of varous options and decisions.
. Being ablo to read the situation before it occurs.
. You just cannot do this if you are tied down to the technology or you are still on the playing field.
. People who run large organizations well can run anything well.
. One of the reason why people get stuck in organizations on plateaux is because they repeat successful behaviour which they have learnt in earlier jobs.
. Remember business, like life, is a social activity and you gain more from cooperation than you do from competition, and cooperation takes the development of interpersonal skills.
29. Keep up to date-------------------------------
. Tehcnology is moving at such a pace that qualifications get out of date.. It is suggested that an average person reads just one book a year. Just think what you can achieve by reading one book a month in your area of expertise.
30. Be a star, not a comet-------------------------
. Organizations need stability to be successful and they need stable people.. It is much better to be someone who can be relied upon to do something on a regular basis than someone who will do it brilliantly one day and not be there the next.
31. Fantasize---------------------------------
. Everything starts with an idea or desire or wish.
. The idea comes and then you do something about it to turn the idea into a reality.
32. Advice to the redundant-----------------------
. By far the most important point to remember is that it is jobs that become redundant not people.
33. Just do it---------------------------------
. After goal and target setting, the important thing is just to get started - JUST DO IT.
. Just do something for yourself and your career - now, today.
. It is important to remember that you are the only one who is going to take action on your behalf. You are the only person ho is interested in your progress so JUST DO IT - NOW - TODAY.
34. Self contracting--------------------------
. I recognize and welcome the fact that I am personally responsible for my own career and the way I conduct myself at work. I understand that person success lies in doing the best I can with the abilities, skills and experience that I have. I also recognize that nothing is guaranteed or certain.
. I contract with myself that as from today I will set myself quantifiable, time specific and realistic career goals which I will review seriously no fewer than ______ times per year.
. Furthermore, each goal will be broken down into specific tasks and activities and I am resolved to spend no fewer than _______ munites per day and ______ hours per week/month in the achievement of these activities. To assist and encourage myself in these activities I will reward and encourage myself regularly and fairly.
. My career management is a significant life activity for me and I commit myself to undertaken it with the seriousness which it deserves, knowing that I am solely responsible for those aspects of my work and career which are within my direct control.
Signed:________________
Date: ________________
35. Get the highest qualification you can - as soon as you can--
. Thus the higher the qualification, the better the ticket for the job race for the really top jobs.
. However, do not get seduced into thinking that qualifications help you do the job or to succeed, as many junior executive with an MBA will tell you - qualificaitons help you get there but expeirence and performance in the job count thereafter.
36. Why do you work?---------------------------------
. So if we do not work for money alone, it is helpful and useful to work out why we work we work and what motivates us and these are usually one or more of the following:
. SECURITY
. AUTONOMY
. RECOGNITION
. AFFILIATION
37. The four keys for the Perfect Career-------------
. To unlock the doors to the Perfect Career you need four very diffient keys that need to be turned at different times and in diffenrent sequences, depending on where you are and what you are doing.
. Most people already have one or two of the keys and work hard at turning them in the door and become frustrated when the door remain firmly shut against them.
. TECHNICAL SKILLS
. MANAGEMENT SKILLS
. STRATEGIC SKILLS
. INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
38. Dress for success---------------------------------
. Dress as those who are successful in the positions you aspire to.
. If your company, be it a Bank or a Burger House, insists that you ware a unifirm, wear it well but go to work in the clothes that your boss's boss would wear.
=============Working with self============
39. Be positive---------------------------------
. Negative people are not promoted. Sales people who rubbish their competitors' product do not achieve sales, employees who malign their bosses or their organization find themselves candicates for de-selection.
. Positive people appear confident, in control, attractive and they are usually the candidates for organizational recognition and promotion.
. It is difficult to be nagative and happy at the same time.
40. Personal affirmations---------------------------------
. "If you think you can or you can't, you're right." ---- Henry Ford
. To a certain extent we are who we tell ourselves we are.
. Junior people act, behave, perform and dress differently from senior people in organizations. If you choose to stay low in the organization, then that is fine but if you wish to move on then affirmations will certainly help.
41. Develop an internal locus of control------------------
. I did not get promotion because I do not have the experience, skills, abilities, style, etc - these are things you can do something constructive about.
. Now is might make you feel good go blame your failure, difficulty or upset on something external to yourself but it is not helpful.
42. Visualize---------------------------------
. Once you know what you want and where you are going, visualize yourself into that position. Here's how.
. Find a quiet and comfortable place where you know that you are not going to be disturbed.
. Visualize yourself into the position - what will you be doing, how will you do it, how will people be responding to you? What will your manner and style be, how will you look? What will you achieve, what will be your results?
. Use all your senses in your visualization - what will you smell, taste, hear and feel as well as see?
. practice visualizatin regularly and not fewer than three times per week for not less than five minutes a time.. Always make your visualizaitions positive in situations where you are performing well and at your best.
===========The Activities============
30 ways to give yourself profile-------------------------
1. Write an article for your house magazine.
2. Write an article for your professional journal.
3. Write a book.
4. Become a staff representative or a shop steward.
5. Speak at conferences and seminars.
6. Become an expert in something related to your work.
7. Plan profile opportunities for meetings and achieve them.
8. Take an active interest in the same leisure pursuits as your directors or top executives.
9. Organize social events at work.10. Arrive at work early or leave later than most.
11. Enthuse about your work, never run down your organization, product, service or manager.
12. Play an active part in your professional association.
13. Talk to one new person at work every day.
14. Form or become part of a users' group.
15. Invite experts in your field out to lunch.
16. Write letters to the press.
17. Attend seminars and conferences and always make a comment or ask a sensible question at the end, stating your name and organization.
18. Give genuine thanks and praise to those you admire and those who help you.
19. Take on a project with high profile and network potential.
20. Organize a learning set.
21. See more people face to face rather than use the internal telephone.22. Organize a charity event.
23. Take part in a charity event and organize the publicity.
24. Write your boss a brief report regularly once a month on what you have achieved and your objective for the next month.
25. Suggest improvements/cost saving ideas on a regular basis.
26. Play golf or tennis with the Chairmen or his daughter, son or favourite niece.
27. Ask a senior manager for advice and guidance.
28. Always dress as expensively as you can in the style appropriate to your organization or profession.
29. Ensure your office provides visitors with the best coffee in the organization served out of the best china.
30. Do as much as you can, but with taste, decorum and restraint, to make your office as executive and as well organized as possible.
"Ability without visibility is a disability." ---- Max A Eggert
