Kick Your Career into High Gear!

5 Tips for Accelerating Your Performance

Until next time,

Felicia

Achieving high levels of performance is critical to your overall
career success. It will require a well executed approach
and commitment to personal learning. In order for your learning to
be most effective, it will require that you continue to improve
existing skills while finding ways to build upon them as well as
learning to master new skills. With this in mind, learning needs to
be a part of your daily work, should be focused on personal and
organizational goals, should result in root-cause analysis,
knowledge-sharing and an opportunity to effect change. This article
will highlight 5 key steps that you must take to get on a
path to Performance Excellence.

***Daily Reflection - Reflection is a powerful and effective tool
for developing yourself. We often get lost in the day-to-day
shuffle and forget to take inventory of our own accomplishments and
opportunities for improvement. As the CEO of your career, you must
put a plan in place that will allow you to become laser-focused on
you and your success. Making reflection a part of your daily plan
gets you fully cemented in the process and increases your chances
for success. Give yourself a five-minute daily dose of development
through reflection.

***Create Your Own Big BANG! (Bold, Ambitious, Noble, Goal) You must
create a visionary goal that employs excellence and empowers great
performance on a grand scale. In order to successfully create and
execute a Big BANG, you must have a raw ambition that shows you are
ready to catapult your career to new heights. You must have an
internal sense of urgency about achieving results. First, you must
stop settling for less and develop a disciplined breakthrough
mindset that allows you to move out of your comfort zone and be
prepared when opportunities present themselves. Start by asking
yourself this question: What ambitious goal, circle of influence or
objective must you achieve in order to create a Big BANG? From
there, you must take decisive action to make that ambition a SMART
goal - (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time-bound).

***Ask for and proactively seek feedback and feedforward - Feedback
and Feedforward are gifts - Use them to your advantage! While it
may be tough to ask for and accept initially, soliciting feedback
from your peers and colleagues can prove to be very rewarding.
However, you must be careful to ask for feedback from those who
truly have your best interest at heart. A speaker once
shared with me something about asking for feedback at seminars. He
cautioned me to not be complacent with the feedback that I
receive from workshop evaluations. The reason is that those in
attendance do not have a vested interest in seeing me succeed.
This translates into little to no incremental value to helping me
continue to improve my offerings. Of course, a big part of that
process is in asking the right questions but even so, it's a point
well taken.

This is so true and the same thing applies to you when
asking for feedback. Feedback typically focuses on past behaviors
and allows you to reflect and learn. However, when you pair that
with feedforward, you have a true formula for success. Feedforward
is a term that was coined by Marshall Goldsmith and he developed it
on the premise that you can not change the past but you can
certainly influence the future. Feedback helps you learn and grow
from your mistakes while feedforward helps you focus on positive
actions for future development. Get feedback and feedforward from
those who truly want to see you succeed.

***Get a Mentor/Professional Coach - Serious Goals Require Serious
Action. Put your career growth strategy into overdrive by getting a
mentor and/or professional coach. The difference between the two is
that a mentor is volunteering their time to assist you on an
informal basis while a professional coach is paid to assist you in
developing a roadmap for career success. Don't let a financial
investment in self prevent you from working with a coach who will
be committed and dedicated to seeing you reach your full potential.
Mentors are great resources as well and if you manage the
relationship and expectations properly, it could result in you
making that next career move -- whether it be within or external to
the organization.

***Own, Execute, Recalibrate and Have Fun - You've Got the Ball -
Now Move With It! Now that you are motivated and determined to take
full ownership and accountability for your success, you must
implement the plan, check for any bumps along the way by inspecting
what you expect, recalibrate where necessary and keep it moving.
But most importantly, you must fuel the process with energy,
excitement and fun. The only way to do so is to have a relentless
passion for whatever you are pursuing.

5 Tips for Influencing Without Authority

Today I'd like to share with you five ways to influence others in
order to get what you want AND create win:win outcomes.

Leadership has taken on new meaning and greater challenges in the
last decade. Influencing is a critical skill that must be mastered
simply because we work with a multitude of people. Often times, the
people that we work with may have different goals and agendas and
in order to establish meaningful win-win outcomes, you must know
how to influence without making it feel like a power or authority
struggle. Below are five key things that you must do in order to
effectively lead and influence others.

**Know What You Want - Start with the end in mind. It sounds pretty
simplistic but sometimes it's not. You must clearly know what the
end state is and what outcome you desire. Once you have this
figured out, you have to be able to master the art of articulation
and speaking on what you want. This will be even more critical if
you know that some people will not agree with what you are
presenting. Often times, the difference between getting what you
want is knowledge and assertiveness versus none at all.

If you have a hard time stating what you want, use a three step
process to get it done:

1. State your observations. These are the facts and things that can
be
seen and heard. Observations are different from opinions. Facts are
objective and can not be argued.

2. State your thoughts and feelings about the situation. Be sure to
start each of these statements with the word "I" so that it's clear that these are your
opinions.

3. State what you want the other person to do. If you
truly want the door to be open to alternative solutions, make
statements about your needs rather than presenting solutions up
front. If you state the solution too early, it might close the door
on other possible alternatives.

**Be Proactive and Build a Power Base - Build a foundation for
influence before you need it. Having a good power base of
relationships with others will make influencing a much easier task.
Be proactive and do not wait until you need something to start
showing an interest in what others are doing. Build all around
positive relationships both vertically and horizontally. This means
that you establish rapport and build relationships with everyone
from the receptionist to people at higher levels within the
organization or community. Most importantly, act with integrity and
work to earn the trust of your colleagues.

**Inspire Cooperation to Overcome Resistance - Do your research so
that you can anticipate reactions and be prepared to address them.
If you know in advance how people are likely to respond to your
proposition or idea, you will be better prepared to deal with their
reactions or resistance. A few things that you must do are to
determine whose support you absolutely need to have and speak with
others to clearly understand what you need to do to get their
buy-in. Identify peers or others who may have some insight about
that person's purpose and values and ask for insight. Ask for
feedback from those you trust and anyone else who may be involved.
Keeping these things in mind will allow you to get meaningful
commitments.

**Go In to Win With An Agreeable Exchange - Ensure that your
position addresses the needs of others. Research, research, research is the
key here. If you go in with the goal of creating a win/win outcome,
getting the buy-in or mindshare of others will be much easier. Be
sure to think of everyone that you proposal will affect not just
the key stakeholder. Consider their concerns and how you might
address them in your proposal. Offer something of value in
exchange. It's a give and take world and knowing this up front will
increase your overall chances of success.

**Continued Skill Building - Now that you've had experience with
using this process to win someone over, continue building on your
expertise. Look for small projects where you can use your
influencing skills and create more wins for yourself. This will get
you prepared for the day that the "BIG" idea shows up. You'll now
be equipped with the skill, knowledge and confidence
that you need to tackle it with ease.

Self Assessment & Action Steps:

Think about your own career and the position that you currently
hold. Now really dig deep, be honest and ask yourself the
following questions:

I place a premium on being able to positively influence others.

___ Yes ___ No

I thoroughly do my research before any meeting where I am trying
gain the mindshare of others.

___ Yes ___ No

I work hard to build alliances throughout the organization and/or
community so that I will have the support that I need before I
actually need it.

___ Yes ___ No

I proactively seek feedback vertically and horizontally throughout
the organization on any and all influencing initiatives. When I
receive that feedback, I take what's useful and relevant and put a
plan into place to work it.

___ Yes ___ No

I have a mentor or professional coach to assist me and give me
guidance and feedback.

___ Yes ___ No

I am fully accountable for my level of success. I own it, take
action and celebrate when I win.

___ Yes ___ No

For every yes, please write specifically what you are currently
doing that makes it effective. Now look for opportunities to build
upon these engagements to help continue to grow and develop. What
will you do next?

For every no, please write one thing that you will do to implement
this into your career development strategy. Be very specific and
give yourself a deadline to get it done. Once you have it done,
celebrate your success AND come back to this email and answer
the questions to the Yes scenario above.

Until next time...

Felicia

Unleash the Chaos in Your Career

I've finally released my latest Career Acceleration FASTPak and guess what I'm giving it away for free. Pick up your FREE COPY of 'Hardwired for Success - Understanding Your Career DNA' by sending an email to ChaosUnleashed@prosender.com. Be sure to check your email right afterwards as I'll be sending you the link to grab your own free copy.

I'm giving it away for free but I need to ask you one small favor:

My goal is to reach at least 500 more folks who need to remove the chaos out of the career and get positioned in a job that fits them like a glove. This FASTPak will definitely get you on the right track but I need your help in getting the word out. So what I need is very simple and actually quite painless. If you could please invite your friends and colleagues to pick up their own copy by emailing ChaosUnleashed@prosender.com.

Until next time...

Felicia

It's Official - FR^EE Teleclass Details

Kick Your Career Into High Gear! - Understanding Your Career DNA FR^EE Teleclass

**Please share this with a friend or colleague who may have an interest**

Date: Thursday ~ July 20, 2006

Time: 3pm PST

Register: http://snipurl.com/stwr

Dial-in Details: Will be provided to the first 20 registrants one day before the class. However, you will receive a confirmation email immediately to notify you if you are one of the first 20 to register. So grab your seat FAST!

Can't make it at this time? Use this link: http://snipurl.com/su37 to order the audio recording of this information-packed class for only $9.99. Your mp3 audio will be delivered to your email immediately after the class.

Class Overview:

Imagine what it would be like to have a fulfilling career that meets your needs and keeps you inspired, motivated and growing. Imagine being in a job that you truly enjoy because you chose it and you're having a profound impact on someone or something in some way. In this teleclass, you will understand your Desires, Needs and Assets and how you can get them met by mapping them to a strategy that defines your ideal job.

This class is for anyone looking for career direction or wanting greater fulfillment in their work but need help figuring out how to make it happen. Why settle for less when you can have a career that keeps you fulfilled and you are passionate about.

Your Session Leader Profile: 

Felicia has more than 13 years of human resource and executive coaching experience which includes working for several high profile organizations in multiple industries. Through this experience she's worked with top-level executives, frontline management as well as individual contributors. She's taken this experience and developed a first-class professional development organization where she continues to coach busy executives helping them to maximize their full potential. Her experience also includes public speaking at conferences and seminars, developing and leading workshops and adding subject-matter expertise as a writer for many online and offline communities.

COACHING PHILOSOPHY

Her coaching philosophy is focused on you providing the flexibility needed for you to be in the drivers seat on final decisions about your career. However, she provides guidance and quality tools to support your decisions. Felicia admits that she is a 'Do More:Get More' person and will push you out of your comfort zone in order to build your capabilities and strengthen your overall capacity for career success. Her unique style of coaching will cause you to move at breakneck speed, change your thinking around how much success is within your reach and put you in the position to compete flawlessly in the job market! She's personally committed to helping you execute a career marketing plan that gets you fully Top Graded and puts you in the top echelon (top 35%) of those that hiring managers seek. Working with Felicia, you will have fun while getting results!

Felicia is in the process of finalizing her first solo book Career Chaos UNLEASHED!^tmdue to be released in January 2007.

NOTE: These free teleclass sessions are an introduction to the Career Chaos UNLEASHED!^tm teleclass series to be offered in conjunction with the release of my new book. This is my group coaching program that is hard-wired to level the playing field, increase your career ROI & overall marketability and allow you to compete flawlessly in the marketplace.

I look forward to having you join me on the call.

To Your Success!

Felicia

3 Keys to Doubling Your Career ROI

Being in the Power Seat of your career takes lots of careful planning. It's like a game of chess where you must use your critical thinking skills to understand your opponents position before making your next move. If you want to truly up the ante on your value to the organization, try adding these three things to your toolkit:

• Get to Know the Lay of the Land: Find out who the key players are, get to know them and have them know you by contributing something of value. This contribution doesn't have to be anything big but it certainly must be of value to that player. Something that makes them stop and say..hmm, let's chat more about that.
• Move In the Direction of Organizational Pull: Find out what the organization values most and orchestrate your moves and dialogue in that direction. What value statements do they have prominently displayed throughout the organization via internets, intranets, policies etc..
• Reach for the Low-Hanging Fruit First: Before you go trying to conquer the world and disrupt the whole environment, reach for the low-hanging fruit to create some small-wins for yourself. This will then be used as leverage for you to get the credibility you need, build momentum and get a few 'key player' cheerleaders standing behind you when you go for something even bigger.

If you start putting these things into practice on a consistent basis, your value to the organization as well as your marketability to will increase two-fold if not more.

Felicia

Use Quarterly Themes to Create a Legacy in Your Career!

The third quarter is staring us in the eye and before your know it, we'll be headed into the new year. Do you know what HIGH IMPACT projects you will tackle over the next six months? If not, I'd suggest you kick things into high gear, grab a sheet of paper and start mapping out your plan. What career legacy do you want to leave this year?

If this sounds like a daunting task, it doesn't have to be. Why not make the process fun by creating a theme for your projects over the next two quarters. Pick 2-3 solid heavy hitter initiatives per quarter and wrap a theme around them to keep you focused, motivated and excited. As a high performing Sales Executive, your theme might be "Exceed, Build & Develop" which sets your intention to Exceed your quota, Build your client relationships through some sort of 'exclusive' event only for clients and a few of their trusted colleagues and continue to Develop your sales mastery by attending a seminar or workshop. It's that simple.

Imagine how proud you will be when you have the opportunity to toot your own horn in your next career expansion discussion with your boss. You'll be armed and ready with the vices you need to prove your worth and confidently ask for what you deserve.

Now go out and make it happen!

Felicia

Five Kickass Ways to Get in the Esteemed Top 35% Network

I know many of you may be saying "The Top 35% Network" - What the hell is that?  Well pay close attention because if you are even remotely serious about being seen as a much needed commodity in the corporate world, this is the club you want to be in. This is the esteemed network that employers tap into when looking to develop succession plans and build their bench strength both internal and external to the organization. This network is comprised of 'A' and 'B' players within a given salary range for a specific job. Who are the 'A' and 'B' players? These are the creme de la creme, top tier and best talent in the marketplace. They are in demand and can demand the highest levels of pay within their compensation range.

Brad and Geoff Smart are the creators of a process known as Topgrading which simply dictates that you fill every position in the organization with an 'A' or 'B' player. I had the distinct pleasure of attending one of their recent workshops in Colorado and these men really know their stuff. So much so that Jack Welch, the former head of GE, lived and breathed this methodology throughout the organization for EVERY position. 'A's' represent the top 10% of best-in-class performers in a particular compensation level for a specific position. 'B's' represent the next 25% and while we didn't mention the 'C's' they are below the radar.

So now you can see why joining the Top 35% Network is so crucial to your career success. Quite frankly, it can make or break you. The upside to not currently being in the network is that you have complete control over how you get there. Your membership status in this network can change instantly depending upon what type of work you are doing or projects you are assigned. Your ability to be an 'A, B, or C' player is in direct proportion to you choosing the right job with the right fit and continuing to accelerate your skills to keep you in the club. If you're unsure about where you stand within your company, here are five kickass ways to clear things up for you:

1. Just Ask....I know it sounds pretty elementary but schedule that dreaded one to one discussion with your manager and ask them where you stand. Talk about current project successes and failures, job expectations and growth opportunities.
2. Maximize the Value of the Moment...Ensure that you are using your time wisely and spending it on BIG RETURN initiatives. The velocity at which you move to create valuable wins with a true strategic impact on the business will dictate how fast you become a member of the network.
3. DIG In...Don't be afraid to go against the grain and be Daring, Innovative and Gutsy in all that you do. Your rate of growth acceleration will only speed up when you start doing things differently and stretching beyond your normal capacity.
4. Leverage Relationships...Although your actions and results will gain you some credibility, getting into the Top 35% Network is not a one person show. You must learn to get interconnected with key centers of influence by cultivating positive relationships. You have to be able to enlist the help of others and you can start by demonstrating good will and giving. Offering to help in other areas where your expertise can be put to good use but can also get you additional visibility.
5. Keep Your Foot on the Accelerator...Become a student of lifelong learning and you'll even start to surprise yourself at the things that you can and will accomplish. Enough said!

Are you a member of the Top 35% Network? If not, you're at risk of being demoted or replaced by someone who is -- losing your seat at the table. Wanna get in the network?  Contact me to get the skinny on my Coaching Career Asset Management Program that teaches you all that you need to know about getting in the network and more.

To your success!

Felicia

5 Things You Must Have in Your Career Portfolio

Are you at the end of your rope and considering exploring other career opportunities? If so, I'd like to share with you what I feel are the five most critical things to have in your Portable Career Portfolio before you jump ship. With things in the corporate sector moving at breakneck speed, change is always inevitable. When that change starts to effect you and you decide that you've had enough of the changes in that environment, you need to be prepared to spread your wings and start an aggressive search for landing your feet on solid ground elsewhere. Below is a list of things that you should constantly be filling your arsenal with while you prepare for your transition:

• A Powerfully Branded Resume that speaks and breathes you and what you represent. Your resume should present you as a 'hot commodity' with all of the key attributes that your target market seeks.
• A Collection of KUDO's that show full endorsement of the work that you have been doing. When you receive them, they may not seem like a big deal at the moment but trust me when I say they carry their weight in gold and will actually help you to beef up your resume.
• A running list of Key Accomplishments converted into CARS statements:  C = Challenge; A = Action; R = Results; S = Strategic Impact to the business.
• A well-crafted Employment Proposal Template - this is a key differentiator that shows that you have not only looked at and analyzed the job for the right fit but you're also prepared to demonstrate exactly what you can bring to the table in that environment for that particular job.
• A One-Page Career Summary that passes the 30-second skim. With resumes coming in astounding amounts for one job, you need to have a solid one-page sales sheet that will get you the interview that you're seeking.

Adding these five things to your career portfolio will put you ahead of the curve, place you one step above your competition and get you prepared for your journey to finding new employment or getting that 'more exciting' job with your current employer. All of these things and more are covered in my 12-Week Coaching CAMP an accelerated Career Asset Management Program^tm. If you want more details, feel free to email me at felicia@women-ceo.com.