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.