CARVE YOUR SUCCESS KEY
CARVE YOUR SUCCESS KEY
Work is like that too. It's fraught with differences of opinion. One of the more confusing areas can involve your performance. Early in my career, my boss told me my communication skills needed improvement. Five months later, a new boss heralded the same skill-set as a significant strength. While one might conclude I'd focused on developing skills in a weak area, that wasn't the case. The difference was their opinion.
But opinion is not fact. It's helpful, useful and important feedback to evaluate, assess and incorporate if appropriate. Just because someone thinks something is one way or another, doesn't make it true. It turns out, I built my career using communication strengths I knew by then I possessed.
Unfortunately, noted weakness areas for many people carry a greater feeling of career significance than acknowledged accomplishments or strengths. But people who are winning at working know that's backwards. They understand that finding and maximizing strengths is a success key.
While minimizing weaknesses can be important, lasting success is achieved by maximizing strengths. People who are winning at working practice, learn and stretch themselves, working to hone their talents into exceptional performance. They focus on developing their abilities to higher levels of expertise. That's where career payoff happens.
You see, when you enhance what you do well naturally, you shine. When you find and maximize your gifts, you carve your unique success key. And when you build your self-knowledge, you lay a foundation to guide you through the winds of opinion.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't work on needed areas of growth or develop other skill-sets. That's important too, but in perspective. An Olympic-hopeful sprinter can best achieve her goals by magnifying her running ability, not developing her archery prowess. Some weaknesses are unimportant. Improving others might elevate your strengths. As the German proverb reminds us, "one must carve one's life out of the wood one has."
In twenty years in management, I watched people make strategic mistakes in their careers by trying to improve weaknesses, instead of building on strengths. They spent too much time on what they didn't do well; too little polishing and enhancing what they did. They allowed opinion, rather than self-knowledge, to dictate their direction.
But people who are winning at working apply a different strategy. They understand that what they focus on expands. So they concentrate their primary efforts on their strengths. They continuously work to improve what they do well, enlarging their natural abilities as they expand their career. Want to be winning at working? Carve your success key from your strengths.
(c) 2006 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.
CARVE YOUR SUCCESS KEY - To learn more about this author, visit Nan Russell's Website.
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I had just finished commenting to my husband how much I liked the use of copper in the Parade of Homes' kitchen we were touring, when I overheard another woman telling her husband how much she disliked the look. It made me laugh. It's funny how we see things differently.
Work is like that too. It's fraught with differences of opinion. One of the more confusing areas can involve your performance. Early in my career, my boss told me my communication skills needed improvement. Five months later, a new boss heralded the same skill-set as a significant strength. While one might conclude I'd focused on developing skills in a weak area, that wasn't the case. The difference was their opinion.
But opinion is not fact. It's helpful, useful and important feedback to evaluate, assess and incorporate if appropriate. Just because someone thinks something is one way or another, doesn't make it true. It turns out, I built my career using communication strengths I knew by then I possessed.
Unfortunately, noted weakness areas for many people carry a greater feeling of career significance than acknowledged accomplishments or strengths. But people who are winning at working know that's backwards. They understand that finding and maximizing strengths is a success key.
While minimizing weaknesses can be important, lasting success is achieved by maximizing strengths. People who are winning at working practice, learn and stretch themselves, working to hone their talents into exceptional performance. They focus on developing their abilities to higher levels of expertise. That's where career payoff happens.
You see, when you enhance what you do well naturally, you shine. When you find and maximize your gifts, you carve your unique success key. And when you build your self-knowledge, you lay a foundation to guide you through the winds of opinion.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't work on needed areas of growth or develop other skill-sets. That's important too, but in perspective. An Olympic-hopeful sprinter can best achieve her goals by magnifying her running ability, not developing her archery prowess. Some weaknesses are unimportant. Improving others might elevate your strengths. As the German proverb reminds us, "one must carve one's life out of the wood one has."
In twenty years in management, I watched people make strategic mistakes in their careers by trying to improve weaknesses, instead of building on strengths. They spent too much time on what they didn't do well; too little polishing and enhancing what they did. They allowed opinion, rather than self-knowledge, to dictate their direction.
But people who are winning at working apply a different strategy. They understand that what they focus on expands. So they concentrate their primary efforts on their strengths. They continuously work to improve what they do well, enlarging their natural abilities as they expand their career. Want to be winning at working? Carve your success key from your strengths.
(c) 2006 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.
CARVE YOUR SUCCESS KEY - To learn more about this author, visit Nan Russell's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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