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Do you feel that your career is stalled? It’s not that you don’t enjoy what you do, but you feel that if given the chance you could do so much more. If that’s you, it may be time to kick-start your career. Here are a few keys to success that you might want to give a shot.
Do the next job now.
Do you see another opportunity within your organization that you think you’d shine at? You need to get that mindset into the manager who’s going to make the decision on who will take over next. A good way to do that is to volunteer to take on more responsibility, including some of those which your target position does. Of course, you don’t want your performance to drop in your “day job”, but showing initiative to help out in another area is a good idea. And by performing well with those additional responsibilities, you’re planting the seed of an idea that you could handle that job! If that job doesn’t become available, but another does, you’ve shown you can handle more responsibility.
Is this a step up in the organization’s structure, maybe to a supervisory position? Then make sure to dress the part of the job you want to have, not the job you have now. Don’t discount the visual message that you’re sending by doing this – it does get noticed.
Under promise, over deliver.
You want to be superstar that always does more than expected and never falls short of delivering. When given a project, think about how you can do “one better” than what was assigned. Say you are to report on the history of a fundraiser as the first step in preparing for the next one. You can analyze the sources of revenue and look at expenses, but what about adding some graphs to the table of numbers? Can you think of what might help the next event by increasing revenues or cutting costs? Don’t just report on the comments collected about previous versions of the fundraiser, summarize the themes and make some recommendations on what issues could be addressed by doing something different.
Even if the expectation is that you’re only putting together a report for others to think about and make recommendations, take a chance and make some recommendations of your own. Not only are you over delivering, but you’re showing that you have the experience and insights to think strategically – a key attribute of success.
Seek out new ideas.
If you keep doing the same things you’re doing, interacting with the same people you come into contact with daily, and generally maintain the rut that you want to get out of, nothing will change. Make the effort to talk with and get ideas from a variety of people – especially people out of your normal circle of acquaintances. People love sharing what they know, so they’re going to be receptive to questions you ask. Remember the “Socratic Method” of learning? Well, turn it around and you be the one asking questions to soak up what you can learn. If you pick a good cross section of people to develop relationships with – including colleagues of different generations – you’ll get a great variety of input. Ask them what makes them successful. What part of their job is most rewarding? Have they had to develop special skills to be effective at what they do? How did they acquire those skills? What advice would they give someone wanting to do what they do?
You’ll be amazed at what you learn and how willing people are to help. But don’t stop at asking the questions, think through what you hear and consider how you can use it to prepare yourself for the next great challenge in your career!
