10 Career Accelerator “Commandments...”

10 suggestions to put your career on steroids and a super fast track trajectory.

Take responsibility: ask for it as early and as often as you can. Work out how to spin more plates, demonstrate to all around you that you have the bandwidth to take on more.  If you smash personal performance whilst still owning tasks, projects and even developing other people, you’re a great player to have on the team and you are proving there is no obvious glass ceiling to cap expectations of you or your ambitions.

“I’m really interested in the new marketing project, can I help with any part of it, Boss...”?

Try it today...

Be consistently consistent and resilient as fxck. There is nothing more frustrating as having staff who need regular maintenance and demonstrate “flaky” behaviours. Unreliable people get left behind very fast. People who can’t deal with the lows in business, those who sulk, feel hard done by or blame others soon find they are overtaken as bosses want to surround themselves with talent that is a “gain” not a drain on their time & resources.

On your vision: commit time, genuine effort and a positive mental attitude. Don’t play at managing your career, it requires total dedication to put your career on the right trajectory and even more to keep it there as you fast track through the ranks! Don’t think it’s a part time “occupational hobby”, it is all consuming and those who love and support you need to be fully onside with this. Your career is a team effort.

Delegate any and everything you can to those in your hub ASAP. Take on responsibilities from above but share tasks out to give your #bouncebackability next layer their opportunity to learn and develop (strengthening the hub and relationships). Make yourself redundant quickly so that you can do the things you need or want to do. Show people what you want done, give them the skills, support them and measure their success. It’s worth the effort, they will master and even improve upon the tasks you share with them. Never be a bottle neck - that will cement the dreaded career glass ceiling in place!

Educate yourself: define your path to success (learn from great people around you or create a knowledge network), then avoid reading too many business books because they’ll conflict and confuse you and your plan. Once you truly understand what will work for you in terms of performance, refine it and “own” it.  Build your reputation as a consistent and constant revenue contributor, this will elevate your area of impact and influence massively.

Learn from the best then try to be better...

Be the best version of you: become this by adding more strings to your bow.  Make yourself desirable and give yourself options. To become a shareholder or to start a business of your own you need to tick many more boxes than just being able to sell (the time you had before to deliver top performance will get robbed from you). You need to understand how to build strategic, tactical & operational plans, how to lead, how to win hearts and minds (not just boss people), finance & cash forecasts, marketing; all the aspects of the job across front, middle & back office and how to “inspire” confidence in your bosses, investors, clients and staff. Don’t freestyle this, it’s a short cut people often take and the reason for them hitting a career brick wall.

Get Jiggy With It: the most successful people are super agile, change and perpetually look for new ways of doing things, new things to do and things to stop doing! Nothing should become dull; remember there are armies of competitors looking to steal your business but becoming an “agent of change” means people will rely on you to lead the really important projects which is a life skill for whatever direction you take your career. Take small achievable steps to big goals - this way you can road map a change process and avoid scaring people.

Be happy: happy people make money so have fun! Enjoy what you do and smile loads, it’s infectious and people will smile back - that’s when the magic happens! As a leader you’re in a privileged position; if you can’t be happy at work you have zero chance of people wanting to emulate your achievements or graft for you because, well, what’s the point?

Win hearts and minds by “catching” people doing things right more often than doing things wrong.  Stamp on mood hovers instantly - they are culture killers.  Be a cool person to be around and welcome and send people home with hugs and smiles and thank you’s.  Remember that a sense of humour is important.

Be prepared: prep properly and don’t wing anything. I still prep for every call, every meeting, I write lists about lists & script myself if needs be. Know your MI & numbers intimately, never be left exposed because people are trusting in you to know the way forward and this is paramount in building credibility. 

Do everything to the best of your ability and find the time to be impressive at every given opportunity. Even when you think it doesn’t matter it does. Doing more than was required is a million times better than under preparing.

Have inner belief: it’s imperative to have the cocky confidence of an F1 driver to really maximise your career. Many people suffer imposter syndrome and you need to shut them up by surrounding yourself with strong personalities & believers in you; people you are inspired by and who you trust. There is no magic formula to switching on confidence except “knowing you know” what you’re doing and knowing you are on the right path. Inner belief = sexy outcomes!

We are all built with the exact same level of inner confidence and drive, but circumstances can impact this.  If you’re not feeling it the #RDLC can bring this back for you with a team of peers on your side; super smart people giving you advice daily and subject matter experts on tap.