10 ways to stay on top of your career.

Lately there has been so much written and talked about how millennials are either going to have a tough time building their career or people should not assume they could hang on to their jobs till they retire or that their jobs won't go obsolete. Further that #millennials and #GenZ prioritise passion and purpose in their job more than other incentives.

Generalisations aside, there is a bit of truth in every bit of it. As much as the fundamentals of marketing don't change, my belief is the same hold through for personal development and drive.

I feel compelled to write this because I feel strongly that some discussions (online and offline) are misplaced and questions asked by fresh grads (not claiming this is true worldwide) are not taking them on a path where they could make sound decisions. After all isn't the problem about making the right decisions about one's future?

Context is necessary here as it is also my firm belief that the following is true. Baby boomers like myself did have greenfield opportunities that might not be as available today. For example, at the age of 29, I could be posted to run Acer Italy with no corporate guidance and no global systems or even check & balance because the company was not world-class global-ready enough. I could decide what products I wanted to sell or not sell and basically called all shots provided I met 2 criteria - i) do not do anything crazy; ii) pay HQ within 60 days or product supply would be cut off just as if you were any customer. I could also tell you more about how I learnt about outsourcing(to IBM) when our warehouse was robbed of US$1million of goods within the first month of my relocation and how I turned around the company by increasing the price of the product and reducing the number of customers / regions. (P.S. I was paid 10% on profits on top of an expat package.)

But let's jump to practical tips of how I built my career - without planning for it like most ambitious or title-conscious people - which led me to where I am at now, being in a position to give forward to the #startup community as the @Startup Asia Women community founder. (and I lost $1 million on 2 properties I purchased when I was younger)

1. Direction. How could I know, what I know now, then? Would I have seriously heeded anyone's advice then, not that there was much emphasis on #mentorship as we massively evangelise it today? I knew in my teens I wanted to leave #Singapore because I had the sense it was too small for me. I didn't have the luxury of family travels at an early age but I knew there was a bigger world out there when I found myself being very keen to show tourists around town (then). I knew I would stay in the IT industry because it paid the best even though I was not motivated by money. Further down the road, I knew I should go through the whole spectrum of IT from PC to mainframe to mini to networking to broadband to dot-com to mobile. Having said that I didn't know what Yahoo! was when the headhunter presented the job but I was fortunate to then attend a seminar the same day hosted by Ogilvy who was talking about Yahoo! (I picked up the phone and called the headhunter back right away).

Tip: If you dont know what you want, at least know what you don't want. Try general directions which may not be so daunting eg. big vs small teams, general vs specialised roles, customer-facing vs back office, regional vs local, operations vs strategic, etc. (it does not mean this direction will determine the rest of your life but it is a start).

2. Ownership. Job descriptions were probably less complexed and less skills-based in the 90s and before. Even so, I differentiated myself by never asking for a JD and if one were given to me, I re-wrote it and owned it. Bosses then really knew less than who they hired (and I didn't know more when I was hired but I made sure I knew more than them after being on the job) and this may be only applicable to IT industry in days back.

3. Dare (to play). There was less competition (at the playing field I strolled into)- I would even put it to you - for jobs that were unchartered and challenging. People were less eager to re-locate. I was headhunted for every job after my first job and every job I did I never did before. Here's the feedback that I got from headhunters when I told them that there are far more qualified people in functional areas I was hired for : a) you have Profit/Loss record which others dont (that was valued then); b) you have regional experience (I decided early on I could pack up and go anytime. It's a price to pay at that time and it's a value I enjoy now. Take your pick.) ; c) you place corporate passion and brand above individual and department interests.

4. Positioning. This is what people classify as personal branding these days thanks to digital. Back then we didn't have the platforms and broadcasting convenience. To me, they are not the same. Knowing who you are and who you want to be and what you can offer -- that is positioning. When I first moved overseas to Taiwan to work for Acer, I was the only English speaking employee in a 2000 Taiwanese-dominated headquarter. The first positioning was made for me which landed me additional duties (not my job description) such as writing CEO and all SVP speeches and presentations and the opportunity to travel alongside the CEO (I was only 25 years old). That early grounding into global and brand vision is hardly replicable in the corporate roles now (but possible in startups). What was the #positioning I made to myself as I step out of a small city to a big foreign country and a headquarter factory-like environment? I told myself I will respond to any request via letter or phone or cc:mail (there was no www. or yahoo! or google then) - still green / orange screens. CREDIBILITY was and has been my positioning. I have maintained that positioning till today -across diverse channels.

5. (Paid to) learn. I have never asked for a pay increase because it was always given to me. Within 3 months of my first serious job (I had 4 jobs within my first year of graduation which were not even listed in my CV or profile), I had a 25% pay increase from an already pretty good base. The rare time I negotiated was when I transitioned from Acer Italy to IBM South East Asia because the former had a profit bonus component plus expat subsidy whilst the latter was a different kind of performance-based bonus on local terms. I go to work with the gratitude that the company pays for me to learn and make mistakes and discover who I am. I even go so far as to say "I am overpaid". This was a state of mind I chose to put myself in (without mentorship or how-to articles googling). When I left O2 (where I launched the first windows smartphone, way before iPhone), they hired 4 people to replace me. At no point have I felt I was over-worked even though I worked 7 days a week 90% of the year for 2 decades. This is because I relish the opportunity to learn on the job and the kind of breakthroughs I was riding on could have had only come once every cycle. It was a direction that guided me which I stuck to (go back to point 1.)

6. Articulate. My driving force was seeing all the Americans being so good at small talk and presentations. There was something in me that questioned why could we (Asians) not be as good. Do not underestimate this. So much is blamed on the hiring manager or company for discriminating and not giving you a fair chance. Ask yourself if you have articulated your positioning, your value, your attitude well at formal interviews or informal networking. Packaging is in. Being able to articulate how you did what you did with utmost passion was what incentivised recruiters to connect me to the next job.

Tip: Find that fighting spirit. If you are not good at something, or not good yet, find something negative that would drive you to fight against. (this is not for everyone.) Before I went to New York, I was no good at small talk. Now I believe I can talk to anyone. Sometimes you do need to uproot from your current situation and significantly push the envelope.

7. Consistency. Perhaps this is the stage where you are beginning to brand yourself. You have a track record or you can connect the dots of your cumulative experience. Where you stand for something. Being good at point 6. is a bonus. One personal motto I subscribe to is "I will not stay at a job for the sake of staying." Back then we did not have all the vehicles and possibilities to exercise individual sense of influence on a global scale within seconds. To have #Linkedin publish and share our stories as this one, mentors open doors for you or have networking activities who will propagate your interests and expertise.

8. Never too "busy". "Busy" is a 4 letter-word that is taboo for me. When you tell someone you are busy, you are not only telling them they, or what they have to share with you, is not important and you close off on knowing or learning something you would not even have known you had missed. I believe in finding time. And that for me means finding time to discover things I don't already know, things that may help me in my current or future prospects. By being in the mode of "creating time", you also learn to be more productive by asking yourself how you could fit a new project in. It's a different kind of self-push (not to the point of burnout).

9. Calibrate. Broadly speaking, I simply mean think (reflect, contemplate, introspect) about why you do what you do. One of my ex-bosses shared that I ponder and come up with much insights because I used to spend quite a bit of time in the plane in my regional jobs. The airtime puts me in a state of focused contemplation. It is important to re-calibrate time to time, perhaps even "re-invent". Prior to coming back to Singapore end 2016, I posted on facebook very few times in a year. My motto was not to announce to anyone where I am at anytime. I barely used Linkedin and now Linkedin is a lifeline and a goldmine - for strategic connections, for making friends, for entertainment, for learning, for knowing the next big thing, etc. Now I want to be heard. But up until not very long ago, digital and social were not important to me. I even doubted I could even get a handle of it.

10. Drive & Focus. I could add a few more points after this and include "passion". From my experience, passion is both a trigger and a derivative and you kind of need both sides of the coin. If you think you are passionate about something but you do not have the drive to pursue and grow it, then you probably were not that passionate about it in the first place. If you are focused on developing some aspect of yourself or want to realise a talent or a dream, you will focus your entire being rather effortlessly, at least from a motivation point of view. Hard work is required to acquire the right skills and knowledge to realise what you are after but motivation is second skin to that passion. After I retired from corporate to pursue my personal life goals, I dabbled in fashion wholesale / retail for 6 years as well as wanting to enjoy "wifehood". I don't need much luxury to continue chasing corporate perks. At some point I probably thought I would not regain the kind of #mojo I had at Yahoo! and O2; particularly daunted by digital and perceiving that #startups are only for the young. Today I find myself unstoppable. I get my drive from thinking "Surely I cant be fazed by whats new given all the precious experience I have garnered in the past." (especially when you are also "people-wiser" with age). And by #PYOT putting myself out there, I have learnt so much more that I had not known before.

I would like to end with "one more thing" (in memory of #SteveJobs) : gratitude. I may not have lived through the hippie days but I am so glad I have lived through several cycles of technology breakthrough from the birth of PCs and laptops to the death of mainframes and minis, from people not willing to pay a cent for data to now people not being able to live without it, from #dotcom to startup to more glorious stuff to come. Babyboomer speak, its great to know how far we have come and how much good has been made to appreciate what we have and stay current of what's next.

#jobs #career #personaldevelopment #leadership

Author : Christina Teo (follow us on Linkedin @Startup Asia Women; facebook.com/StartupAsiaWomen)

August 12, 2017