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Continuous Improvement for Career Stability and Growth


“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” - Vince Lombardi
To pick up a good career of your choice, you should have required formal education at degree/diploma level, from a recognized college or university. One needs to earn 3 to 4 years diploma /degree level education with a good grade. All employers have a very high standard of aptitude test and interview to select the best candidate. Generally, 30% to 40 % professionals can get their choice and rest have to try again with other recruiting agencies. They hope to gain some corporate exposure and switch the job in 2-3 years. The fee for private college or university is quite high and one cannot afford for regular full-time studies and moves for distance learning or online courses. In India and most Asian counties distance education is not at par with a regular degree. Therefore you should have under-graduate (3 or 4 years) degree as a regular student. Likewise, if you do any skill building or technical diploma/certificate level course, you must study in any mode but must get certified without which it will not be given required recognition. Always search for excellence and raise the bar. If you believe in mediocrity, you will not reach the top. You must continuously improve your knowledge, skills and creativity to stay relevant to the market. As a leader, you must always do your best and deliver excellent results on time and within budget, This will ensure customer’s delight and your organization will become a benchmark for others to perform well. Some basic steps leading to success are given below:
  • Learning is a lifelong process. To be a successful manager or team leader, you must be technically as well as administratively sound to manage knowledge workforce of today.  You should actively participate in seminars, conferences, workshops and professional forums. In fast-moving economy and pace of technology, you must remain updated to stay relevant. It is useful to get associated with various institutions/organizations to gain knowledge about emerging technologies, business practices and research work. This can provide you platform to showcase your talent/expertise and speed up your career growth
  • Continuous skills building. Fast changing technologies and business practices necessitate remaining up-to-date. You need to search and identify market demand for popular professional qualifications and skill sets and plan to fill the gaps in your CV. In emerging global education scenario, there are many online training courses offered by many universities, IITs and organizations like PMI, Agile/Scrum, MOOC, Future-learn, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle. Google.
  • Knowledge is a force multiplier.  Knowledge is a force multiplier and it impacts your performance and even your reaction. Lack of knowledge will make you hesitant to speak in public and even during any meeting/discussion. You are to have a good aptitude for a subject/skill and quick on the uptake to understand and absorb instruction/process. Some are born with good aptitude/memory while others may have to put extra effort to grasp the subject/instruction.  A famous quote is important An investment in knowledge pays the best interest “----. Benjamin Franklin
  • Technology Alignment. Various technologies are developing so fast and getting integrated into business solutions, that you need to adapt relevant technologies quickly and be proficient. You need to add on popular skill set and earn those certifications in your own time.
  • Idea Generation. Getting new idea is part of creative thinking. The idea need not be yours and it may be of any team member and it must be appreciated. Every idea may not be successful and you must be determined to make it work. Keep a small notebook in your pocket to note down ideas as these may occur to you. Do weekly/monthly sorting of recorded ideas to find doable and something out of the ordinary.  
  •  Experimenting idea. To find something new/innovate, you must develop a habit of lateral thinking and questing why not another way around, Once of you have an actionable idea, you must do an experiment on it to validate its suitability, Successful experiment will establish that your idea is workable and its product will be usable, safe, durable and cost-effective.
  • Innovation. Innovation is not an invention and it could be some modification, improvement in look-and-feel, different material, ease of operation. Innovation provides you lead in the market and sustainability of a business. Your employer/senior is always looking for new ideas /innovation to progress their business and that is the pathway to your success. Your market demand will grow and career will get quantum jump
  • Integration. As a manager, one of your prime roles is to integrate effort and subsystems to evolve a cost-efficient solution. It requires proper interfacing and readjusting for any incompatibility. A fully integrated team makes use of everybody’s talent/contribution and exceeds customer expectations.
  • Evolution, not Revolution: Evolve sustainable solution through collective efforts. Revolution leads to disruption and disturbance. Do not provide a solution to the team. Instead, involve them to showcase their talent and evolve a collective solution, built around their competency. This encourages team participation and synergy.
  • Earn to grow. There are great satisfaction and happiness in your working hard to earn it than to inherit or get it as a gift from family/friends. When you roll up your sleeves and sweat it out, your whole team gets inspired and follows you.
  • Effective. Your team must take you seriously and assigned task is executed faithfully to meet all requirements. The product or service when deployed must be effective to fully satisfy customer requirement. Similarly, your communication with peers, stakeholders or any audience must be clear and effective to create required impact.
  •  Efficient. One must be efficient while using his/her skills and get the best result with optimum effort. If you are efficient in your job, you will be able to complete job within scheduled time and with no cost/time overruns. Similarly, the product you deliver must perform to its full efficiency and easy to operate.
  • Emotional Stability. As a team member you must deal on facts while making any decision and not be moved by any emotion. There are people who are oversensitive and get emotionally disturbed on a very small issue at their workplace or even at home. You have to control your emotion and stay calm, Now a days, the employer  gives more importance to Emotional Quotient (EQ) than Intelligence Quotient (IQ) .They have an expert to evaluate your EQ during selection process.
  • Endurance and sustainability. You are to develop capacity to work/travel for long hours which demand good health and determination. You could be attending late conferences or travelling to customers/vendors. Therefore you should develop a mental and physical robustness to sustain work pressure.
  • Self Believe and professional esteem. Your self esteem should be always high and there is no need to worry or feeling depressed. You knowledge and determination should help you hold your head high and move on. Believe in your potential and concentrate your energies on the job in hand. A popular saying is ever true - “If you think you can, you can”.
  • Evidence of Actions. Whatever you do in any stage of your career at any position, let the result speak for itself. This requires evidence / proof of actions by you and the result obtained. As a leader/ manager, you must lead the team from the front with demonstrated performance, showing evidence of your competence. This is most inspiring for the team.
  • Demonstrated performance. Action and result speak louder than verbal announcement. A successful leader or manager; leads the team by personal example. This is the best evidence of your commitment to the job/project. Your conduct in the workplace and home should be exemplary.
  • Search for Excellence. In today’s highly competitive market, you need to be outstanding in any field of work. It applies at the time of entry into career and during entire service to climb the corporate ladder. Most of the employers have performance-based review and promotions. Therefore your search for excellence should continue, as you move from one level to the next.
  • Eye for details.  You should have a good eye for details and identify the essential and leave the rest. Time is a premium and what are essential need priority and your personal attention/participation. While walking through the hall or a site where your team is working, you should be able to capture a lot of information at a glance as to how are they focused on their job. Similarly, while referring to a document/file you should be very quick to go through without missing essential details. This saves lot of time and you take right and fast decision related to that document.
 “I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination”. Jimmy Dean
For more details refer my books: www.amazon.in 
1.        “ A2Z - 26 steps for assured success”

2.       “career challenges during global uncertainty”

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