Build yourself Above yourself

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference”. -- Winston Churchill

The determination is the power to succeed- don’t give up just keep going and cross the finish line.

Success is a very essential component of our life, in every field and at every stage. All parents wish and work hard to give the best possible education to their children and want them to do far better in their career and lead a better quality of life. As children progress to professional colleges and universities, in-home country/ abroad, things become costly and very competitive. Here young students learn basic education and theoretical concepts of the chosen field of interest. They also learn about personality development, coexistence and competing among students from diverse background, countries, states, social status, culture and financial backgrounds. Towards completion of their academic studies, they select a career as per their choice/ capability. Some do not get the right choice but pick up some job for immediate take off with a hope to switch for a better career as soon as possible. Some important aspects related to success are given in alphabetic order in the following sections:                                                                  

·         Alignment to Organizational Goal. As a new entrant in any organization, institution/department, you got to work hard to fit well with the team and learn on-the-job from those who are already there. You have to demonstrate a positive attitude, sense of commitment, dedication, and good application of knowledge/skills, duly aligned to the goals/objectives of the organization. As you move up the corporate ladder, you have to keep learning new skills, do multitasking and remain current to support your team and contribute significantly to achieving organization goals/objectives.

·         Attitude. In real-world, attitude is more important than aptitude. You should develop a more positive attitude towards people and events happening around you. You have to demonstrate positivity in your approach where you can convert risk into an opportunity and help in the growth of your organization.

·         Be the best. Whatever, whenever and wherever you do a task, it should be done with your best effort.  Although you can’t always get the expected result, yet you must do your very best.  Demand the best from yourself since others will demand the best of you. Similarly, demand the best of your team. Successful people don’t simply put in hard work but their best work to deliver on-time and within budget.

·         Change Agent. Most people have resistance to change and remain contented with status quo.  However, change is spice of life and when you feel stagnated, you should plan to shift and have new job which has better career growth. When you move out, you do carry the experience of the past job to new job and embed that knowledge appropriately to benefit the new organization. In a private job, you may be sent to various sites, locations or even other countries as per your career profile. As you are chosen to sidestep to a new job, you should accept it cheerfully and move on and not show inertia for remaining stuck in one location and in one job because of your comfort zone.

·         Contingency Plan, At times, events do not go as planned and, you should have a contingency plan (plan “B”). It is good to do scenario-based planning and carry out “What If analysis’. It helps to immediately put plan “B” into action if Plan “A” fails. This approach is followed during military operations, expeditions and any high risk activity. Liddell Hart wrote, “Take a line of operation which offers alternate objectives.” – As one of the eight guiding principles of military success.

·         Delegation to optimize. By judiciously delegating jobs/tasks among team members you can get the best out of each team member. Do not try to be “know-all” and do everything yourself, just because you think you only can do it meticulously. You should not become bottleneck holding backflow of project/job and under-utilize talent of other team members.

·         Determination. In any challenging job/task or race, it is the determined person who puts an extra bit to achieve the goal while others may quit just short of finishing line. In the words of George H.Lorimer “Go to bed with satisfaction and get up every morning with determination”.

·         Dreams.  You must have a dream and there is no limit since it is not controlled under any rule or regulation.  Dream gives you the inspiration to climb new heights.

·         Effective and Efficient. As a manager/team leader you are to be effective to control and direct the teammates to keep the project /task on track, Efficiency saves in cost/material and speeds up success.

·         Fast thinking and decision making. In today’s highly competitive global market, you are to think fast, take a faster decision, take faster action and move faster to the market to maintain business leadership. As a manager/team leader you are expected to deliver more with lesser resources and do it fast.  Faster does not mean go out of breath and collapse in a race but to remain alert, well informed, and take a fast but not hasty decision. You must anticipate and take proactive action to be ahead of your competitors. This will help to study the market trends and make the fast decision for winning strategy. In case you consider you are fast in thinking and action but your organization is slow in response to any change, you may move to another organization which is progressive and you will get more job satisfaction.

·         Forgiveness. It is the  best policy to forgive others and ignore their small mistakes, They will  become  more faithful and help in your achieving the  success

·         Goal achiever.  You must have a realistic goal and go for it with all the available efforts. Do not waver, remain focused and keep going.

·         Gratitude. It is a sign of maturity and good moral values to express your sincere gratitude towards the organization and your seniors who provide you with the opportunity to perform and grow.

·         Honesty. Being honest and loyal to the organization and teammates will strengthen trust and support for your growth.

·         Honour your commitment. As an employee, you are required to make a commitment and declare your Key Result Areas (KRAs). You should do regular self-audit as how are you moving ahead to fulfil your commitment.

·         Improvement.  Work for continuous improvement. There is no limit to improvement, so go for achieving the zenith.

·         Incentive for innovation. Encourage innovation and be happy to bear the cost. Allow team members to experiment with their new ideas and show creativity. Give good incentive even if it is a small idea.

·         Initiative. You are to lead to success. Instead of waiting for the phone to ring, you better pick up the phone and ring them up. Make things happen. Likewise, peace or happiness doesn’t just come. You are to create the right atmosphere for it.

·         Innovate to be the market leader. To stay ahead of your competitors, you and your team should be continuously looking out-of-the-box and evolve innovative solutions which attract the customers. Innovations are not long drawn discovery/ inventions but short and quick development of product/service to give better look and feel as well as better value for money to the customer. It could be doing different things than the existing ones or doing some things differently.

·         Integrity toward the organization. There are people who bring happiness to the organization when they join while few are those who give happiness as they leave the organization. You are to align yourself with the policies and goals of the organization and be part of the winning team. As long as you serve in an organization, you should be seen by others as fully committed to the customers, organization, seniors and inspiring teammates. Never leave an organization on a bad note even if you have resigned for personal reasons or your contract has not been renewed for the next term. This helps during your background check when you would apply for the next job.

·         Join hands. Joining hands draws a lot of synergies and ensure enduring association and business deals.

·         Leadership. . Leaders are not born, they are made. Be confident you too will be a successful leader. In the words of Charles Cooley –“All leadership takes place through the communication of ideas to the minds of others”. As a leader of a team, it is your ability to lead from the front, set the pace and take along the whole team to complete the journey/ Job.

·         Lessons from the past. It is very useful to learn from the past and plan for the future. Most successful organizations maintain records of various activities of past projects/services/products. A lot of lessons can be learnt both from failure and success of past projects/ventures. This encourages reuse of available assets and there is no need to waste effort in reinventing-the-wheel. Make sure you pick up the best out of job done by your predecessor and give him/her credit for that. Do not start from scratch for the sake of your ego. Winston Churchill had said “The further backward you look, the farther ahead you can see”.  It is not to be misunderstood with slowing down, rather he has stressed that learning from past improves your ability to imagine what lies in the future.

·         Life. Life is not a sprint but a long journey. Plan to have a good company, face obstacles as they may come, go around those and reach the destination as scheduled.

·         Listening to others. If you carefully listen to points made by others, you can pick up a lot of additional inputs to make you point of view stronger. While listing to someone, you should also watch the body language of the person talking to you. He/she will feel comforted because you listen to him/her. Good listing helps in better understanding of the issue being discussed and a better decision will emerge. This will also help in conflict management and maintaining a healthy work environment.

·         Love All. When you are in love with someone, expect less and give more. Love your organization, your seniors, your team, your job and your family. You will be ever happy and successful. Love begets love.

·         Manage Commitments. As a team leader/project manager, do not micro-manage your team. You should delegate work to the team and save your time for other important tasks/ responsibilities. Let your team members discuss and distribute work among them and report to you. You should rather seek commitments from team members and manage their commitments.

·         Motivation. If you stay motivated in doing your job, your teammates will follow you. To keep your team motivated and best performing, you should know them well, facilitate their job activities and take care of their welfare.

·         Ownership. If you own your organization, your team, your decisions, your job, you will put your heart and soul to achieve given targets without being reminded or supervised. If your own you will not let it down.

·         Price to pay. Nothing comes free. There is always a trade-off and you should be ready to pay /get the right price. Price can be monitory, physical hard work, a sacrifice of comforts. Remember famous quote - “No gain without pain”.

·         Promotion. Indeed we all need quick promotion to climb the next rung. Put all your efforts and resources to promote yourself but do not demote others. They too want promotions.

·         Risk-taking. Take a risk, grab the opportunity and do your best. Don’t bother what others say and be ready to face the outcome.

·         Running the race.  It does not matter whether you win or lose, what matters is participation in the race and completing it.

·         Skill Building.   Do not try to be a super-specialist in any one area as that would restrict your growth. Infect, you need a variety of exposure to take up higher job/responsibilities. Therefore keep learning new technologies and new business practices to stay relevant to emerging market scenario. Keep, upgrading your profile and enrich your portfolio to gain better mobility and success in career.

·         Strength of self. If you challenge yourself to take on a most difficult task, you may be happily surprised to discover what strengths you have. Always have faith in self.

·         Success is not final. Neither failure nor success is final. You learn more from failure than from success to get up, recoup and try again. Success neither just happens nor comes through your wishes.  It is you to make it happen by your determined actions.

·         Team wins. It is not you alone but your team which wins. It is all about how you groom and deploy your team.

·         Time.  Time is the most precious resource and it does not wait. You are to plan time-sharing and time-saving. Being on time and every time is the most important aspect of career growth.

·         Victory sharing. Victory comes through a shared vision and collective team effort. Give credit to others too.

·         Waiting to happen. Success happens by your determined effort. Instead of waiting for incoming call take initiative and you make a call. Always take initiative and be in the lead.

·         World of words.  Today’s world is of words. In any career, the words you speak and write matter a lot in winning people and doing business with them.


Dr Sarbjit  Singh,
Former Executive Director,  Apeejay College of    Engineering., Gurgaon,  Haryana, India