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Your #Career : 7 Things That Will Destroy Your Career… Most People Kill their Careers in Subtle, Decidedly Undramatic Ways. And It’s a Shame Because it Happens All the Time.

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There are so many things that can kill the careers of good, hard-working people. Honest mistakes often carry hard-hitting consequences.

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Most people  kill their careers in subtle, decidedly undramatic ways. And it’s a shame because it happens all the time.

A recent survey by VitalSmarts found that 83% of people had seen someone make a blunder that had catastrophic results for their career, reputation, or business, and 69% admitted that they themselves had done something that had damaged their careers:

• 31% said it cost them a promotion, a raise, or even a job

• 27% said it damaged a working relationship 

• 11% said it destroyed their reputation

These numbers show how damaging you can be to your own career if you’re not careful. There doesn’t have to be a single, sickening moment when you realize that you just shoved your foot firmly in your mouth, either. Little things can add up over time and undermine your career just as much as (or more than) one huge lapse in judgment. The good news is that if you stay aware of them, these are all things that you can control before they creep up on you and kill your career.

1. Playing politics. Working hard to build strong work relationships is very different from instigating conflict, choosing sides, undermining colleagues, spreading rumors, and all of the other things that fall under the umbrella of “playing politics.” Again, it comes down to authenticity. If you find yourself sneaking around or if you’re embarrassed if some of your behind-the-scenes manipulations come to light, that’s politics. Stick to strategies you’d be proud to discuss in front of your colleagues.

 

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2. Over-promising and under-delivering. It’s tempting to promise the moon to your colleagues and your clients, especially when you’re honest and hardworking and believe that you can do it. The problem is that there’s no point in creating additional pressure that can make you look bad. If you promise to do something ridiculously fast and you miss the deadline by a little bit, you’ll likely think that you did a good job because you still delivered quickly.

But the moment you promise something to someone, they expect nothing less. You end up looking terrible when you fall short, which is a shame, because you could have done the same quality work in the same amount of time with great results if you’d just set up realistic expectations from the beginning. This is one of those situations where perception matters more than reality. Don’t deliberately undershoot your goals; just be realistic about the results you can deliver so that you’re certain to create expectations that you will blow out of the water.

3. Complacency. How long has it been since you proactively learned a new skill, reached out to your networking contacts, or even polished up your resume? If you can’t remember, you might have become a bit complacent, and complacency is a real career killer. It’s what happens when you’re just along for the ride and assume that nothing will ever change. But we’ve seen enough disruption—technological and otherwise—over the last few years to realize that change is inevitable. If you’re always too busy to learn something new or to expand your network, you’ve got your priorities mixed up. However, if you make continuous growth and development a priority, you’ll be ready for whatever comes your way.

4. Fear of change. Fear of change is complacency’s evil twin. It actively works to keep things the same. I’m sure you’ve seen this one first hand at work when someone uttered the dreaded words, “But we’ve always done it this way.” Things are changing too fast these days to latch on so tightly to the status quo, and the costs of doing so can be huge.

In one survey, 91% of respondents said that the most successful employees are the ones who can adapt to the changing workplace. Change is a constant part of our lives, both personally and professionally. It doesn’t matter whether you think things should change or whether you prefer the old ways—change just is. You don’t have to learn to love it, but you do have to learn to stop resisting it and to start adapting to it.

5. Having an inflatable ego. Did you ever work with someone who had a string of successes and started thinking that they were the be-all and end-all of superstardom? Success is great. It definitely boosts your career, and it feels really, really good. The problems start once you let it go to your head. You start thinking that success is going to last forever and that you’re entitled to it. Never, ever be content with resting on your laurels. Once you start thinking that you’re the cat’s meow, you’re setting yourself up for very painful failure.

6. Low emotional intelligence (EQ). Everyone knows that you can get fired for being unable or unwilling to play nicely with others, but what trips up a lot of people is having a poorly developed poker face. If everyone can tell when you’re bored or irritated or that you think something a colleague says is stupid, this will catch up with you. Emotional outbursts, belittling others, shutting co-workers down when they speak, low self-awareness, and just generally being difficult are other ways that a lack of emotional intelligence will do great harm to your career.

7. Sucking up to your boss. Some people suck up to their boss and call it managing up, but that isn’t the case at all. Sucking up has nothing to do with a real relationship built on respect; it is sneaky and underhanded. Suck-ups try to get ahead by stroking the boss’s ego instead of earning his or her favor. That doesn’t go over well with colleagues who are trying to make it on merit. Yes, you want to bolster your relationship with your boss, but not by undermining your colleagues. That’s the key distinction here. For a boss-employee relationship to work, it has to be based on authenticity. There’s no substitute for merit.

Bringing It All Together

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that they can only damage their careers by making one huge misstep, but the reality is that it’s usually not that dramatic.

Have you seen people killing their careers? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

 

Forbes.com | December 6, 2016 | Travis Bradberry

 

Your #Career : 4 Tricks You Can Use to Get Ahead & Be Successful at #Work … Are you Waiting for the Day when a Stroke of Genius Leads to your Company’s Greatest #Success? Or, at the Very Least, a #Raise or #JobPromotion ?

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In order to get there, you need to work on your brainstorming skills. Whether you’re known as an “ideas man” in the office or not, you have the ability to come up with solutions that will help you and your company succeed.

Free- Focus on Work

“The fact is, almost all of the research in this field shows that anyone with normal intelligence is capable of doing some degree of creative work,” Teresa Amabile, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, toldFast Company. 

 In other words, anyone can bring ideas to the table, and you’ll need to in order to so you can advance your career. The number one way to do this? Figure out how to organize your ideas. Otherwise, you risk sitting in a meeting a few years down the road and hearing someone present a solution that you thought of months ago, but never acted upon. Don’t be the guy who claims “I thought of that first!” Instead, be the guy who actually does something about it.

If you have a method in place for brainstorming, it will start to come more naturally, even if it’s not your strength. You won’t have to pull out a Venn diagram or those bubble flow charts from elementary school to do it, either. (Although if words in triangles, circles, and squares are your thing, go for it.) Want to start bringing better ideas to the table, or learning how to turn those ideas into action? Start with these four tips.

1. Know your goals

Whether you’re trying to map out your future career steps or you’re trying to come up with new ideas for a marketing campaign, this first step will always be vital. Before you even think about coming up with solutions, you need to clearly identify the problem or issue at hand and focus on your objectives, says Ralph Keeny, anemeritus professor at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and a consultant for several entities including the Department of Energy.

“When most people do brainstorming, they run all over the place and think outside the box,” he told Forbes. “I think they should think inside the box— the right-sided box.”

In other words, Keeny suggests that to be effective, you should focus on how to achieve the smaller objectives, instead of trying to throw ideas at broad problems that probably won’t work when they’re implemented.

If you’re typically good at coming up with ideas, it can be hard to know which ones are worth pursuing. In those cases, it’s vital to stay focused on the end goals. Staying objective is critical here, says Anne Raimondi, the senior vice president of operations at Zendesk. Constantly asking “What problem am I trying to solve?” is helpful so that she avoids getting stuck on one idea that won’t actually be all that helpful.

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2. Start from scratch

Though it’s sometimes frowned upon, there are moments when it can actually be a good thing to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, the brainstorming process is one of them. To create something new, or fully improve a process or design, start from square one, not from the current model or product.

“If you improve something, then you only make it better,” says Sooshin Choi, provost at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. “If you want to make something different, you have to behave as if there is no such thing.”

There are some projects where minor tweaks will do the job. But if you’re looking to make a big impact and have the flexibility to think big, start at the beginning of a problem and work up — even if at first you feel like you’re regurgitating old ideas. You might come up with solutions that otherwise would have been too constrained in an old model.

3. Avoid snap decisions

You might not always have the luxury of multiple days to come up with a solution or think up new ideas. But know what your deadlines are, and don’t rush them when you have extra time to use.

Intelligence increases when you think less and focus on key ideas, says Guy Claxton in his book Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind. “Whenever there’s a decision that needs to be made, the first thing you ask yourself is, ‘When does this decision need to be made?’” he says. “And you don’t make it until then.”

The reason is because your mind processes new ideas in the margins — what Claxton calls the hazy, poetic, or uncontrolled. When you give your brain as much time as possible to come up with ideas, you might surprise yourself with what you come up with.

In addition to this, be patient with good ideas that will take time to bring to fruition. “When you know you have a big idea worth holding on to, don’t forget to take the time to revisit it every once in awhile,” Fast Company advises. It may take a few years to move on it, and you might need to take mini steps toward those big ideas. But if you keep it in mind, you’ll be prepared for when you are able to act.

4. Have a pen ready

And a notebook, for that matter. Keep a journal or notebook somewhere that’s always accessible — it might require keeping a few in your office and a few more at home for when inspiration strikes. “I have a seven-second rule in my home,” says Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip. “I have to be able to reach a working pen and notepad or I risk being distracted and forgetting.”

Adams prefers notepads and pre-21st century technology to record his ideas — he says digital notepad apps load too slowly, though he does transfer the pen-and-paper ideas to the computer later. If you’re more comfortable using apps or cloud documents, go for it. Either way, have a consistent system so you know how to track your ideas later on.

Follow Nikelle on Twitter @Nikelle_CS

CheatSheet.com | December 11, 2015 | Nikelle Murphy