Seven Secrets of Career Success

When you start a new job you might think that all you have to do to ‘get on’ is do a good job. Sadly you would probably be wrong! Here are 7 secrets for creating a successful career

7 Secrets of a Successful Career

• Yes you do need to perform well in your job. We’d be daft to say otherwise. But we have seen some very mediocre performers do well by following the other career secrets here. So spend time with other people in your role who are regarded as successful. They will often have ways of doing things that make all the difference and are not written down in any manuals or training programmes. Never be too proud to ask someone how they do their job. It can save you years of learning and people are more often than not really complimented to be asked.

• Go and learn about and experience the key department in the organisation. These are the ‘frontline people who make the money. It could be sales, production or operations. If you understand what it’s like for people in the frontline roles you will get their respect and the respect of others in the organisation. This builds your influence and gets you noticed. The best way to do it is to go and spend 1 or 2 weeks in different roles. Too many people working in functional support roles have no idea what life is like for those that make the money. In some cases you get the impression that they could be working in any organisation, a bank, retail group or manufacturing. They just ‘spout’ the policy manual and eventually people start to ignore them – be warned!

• Find out how the finances of your organisation work from the different areas of the Finance Department. They manage a key resource – cash. This could be sales, costs or expenses. It’s really important that you understand how the profit and loss account (or equivalent) is put together for your organisation. This understanding will give you real credibility and people will comment on your business acumen. Find out how budgets are put together. You will need to know this so you don’t end up either with crazy sales and profit targets, or alternatively no department budget to deliver you targets. The people that understand the budgeting system tend to end the year with the best results against their targets – no surprise really!

• Make the most of the training and development opportunities offered to you. They won’t always be there and they should build your competence and skills

• Maintain a positive attitude to things even when the going is tough. This is a sign of a winner and organisations love winners.

• Plan to work in at least two departments if you want to work in senior management. Many organisations will expect you to have worked in a frontline role and a couple of support functions before you make an executive position.

• Understand the company culture – what’s expected of you in different situations. It’s key that you know how things get done in your organisation. This is often not the way explained in training sessions.

In our experience as a Career and Executive Coaching Company it is the people that know these secrets that seem to progress quickly within an organisation. What we are suggesting does not take a lot of effort. But many people don’t do any of the things we have suggested. So you can immediately see how easy it is to get ahead of your competition and create a successful career.

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