Part 4
9. Find Out
What You Cannot Do
years ago, one of my first positions was with a
Community College and I was hired to assess the business community and custom
design training programs. On my first
day of employment, I met with the President of the College, who looked me
straight in the eyes as he sat behind his large mahogany desk and said,
"let me give you the same advice that was given
to me when I first started 40 years ago...
find out what you cannot do, not what you can do, and once you know that
everything else is up for grabs..."
At first, I thought he was "pulling my
leg" and ignored his advice but never forgot it. Over the years of my 40+ years, I have come
to realize how important that advice was.
And, now strive to pass it on to others as it was passed on to me.
Suffice it to say that understanding what you cannot
do, opens the door as wide as you want to open it to "out of the box"
thinking. It is this type of thinking
that does not just make seen by your superiors but gives you VALUE that you in
turn can give to your employer.
10. Watch
Your Back
One must never assume when beginning a new position
that everyone’s values and motivation is similar to theirs; in fact, one would
be better served to assume that it is not no matter how difficult it might be
to accept the worst in people. One can “hope
for the best” but one must also “expect the worst.” That is to say that the workplace out
there is not nice and is, for the most part, predicated upon “survival
of the fittest.”
For someone first entering the workplace this might
be a difficult concept to embrace, but let me assure you that in a matter of a
few years, you will come to embrace the vitality of my comment.
Our marketplace and economic foundation is based
upon greed, albeit regulated greed, it is greed nonetheless.
No one attends college to earn less money;
they attend to earn more money. The same
is true for people who receive technical certifications which may cost a
minimum of $2500 each, the driving motivator is to achieve more money.
If someone in the workforce cannot look good to
their superiors, then they typically make an attempt to make everyone else look
worse. Consequently, one must always be
looking over one’s shoulder.
Underlying these 10 Key
Success Factors, is one’s personality that, in my opinion, is comprised of the
following: values, ethics, morals, and integrity. And, while they may/may not influence or
directly impact one’s success they are nonetheless instrumental in how one
lives one’s life and how one applies these 10 Key Success Factors.
Values
are considered to be those things that are important and are typically how one
perceives ethics, morals, and integrity.
Ethics
are standards of right and/or wrong that are imposed on the individual either
by society of by one’s employer.
Morals
are tied to ethics in that they are the “lived” standards of right and/or
wrong.
Integrity
encompasses both Ethics and Morals because it represents the degree to which
these two influences our actions.
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