Delivering expected results

What is the key to career success? We can come up with a million things and a million ideas, but at the very core of everything, the key to a successful career is to consistently deliver favorable and desired results to your employer. There’s nothing more basic than this: “Delivering desired and expected results.” All other things are just peripherals. In my career, I trade my time and services for what the company pays me. The better I deliver results, the more opportunity I get to move up the corporate food chain. The poorer my results, then, the higher the chance that I will be replaced or, at best, remain stagnant in a place that does not carry much influence. Even that is not a secure place.

After all the nice, positive, cheesy, motivational clichés and platitudes that the world has been exposed to, career success is not about being happy at work, getting perks, or having your boss pat you on the shoulder and telling you “Good job” when deep down inside you, it is evident that you have not. You have fallen short of expectations. The performance matrix had clearly shown that the others made it, but you have not.

Career success is not about those wonderful wellness programs, entertaining gamification and team building activities, or getting the services of some ultra-emotional patriotic feel-good seminars that leave you with a strange ‘after-event’ feeling, wondering whether you have attended a business seminar or a cult gathering.  They are all tools and perks that are designed to accomplish one thing — That YOU DELIVER DESIRED AND EXPECTED RESULTS.

That is what you and I are paid to do, and when you do, your job is secured. 

Now, when you deliver above and beyond the desired results, you surprise your boss with a performance that he or she did not expect and evokes a “wow, this kid is good!”, then you have positioned yourself as a candidate for the next level of leadership that would entitle you to more perks and tools. When things like these happen, you and I are now talking about career success, and upward mobility in your organization is very possible.

The key to achieve this is to embark on a serious journey of personal growth and improvement. It’s not taking out a smartphone, speaking over it and airing your views through social media hoping that prolonged daily exposure would make you create your “personal branding” to be a YouTube star and make millions. Rather, it’s building competence, having a network, delivering desired results, creating a reputation of reliability and credibility and having business acumen. This does not come from a book or a seminar, but it is a culmination of actual work experience, interaction with key people, effective communication, and solving problems and once more... Delivering results. 

There was a time when I would mouth the age-old platitude: “You need to love your job.” Many speakers and bosses still do, and the audience would obligingly nod their heads in agreement but if one can only read their minds, many of them are saying “Yeah right! You should be in my job. It sucks!” I have given this a great amount of thought and I confess that I may have been wrong.

We know for a fact that some jobs are not lovable. Imagine a person whose task it is to clean toilets. I have never heard anyone say, “I love my job because I love cleaning stuff…” Duh! A change in perspective would be in order. Rather than indulging into what some crazy motivational speakers encourage to chant and enter self-hypnosis saying, “I love my job,” Why not change the perspective and say “I love the fact that I have a job. And because I have this job, I will work harder than I do on my job so as my knowledge, competence, skills and attitude improve, then I become so over-qualified for my job that the management has no choice than to move me to a better one. And in case they don’t, the market would be ready for me.” Self-improvement, therefore, is key to delivering better results that enables the person to achieve a lot more.

The words of wisdom from business philosopher Jim Rohn moved me as a young man when he said, “Formal education can make you a living. Self-education can make you a fortune.”

Anthony J. D’Angelo says: “Become addicted to constant and never-ending self-improvement. Read books. Attend seminars. Get a mentor. Read stuff. There is nothing more rewarding in life than improving the self however you choose to do it.

Here is an encouragement: “Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” (anon). The improvements may come today in increments, but the rewards will shower you when your tipping point is reached. Then, you can deliver beyond expected and with desired results. You will never go wrong here.

(Join me for a whole-day learning event this Nov. 9, 2018 as I present a program titled: “Culture of Personal Excellence from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the beautiful Santolan Town Plaza, Little Baguio, San Juan City. Limited seats are available. For further inquiries contact April at +63928-559-1798 or register online at www.successoptionsinc.com/cpe)