7 Rules of Life ...

What it Really Takes to Succeed

The modern marketplace demands that people possess a wide range of skills. But what core qualities are truly essential to career advancement, regardless of industry or job?

The answer could fill a book and it has, thousands of times, if not more. Myriad experts claim that career advancement is a function of everything from extreme self-confidence to extreme humility (or both at once). Still others make the case that big-time professional success derives from more sinister behaviors, such as callous ambition or unfettered narcissism. And then there is the whole “positive thinking” bandwagon, which claims that getting ahead is primarily a function of believing you can. In sum, there’s so much contradictory advice out there about the core components of success that it’s enough to reduce you to a weary sigh of: “Whatever.”

Which is just fine. Because we’d suggest that you can’t really manipulate yourself into success with personality tweaks or even major overhauls. In fact, we’d say just the opposite. The most powerful thing you can do is, well, be real. As in not phony. As in grappling, sweating, laughing, and caring. As in authentic.

Yes, yes, we know the upper echelon of the corporate world has its share of slick super achievers who appear simultaneously all-knowing and unknowable. They’re cool, poised, almost digitally enhanced in their affect. But such bloodless executives, even the most technically skilled ones, rarely reach the highest heights. They’re just too remote to move people. They can manage, but they can’t motivate.

Now, we’re not saying that authenticity is the only quality you need for professional advancement. Everyone knows that to succeed in today’s competitive global marketplace, you also have to be smart, curious, and highly collaborative. You have to be able to work with diverse teams and ignite them as a manager to excel together. You need heaps of positive energy, the guts to make tough yes-or-no decisions, and the endurance to execute—get the job done. And, indeed, you do have to possess self-confidence and humility at the same time. That combination is called maturity.

We would also add two other qualities to the must-have list. One is heavy-duty resilience, a requirement because anyone who is really in the game messes up at some point. You’re not playing hard enough if you don’t! But when your turn comes, don’t make the all-too-human mistake of thinking getting ahead is about minimizing what happened. The most successful people in any new job always own their failures, learn from them, regroup, and then start again with renewed speed, vigor, and conviction.

The other quality we’d mention is really special but quite rare: the ability to see around corners, to anticipate the radically unexpected. Now, practically no one starts their career with a sixth sense for market changes. It takes time to get a feel for what competitors are thinking and what product or service customers will eventually want - once they know it exists. But the bottom line is, the sooner you develop this acumen, and the more you hone it, the farther you will go.

But not if you’re not real, too. Think of authenticity as your foundation, your center, and don’t let any organization try to wring it out of you, subtly or otherwise. That happens. Companies have a way of tamping people down, particularly early on. Not that it happens with any kind of conscious planning, of course. But too many organizations manage to surreptitiously nudge people toward a generic type who keeps it all pretty well tucked in.

Meanwhile, if you put your whole self out there, bosses can complain that you act too emotional or get too close to teammates or become too worked up in meetings. Your performance reviews will note: “Tom has some potential, but he just doesn’t fit in.” Or “Sally has some rough edges, but with coaching, her intensity might even out.”

In time though, if you have everything else you need in terms of talent and skill, your humanity will come to be your most appealing virtue to an organization. Your team and your bosses will know who you are in your soul, what kind of people you attract, and what kind of performance you want from everyone. Your realness will make you accessible; you will connect and you will inspire. You will lead.

So, getting back to the original question of this missive: Yes, the modern marketplace does demand that people possess a wide range of skills to achieve success. Most of them you have to acquire, develop, and refine. But one of them - the most important one - is already inside you, ready to be let out. Don’t get in its way.

A version of this column originally appeared in BusinessWeek Magazine.

Jack Welch is Founder and Distinguished Professor at the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University. Through its executive education and management training programs, the Jack Welch Management Institute provides students and organizations with the proven methodologies, immediately actionable practices, and respected credentials needed to win in the most demanding global business environments.

Dealing with Difficult People ...

When dealing with difficult people, our immediate urge is to jump to our own defense. Today, there are smarter moves to make when dealing with a tyrant.

 

by Nando Pelusi, Ph.D.

Some people go to extraordinary lengths to be difficult. Think of the diva actress whose on-set needs can never be met or the boss who keeps moving the goal posts. The difficult person elevates the deliberate provocation to an art form. The underlying message is often, "Unless you agree with me and go along, you'll regret it."

One clue that a person is attempting to intimidate or manipulate you is the use of unpredictable, or protean, behavior—acts that are random and seemingly out of the blue. A dictator keeps his minions guessing—and scared. Some forms of despotism are much subtler: Duke Ellington was known for provoking heated rivalries and feuds among his bandmates in the belief that such strife would make the music hotter.

Erratic behavior is a powerful weapon because it defies accurate prediction. Often, the behavior comes as a surprise even to the person generating it.

Flying into a rage or staring you down and dismissing you summarily are common strategies to keep you off-kilter. Unpredictable actions serve the purpose of confusing potential usurpers and avoiding responsibility. Your boss freaks out, throws things and yells. Some might call him irrational. But the irrationality gives him a leg up.

Erratic behavior served adaptive ends in our past, and it still does. Just as a minnow might cut a zigzagging path to avoid being snapped up by a larger fish, the boss alternately screams and stonewalls to avoid having his motives laid bare.

Protean behavior evolved to prevent people from being psyched out. That's not to say that fickle acts are always openly hostile and aggressive. The difficult person can just as easily be solicitous or seductive: Think of femme fatales from biblical Judith to Mata Hari. Unpredictable behavior is at heart about deception, and it's just as likely to be unconscious as conscious.

If such behavior comes from a boss or a spouse, you've got some tricky choices to make. There are several problems confronting you at once, since you're juggling competing goals. Your ego tells you to stick up for yourself, but you want to avoid an unnecessary argument.

Usually we can't resist getting riled up in our own defense. The ease with which we fall into dueling dyads is a remnant of a "culture of honor" that most of our ancestors needed to adopt. Our neural circuitry equips us to immediately jump to our own defense. The Neanderthink urge to rectify an injustice kicks in automatically, lest we accept abject defeat. The immediacy of the "me versus you" and "us versus them" reaction hinders a more intelligent and considered response.

We usually regret having charged into battle—or at least we wonder what we were thinking. And that's just it: We weren't thinking. An emotional reaction bypasses thoughtful deliberation. No rational person today would engage in an argument with a random person on the street. But if someone bumps into us, blocks our way or otherwise wants to hassle us, our immediate inclination is to freeze, fight or flee. Similarly, our immediate response to the verbal slights or manipulative barbs of a difficult person is often to fight back. Your immediate reaction is, "I can't stand this crazy, insulting behavior."

We too quickly jump to our own defense when we feel insulted. We do so because we have evolved a hypervigilant concern for our standing among peers. This focus on status makes sense as a play for dominance and power, qualities that translate into real mating options. The need to retain status is an example of Neanderthink. This knee-jerk demand for status can push us to get outraged and to lose focus on larger goals, such as keeping your job or your mate. We want to prove that we are correct—but doing it angrily and intolerantly can hinder your major objectives. Dominance at every turn is good, but not a necessity.

Still, we're so captivated by displays of dominance that we pay boxers millions of dollars to watch them square off and even pay to see professional wrestlers play-act a power struggle.

This is not to say that everyone has the immediate urge to lash out in self-defense. Some people freeze when confronted with criticism, telling themselves, "I must not be criticized" or "I must be above criticism." Temporary paralysis in response to a physical threat may once have kept you alive; but freezing in the face of a verbal onslaught won't help you make your case.

To cope with a difficult person, you need to learn to question your automatic defensive philosophies, such as "I will not be treated that way; I won't let you get away with this" and "My reputation is on the line if I fail."

Resisting the trap set by difficult people is easier if you're aware of your vulnerability to getting hurt and then feeling angry. That tendency is a vestige of Neanderthink, because there was a time when your status was more closely linked to life or death than it is today.

Better to check your fight, flight or freeze reactions and refuse to be a part of a duel in which you're an inadvertent participant. Sure, you need to stand up for yourself, but do so without demanding that you be above criticism at all costs. Remind yourself of your long-range goals: saving time, energy, hassle and maybe even your own hide.

Dealing with Difficult People is a Skill, one worth Cultivating ... Good Luck !!

Staying Rational When Confronting the Difficult Person

1. If you're required to respond to an irrational attack, ask the antagonist what exactly he is upset about, in order to show that you are interested in communicating rather than in arguing. The burden of responsibility is now back on the antagonist.
2. After the unreasonable salvo, go ahead and agree with a kernel of truth in the complaint. You'll overcome your own Neanderthink impulse to jump into the fray by looking for that one small fact about which the critic is correct—and then agreeing with that single point. Your boss calls you a screw-up. Ask, "In what way did I screw up?" If he says, "You just are a screw up," agree with one discreet example (if it is accurate), but correct his overgeneralization.
3. You can more easily and tactfully defend yourself once the emotional heat has abated. Say your boss says, "Again, you're totally screwing up." You can defend without a defensive tone: "It is true that I made a mistake, and I appreciate constructive feedback to minimize errors in the future." Stand up for yourself by reiterating the specific error, but refuse to be incorrectly labeled a screw-up.
4. Offer to the difficult person your best guess as to what he or she is feeling, and ask for feedback. "It sounds like you're angry right now, and I'm sorry about that." This demonstrates a willingness to understand the difficult person's frustration without blame or defensiveness.
5. Resist the urge to fight to win the argument. Listening and asking questions leads others to their own better conclusions. This process is known as the Socratic method. Although it didn't ultimately help Socrates, today's laws are a bit more enlightened—so it might help you.

 

The New Year’s Resolution Formula for Achievement

New Year’s resolutions are a pain. Lose 20 pounds. Eat better. Get in shape. Join the gym. Run three miles a day. Stop smoking. Stop drinking. Stop (fill in the blank).

NONE of those things are gonna happen. Oh, they may happen for a week or three, and then it’s back to the old groove. Or is it a rut? Remember last year’s resolutions? How did they work out? How about the past 10 years?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Yes, it’s time to make the annual pledges to do more, less, or better. To quit, start, change, and do it THIS YEAR for sure.

If you’re open enough to accept a new idea or two, I may have uncovered an answer as I was reviewing my own achieved and failed resolutions. Before you resolve what to do next, there are a few things you better take into consideration.

You have all heard the legendary quote, "Begin with the end in mind." This is a half-truth, and actually dangerous thinking.

Here’s an example: If your goal is I want a new car by the end of 2013, OK, so what? A better understanding and engine starter would be to elaborate and say I want to take more weekend drives in the mountains. To do that, I’ll need a new car. I’m looking to buy a Land Rover by September of 2013.

Begin with understanding what got you to this point, and what you’re seeking to accomplish AFTER the first part of the goal is met. THEN, make a plan with the "OUTCOME defined," not the end in mind.

Resolutions and the first of the year are also a time for reflection. And they often bring to mind other items of resolve and resolution over past years. You can’t help it.

The toughest answers, and the most important answers in your life, are the ones you have to give yourself. How you did it, or why you didn’t get it done.

Jeffrey, you don’t understand – I (and then you go on to tell me your situation: am single, am married - no kids, have one on the way, am divorced with kids). Yada yada. SAME ANSWERS – the ones you give yourself – just a different set of responsibilities and circumstances.

Ask yourself: Why am I smoking? Why am I overweight? Why am I out of shape? Why am I not achieving my sales goal? Why am I fighting with my spouse?

Those answers provide the foundation of goal, or resolution, setting AND achievement.

You can’t take off weight until you figure out why and how you gained it, what lifestyle changes you may have to make, and what self-disciplines you have to implement in order to shed it. Otherwise the weight will stick – literally.

And then you have to affirm the resolution or goal in writing and post it on a mirror. Look at it every day until you begin to take action.

IDEA: Why don’t you resolve to do some positive things?

I tweeted: Happy New Year. Resolve to do something you WANT to do, not something you HAVE to do. Way more fun. It made an impact on a lot of people, and got hundreds of re-tweets and LinkedIn comments.

Here are a few POSITIVE resolutions I promise will happen, if you resolve them in writing:

• Go to more ball games with kids, spouse, and friends. Name the games.
• Shop more. Give yourself a defined budget, and spend it on yourself.
• Call one person a week and tell them you love them, and are grateful for their presence in your life. List the people.
• Perform one random act of kindness every day before noon. It will make YOUR day, not just theirs.
• Renew one old friendship a month. Start searching on Facebook. Start with your old neighbors or high school classmates.

New Year. New way. New opportunities. Not a “new you.” Rather, a better, happier you. All year.

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or you can email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

© 2013 All Rights Reserved - Don't even think about reproducing this document without
written permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer, Inc • 704/333-1112

 

2013 ... The Year of the Snake

Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means your family will not starve. This could be taken metaphorically to mean that a Snake could never have a problem with his family starving because he is such a great mediator, making him good at business. Or it could mean that a Snake would be willing to sacrifice his possessions, something the Snake has a lot of, in order to pay for his family’s food. Any way it is interpreted is representative of the Snake’s character and is a measure of the value he puts on his material wealth. The Snake is keen and cunning, quite intelligent and wise.

 

People born in the year of the snake may become philosophers, theologians, politicians, or cunning financiers. The snake is the most enigmatic of the twelve zodiac animals.

Such persons are elegant, and enjoy reading, listening to great music, tasting delicious food, and going to the theatre. They are fascinated with all beautiful things in life. Many of the most beautiful ladies and the men with strongest personalities were born in the year of the snake. Therefore, you should have good luck if you were born in that year.

A person born in the year of the snake usually acts according to his own judgment, and doesn't follow the views with others. He may be a religious believer or a pleasure-seeker. In either case, he would rather believe in his own conjectures than accept the advice of others, and he is generally right.

They are not annoyed by lack of money, and are usually lucky enough to own everything they need. If such a person is short of money, he can change the situation quickly. However, he shouldn't gamble, for he may lose everything he has. If he sustains great losses, he will soon come to realize his error and recover from it so that he will not be hit later. Generally, he will be cautious and alert when doing business.

 

Happy Holidays

Famed Swordsman Miyamoto Musashi ...

It

may

seem

difficult

at

first,

but

everything

is

difficult

at

first ...

 

 

How to Stay Young ...

1. Try everything twice. 

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. 

3. Keep learning: Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever... Never let the brain get idle. 

4. Enjoy the simple things. 

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. 

6. The tears happen: Endure, grieve, and move on. 

7. Surround yourself with what you love: whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever … Your home is your refuge. 

8. Cherish your health … If it is good, preserve it … If it is unstable, improve it … If it is beyond what you can improve, get help. 

9. Don't take guilt trips … 

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. 

11. Forgive now those who made you cry. 

Remember ... Lost time can never be found !!

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.