The hard part

Long term goals are hard to achieve for 2 main reasons where our human nature betrays us.

1. At any moment, when we feel something is important, we want to do it right now. But you can’t accomplish a long term goal in a day.

2. It’s almost impossible to accomplish long term goals without some checkpoints and measures along the way. And checkpoints and measures are not a natural way of living. It’s an additional effort that many people don’t believe they have time for and are not practiced at. So it’s hard.

Your Career Year of Action

In this month’s webinar we talked about long term career goals. We used my Career Year of Action Guide as the basis for the conversation.

Download the Webinar Podcast Here

In the Career Year of Action Guide I have quantified how you can make progress on different aspects of your career over a one year period. The guide also helps maintain your motivation and focus by creating monthly measures and checkpoints for yourself.

Get the Career Year of Action Guide Here
(FREE TO MEMBERS)

Your Desired Outcome

It all starts with your desired outcome. Step back. Pause. Think.

What do you want all this work to amount to? What is the ultimate job you want? If you don’t have a specific goal, think about what your desired job would be like. Start to define what you want in your work and life long term.

Having a desired outcome defined gives you an abiity to ask yourself at any point in time, is what I am doing now helping me get to, or taking me away from my goal?

The hard part – the Middle

All strategic, long term goals share this problem, whether they are individual, personal goals or a strategic business initiatives.

Human nature gets us very excited about defining the problem up front, and then describing the end goal a year out.

But what happens in the middle? How do you specifically, get there?

When I work with teams or individuals to define that hard part in the middle, this is where the magic happens.

By defining concrete, intermediate, outcomes and measures to support your long term goal – things that you can achieve each month or quarter – you are way more likely to get there.

In the webinar, we talked about how to do this for your career and gave some examples.

4 areas of effort to think about

The Career Year of Action Guide is sorted into the following 4 categories to ensure that you make progress in your career, not just work yourself to death.

Test yourself. In a given month, how much do you think about the ideas covered in these 4 areas of effort? Careers get stuck when you let a year (or more) go by and only focus on the work.

1. Business Leadership & Strategy:
How to make sure your work delivers enough business impact and you are not just being busy. Topics are: Ruthless Priorities, Team Assessment, Delegation, Performance Management, Tuning your Job to have more impact

2. Career Development:
How to manage your workload so that your work is serving your career as well as your business. It covers topics like high-impact annual objectives, building on strengths, creating value specifically for your boss, and using mentors.

3. Personal Strategies:
How to incease your personal effectiveness and use your time better. This category covers things like Making Room, Managing Time & Energy, Building Trust, and Personal Brand

4. Steady Effort Communications:
How to build work habits to make sure you are not invisible and that you regularly share information. It includes topics like Stakeholders, Team Communications, and Networking

4 Specific Ideas

Because we couldn’t cover the whole Career Year of Action Guide in the webinar, we discussed one key idea in each category.

1. Ruthless Priorities

Business Leadership and Strategy: Decide what the business values and map your work to that. Create your annual objectives to make sure you are doing things that create real business value. We talked about how to negotiate specific, concrete outcomes and measures with your boss. Do not put your ruthless priorities at risk. Get them done. Develop a reputation for finishing important things. Set monthly and quartly goals for yourself to ensure progress.

2. Make Time and Energy

Personal Effectiveness: Remember, your job is to do your job AND keep yourself OK. If you lack energy you will not be good at your job. Think about what renews and give you energy and schedule time to make sure you are building and maintaining your energy. You need to think strategically, be creative, and overcome challenges. You can’t do that if you are burned out.

3. Mentors

Career Development: Do an assessment of your mentors. Add one this year. Think about your desired outcome. Figure out what type of person can help you, and start looking for them. Ask your boss, ask your neighbors, ask you accountant. We talked about how to find people who can help you, how to meet them, and how to create mentoring relationships.

4. Stakeholders

Steady Effort Communications: Remember, invisible doesn’t work. Know who your stakeholders are, and communicate with them regularly. Know who can influence your plans, resources, projects and compensation plan. Know all their names and make sure they know yours. Know what they care about and communicate with them, on purpose, in a way that is useful and relevant to them.

Your Stories

One other key thought we covered is to record your best stories so you remember them later.

At a minimum, update your resume each year. But when you accomplish things that you are proud of, or that others think are great, make a note of them. You will forget otherwise. And these stories are a powerful tool as you meet people, interview, or negotiate things moving forward in your career.

We also talked about how to proactively create headlines for the coming year as a motivator to make them come true.

Your next year

What do you want to be different this time next year? What are one or two goals that you want to commit to take action on this year? Decide, write it down, and create monthly or quarterly measures for yourself. Find a partner or a coach. Good Luck!

Want more?

Download the webinar podcast here

Get the Career Year of Action Guide Here
(FREE TO MEMBERS)

Become a Member
and get this Webinar, the Career Year of Action Guide, and free access to all the other webinars in the Member Library for one year.

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, and follow her on Facebook and  twitter.

Special January Membership Offer – 3 Months Free

Get your career goals on track. Now is a great time to join.

 
Membership Benefits:

Members get free access to everything in the Member Library and…

• You can download the webinars and listen at your own convenience
• You get all the worksheets and templates from the webinars to put your career plan into action
• You get access to Personal Coaching from me in the Monthly Coaching Hour
• You get the Career Year of Action Guide (an additional $39 value) which provides step by step, month-by-month guidance to ensure you make progress in your career

Surprisingly low cost

For just $179 for a whole year, you get access to a quality of information that is not out there at any price. And you get access to me.

If you join now, you’ll get 3 months free (15 months for the price of 12) AND you can get started with the Career Year of Action guide in January.

If you decide to join, I promise you are making a good decision. And if you don’t find it useful, you’ll get your money back.

Managers: Give membership to your team

Companies find this to be a highly practical, effective, and low cost option to provide meaningful development to their employees.

Contact me for Group or Corporate pricing.

Happy New Year!

I want to kick off 2012 with some big (maybe controversial) ideas about how you can genuinely like your job more.

1. Don’t try to LOVE your work

This may sound heretical, but I just don’t believe in trying to LOVE your work.

I know I am going against people like Oprah and the late Steve Jobs who keep telling us that the only path to true success and happiness is to find what you love and do that for work, and the money will follow.

But “You must love your work” is just BAD ADVICE.

Here is a picture that shows how we are told to think about this.

Obviously you want to avoid the lower right, “Hate your work” and “Don’t make enough money”. But the problem is that upper left is unrealistic for the rest of us.

Almost no one achieves it. So why torture yourself?

Setting the goal as “Do what you love”, and then trying to make enough money at it, makes otherwise competent, successful people feel like they are failing when they don’t achieve it.

Here’s what breaks down for most people in the pursuit of the upper left quadrant:

1. In the upper right: Make a lot of money, but don’t love your work. This makes people feel like they are selling out and doing something wrong. It leaves them feeling guilty and unsatisfied.

2. In the lower left: People who pursue things they truly love but fail to make enough money at it, also feel like they are failing. And they have also ruined their hobby by turning it into a bad job.

I want to redefine how we think about this to be more positive and achievable:

Try these labels instead.

Instead of setting the goal as “Love Your Work”, set a new goal so you can actually get into the upper left quadrant without needing to be a rare, mutant, superstar. I say, “Like Your Work” and “Make Enough money.” We can all achieve this.

I love my family and friends. I love scuba diving. I love art.
I work for other reasons than love. I make enough money. I spend the money on enjoying the things I love.

This is the first step in liking your job: Give yourself a break and don’t feel like you are failing if you don’t LOVE your work.

Now, to get to the second step of actually really liking the job you do…

2. Follow Your Energy

The trick is to to figure out what gives you energy (vs. love) and do more of that.

If you follow what gives you energy and avoid what drains your energy (certain types of work and people you can’t stand), you will find yourself liking your job.

Here is picture for how to think about this.

Advance your career and feel satisfied in your work…

The trick is to find the intersection of the three things in this picture.

1. Your Values: Who you really are when you tell the truth to yourself. What is really important to you in life? What is OK and not OK? You will not like your work (and your energy will be drained) if your values are compromised.

2. Your Strengths and Skills: Where you get energy. You will thrive the most when you get to use your natural strengths at work. When you are using your strengths, you build energy and feel great about what you are doing. If you are in a job where you don’t get to use your strengths, it will drain your energy and you will feel unhappy.

3. Your Actions & Behaviors: Learn what your company truly values. Tune your job description to do more of the things your company values, but make sure you find the places where those things intersect with your personal Strengths and Values.

Find this intersection for YOU, and you will like your job.

You can choose the kind of work you want to do, and re-negotiate your job description over time so you put yourself in a position to thrive most of the time. This is the what the most successful people have figured out and do.

When I finally figured this out in my own career, my family started saying to me things like, “Am I imagining this, or do you actually like your work now?”

It makes a huge difference. And it’s achievable.

I hope you can take these ideas and create an improvement in your career.
Best wishes and much success for 2012!

Want some help with all this?

A webinar

In last month’s webinar, we discussed how to find this intersection for yourself in your own career. We also talked about the steps to tune your job to add more business value and be more satisfying.

Members can download this Build Career Value webinar for free.

Non-members can purchase this individual webinar or become a member, and get this webinar and all the other webinars in the Member Library for free.

Special Membership Offer – Get 3 Free Months

SInce it’s the new year, and it’s a great time to focus on doing things on purpose for your career, I want to remind you of the Membership program, as a great resource.

If you are interested in becoming a member, here is how it works:

Each month I do a webinar on a topic of Business Leadership and Career Success.
Also, each month, members get to call into a monthly Coaching Hour conference call with me to get personalized coaching.

For just $179 for a whole year, you get access to a quality of information that is not out there at any price. And you get access to me.

What you get

Members get access to everything in the Member Library and…

* You can download the webinars and listen at your own convenience
* You get all the worksheets and templates from the webinars to put your career plan into action
* You get access to Personal Coaching from me in the Monthly Coaching Hour
* You get the Career Year of Action Guide (a $39 value).

Join Now (in January) and get 3 months for FREE.

If you have been thinking about joining now is a great time to do it.

You’ll get 3 months free AND you’ll get started with the Career Year of Action guide in January.

Members report that they are able to create a permanent improvement in their career (and life) with the tools and confidence they gain from their participation in the program.

Managers: Be a Hero – Offer Membership to your team.

Membership is a highly practical, effective, and low cost option for you to provide meaningful development to your team. It’s a win-win. They learn how to add more value to your business and develop themselves in the process.

Contact me for group or corporate pricing.

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

Subscribe for free
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Success and Satisfaction

In this month’s webinar we talked about how to maximize your success and get more personal satisfaction from your work.

BUILD CAREER VALUE

Listen or download the webinar to learn more.

The Magic Intersection

• Your Strengths
• Where you Get Energy
• What the Business Values

.
Satisfaction does not come from loving your work. It comes from working at this intersection where you get energy, you are using your greatest strengths, and you are doing things the business values — so you’re good at your job, you get the recognition and rewards you deserve, and you enjoy doing the work.

Strengths

Use your strengths
It is very painful be in a job where you have key strengths that don’t get used or appreciated. The most successful people know their strengths and make sure to use them. They renegotiate their job over time to put themselves in the position to use their strengths most of the time — that’s why they’re so successful.

Know your strengths
As humans we tend to take our natural strengths for granted. Our own strengths don’t feel impressive to us so we tend to overlook them. We talked about the problems this causes and how to discover and use your natural strengths.

Stretch
We also talked about the importance of getting out of your comfort zone, the difference between strengths and skills, and how to use your strengths to make successful leaps into new and bigger roles.

Energy

Satisfaction
When you get energy from your work, you feel more satisfied and have more fun doing it. We talked about how to learn to follow your energy and make job choices that will maximize it.

Build energy
The more energy you have, the more value you will create. Think about the things in your work that give you the most energy and the ones that drain your energy. We talked about how to tune your work so you are building energy, not having the life drained out of you.

Business Value

Negotiate
Don’t treat your job description as a life sentence. Your job is a contract with your company. We talked about how to renegotiate your job over time to suit you better. Don’t wait for someone else to figure this out or do this for you. It’s up to you.

Make a business case
You can’t just say, “I want my job to be different so I’ll enjoy it more”. You have to make a business case for the change. We talked about how to build that business case, and show your boss that your desired way of working is better for the business.

Visible, But not Annoying

Communicate
Share your value. Deliver high value outcomes and then communicate about them. As long as you are communicating based on excellent results, it is not annoying. People like to know about good results. They like to feel in the loop.

Less Chaos

Value not activity
Working frantically does not mean you are more committed. Think about outcomes not output. Make sure you are adding value. Don’t compete on being the most chaotic! We talked about the risks of being over-busy and how to compete on value instead (and how to deal with a boss that demands long hours).

Want more?

Downloads are free to members
Listen or download the podcast – Build Career Value
Download the complete webinar – Build Career Value
(includes the presentation and the worksheets from the webinar)

Become a Member

• Get yourself a membership.
• Get a membership for someone whose career you care about.
• Provide membership to your team as a practical and useful development program. (Contact me for group rates)

.
Become a member

• Get this webinar and all the other Webinars in the Member Library
• Get personal access to Patty in monthly member-only Coaching Hour conference calls
• Get a personal career advantage

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About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

Subscribe for free
If you found this article useful, you can subscribe to this blog for free and get updates in your email or RSS reader.

Get Facebook Updates.
Click “Like” to get more great business leadership updates on Facebook

Driving Action

In this month’s webinar we talked about how to optimize your communications to drive action in your organization.

HIGH VALUE COMMUNICATIONS

Listen or download the webinar to learn more.

Trust & Confidence

Useful assumptions: It’s useful to assume as a starting point, that people don’t listen to you, don’t believe you and don’t trust you. If you then proactively work on trust, your communications will stick.

Consistency: The repetition and consistency of your message is as important as the content. If people don’t hear it over an over again, they won’t believe you are serious. We talked about methods and technologies to show that you are serious this time.

Concrete language: The more concrete you make your language the better. We discussed the use of a timeline, and how to use it to create concrete examples of goals and progress.

Communicate on their terms: It’s important not to modify your communications into sanitized “business speak”. Address tough issues head on and answer questions in the same language as people ask them.

Decisions: Don’t undermine your communications with decisions that go against what you are telling people. We talked about the kind of mistakes organizations make that leave people suspicious and skeptical. (So action stalls.)

Getting Action

Keep it Simple: Greatness of Strategy = Strategy * Execution. You should be able to explain your strategy in straightforward terms that anyone can understand. Complexity undermines execution. If execution is zero, greatness is zero.

Spell out the next steps: High level strategies can be exciting and motivating, but don’t tell people what they need to do differently when they get to work in the morning. We talked about how to give people clear direction and measures that increase accountability across the organization.

Getting Communications to Spread

Get more people talking: You know you have communicated successfully when you are not the only one communicating. The goal is to get all the people talking amongst themselves about what you are communicating. We taked about a few ways to do this.

Create a new social norm: The pull for people to go back to working the old way is very strong. Unless you build communicating about the new way of working into the work day, people will think that you have given up on it and go back to what they were doing.

Get Personal: The more you personalize communications the more impact they will have. Get inputs, and ask questions and get more people communicating about what matters. Things like brown bags and breakfast meetings work well.

Use Social Media: We talked about how internal blogging and community sharing technologies can help groups of people share knowledge efficiently and reduce the email load.

Want more?

Listen or download the podcast – High Value Communications
Download the complete webinar – High Value Communications
(includes the presentation and the worksheets from the webinar)

Become a member – Get this webinar and all the other Webinars

If you found this article useful, please help me share it (share button below) with others and encourage them to subscribe.

About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

Subscribe for free
If you found this article useful, you can subscribe to this blog for free and get updates in your email or RSS reader.

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Strategic Progress

In this month’s webinar we talked about the critical difference between tactical progress and strategic progress.

WILL YOUR STRATEGY SUCCEED?

Listen or download the webinar to learn more.

Your strategy will only succeed if you execute it.

We talked about 4 common things that block organizations from making strategic progress on their business, and what to do about them:

1. Talking vs. Action

Smart Talking: Companies can get very practiced at talking about their strategy. Some people fall into the trap of believing that providing brilliant insights about what is going on in the business is adding value. It isn’t. Value comes from doing.

High Level Goals: High level goals are another form of talking. High level goals are motivating, but they are vague. They don’t tell people what they need to do when they get to work in the morning.

Clear, concrete steps. Strategic progress is made in concrete steps by specific people. We talked about how to translate high level goals into specific actionable steps that will ensure strategic progress.

2. Weak Alignment and Support

Passive vs. Active Agreement. There is a big difference between verbal agreements with nodding heads (passive agreement), and people being ready, willing, and committed to take action (active agreement).

Get the whole organization engaged. To make real strategic progress, you need to get the whole organization involved, engaged, motivated, and executing the strategic change.

Expose conflict. Being super-clear about what you expect in terms of defined tasks, measures and resource decisions raises conflict. But working through productive conflict is the only want to get active agreement.

We talked about the specific steps to get active agreement.

Deal with Sabotage. We talked about what do do when people are actively sabotaging strategic progress either because they disagree or are personally threatened by the change.

3. Lack of Measures and Accountability

Acknowledge Deadlines. The problem shows up when deadlines come and go and nothing happens. Too many organizations let this happen. You need to measure, track, and follow-up on the tasks that are required to make strategic progress.

Have the conversation. If a deadline is missed. You must deal with it! We talked about techniques to address missed deadlines and still keep team motivation high.

Show you are serious. The temptation to go back to the old way of doing things is very strong. You need to show your organization you are serious by communicating consistently, and by not making tactical decisions that undermine strategic progress.

4. Being too busy to do anything new

Tactical Pressure: Many organizations struggle to make strategic progress because they stay too busy working on the immediate demands of the current business.

Scaling. We talked about how to break the busy-ness cycle and focus key areas of the organization on scaling, even when it’s the boss who is the one blocking forward progress.

Want more?

Listen or download the podcast – Will Your Strategy Succeed?
Download the complete webinar – Will Your Strategy Succeed?
(includes the presentation and the worksheets from the webinar)

Become a member – Get this webinar and all the other Webinars

If you found this article useful, please help me share it (share button below) with others and encourage them to subscribe.

About Patty
Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook, or read her book RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

Free eBook Download

Subscribe for free
If you found this article useful, you can subscribe to this blog for free and get updates in your email or RSS reader.

Get Facebook Updates.
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Career Check-up

Summer is a great time to check in on your goals — to make sure you are making the professional progress you want.

If you have been thinking about becoming a member of Azzarello Group to get actionable ideas and guidance to optimize your career, now is a great time to join.

Join by June 30 and get 3 months Free

Your membership will be active through September of 2011. (That’s 2 summers!)

Join now

Employee/Leadership Development Option

Did you know that many companies use this membership program as an employee/leadership development program?

If you’re not familiar with this program, this is unique development resource for your team.

The program is delivered through:

• Monthly webinars on topics of effective business and personal leadership. Browse webinar topics.
• Worksheets to put the learning into action
• Live coaching from Patty in a member-only Coaching Hour each month

Personalized Approach

As members, your employees can personalize this program to:

• Participate at their own pace, on a schedule that works for them.
• Download specific resources when they need guidance or support on a particular leadership or business topic.
• Ask their own questions and get direct access to Patty in monthly member Coaching Hours

.
It works.

Members who use this program have got promotions, raises and recognition.
They have learned how to be better leaders, think and work more strategically, communicate better, and deliver more value in their business.

Companies who offer this program get lots of points for providing employee development!

Many companies use this as a primary employee development resource.

It’s low cost. It’s easy to provide, It’s easy to use. People love it.

How to join

Individuals can join for only $179 for a whole year!

(with the 3 months free option, that’s just over $10/month! – a no brainer)

This program is a remarkably good deal. The quality of the content is unmatched.

It’s valued at over $1000/year. But since the economy is still struggling, I want to keep this priced so people feel comfortable asking for reimbursement or can pay on their own.

I really do want to help.

So make sure get the extended deal, don’t wait. Join now.

Learn more about membership
Join now and get 3 months for Free!
Contact me about corporate discounts to use this as a development program for your team.

Thanks so much,

Patty

This month’s webinar topic Professional Networking and Mentors is such an important one for people searching for relevance and opportunities.

We talked about how to strategically build the network you need to accomplish your professional goals.

You can download the podcast Professional Networking and Mentors to hear the discussion.

Here are some of the things we covered:

Standard Networking Rules Apply

Network when you don’t need anything.
Give more than you take – always.
Successful people get help.

(See more about general, Authentic Networking)

Be clear about your goals

Set your networking targets. What you are trying to accomplish? List the types of challenges you have, the decision makers you need to connect with, and what you need to achieve. Who can help you? The webinar worksheets help you create your strategy and plan.

You are more vulnerable if you are not connected. Who other than your boss cares what happens to you? How are you viewed by your boss’s peers? Who knows you? What happens to you and your boss in a re-org, or acquisition?

Is this just Politics? Call it what you wish but you will be at a disadvantage without a network of support. If you intentions are honorable and you are giving back, your networking efforts will be authentic and valuable to both sides. They will not be hollow, selfish or political in a negative way.

Get and Use Mentors

Why you need mentors. You need mentors to fuel your imagination, help you see what is possible and necessary in your work, keep you connected to reality, make connections for you, and help you learn how to do a bigger job.

Types of mentors you need. Don’t get hung up on the word “mentor”. You need lots of smart people (you can’t have too many), but you also specifically need career advocates and business advisors. We talked about how to approach this and why it matters so much. There is a checklist in the worksheets.

How to ask for a mentor. We discussed several approaches but the main idea is to ask in a way they can’t refuse. Be gracious, respectful, and don’t ask for a lot of time. Listen to the podcast for effective conversation starters, and how to build a friendly meeting into a strong mentorship.

Your Extra Teams

Build a Personal Advisory Board. Successful executives have a group of people they can go to assess and brainstorm their business and career issues. It is really valuable source of support if you can work it out. We talked through a couple of models.

Build your Extra Team. Successful people get lots of people working for them that don’t report to them. Don’t just network with people above you, reach to peers and people at levels below you in the organization too. Make personal connections. Give them opportunities to connect with your network, and give them exposure at your level. Then you’ll always have help when you need it.

Want to hear more of the discussion?

Download the podcast of the webinar Professional Networking & Mentors.
Download the complete webinar including the podcast, presentations and worksheets.

Downloads are free to members. Learn about membership.

If you found this useful, you can subscribe to this blog for free and get updates in your email or RSS reader.

THINGS YOU CAN DO NOW

1. Get Facebook Updates.
Click “Like” to get more great business leadership updates on Facebook

2. Check out a short video about my new book:
RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

3. Get your copy of RISE… now on Amazon

4. Get RISE for your whole team at corporate, volume pricing.

People often ask me why I stared my own company. Why did I choose not to get another big job as a GM or CEO?

How did I choose this particular business?

Growing Business, Growing People

There is a lot to this answer, but a big part of it is that I chose to create a business that helps people. My corporate business helps teams execute better and helps leaders grow.

And my membership program is something that I do in addition to my corporate work to help individuals at any level, or any point in their career get their breakthrough.

Here are 3 of my favorite stories…

These are stories about people who have made big breakthroughs in their career, are making more money, and are enjoying their lives more.

They obviously did the hard work themselves, but the fact that they point to their membership in Azzarello Group as a factor in their success means the world to me.

1. Karen – Started a successful business

Karen is sole-income earner who was working in a large services organization when she got the news that her role and her team were being outsourced.

Oops! No job. She needed to figure out what she was going to do!

She was getting quite nervous about her income stopping.

Her company came through with a role she could interview for. Since no income was not an option, she was quite tempted by the “paycheck continuation” opportunity, but in her heart she was not excited about this job.

Karen had heard the webinar on Investing in Strengths. She told me she download it and listened to it a bunch of times! It helped her realize that the reason she was not excited, was because this role did not use her core strengths. Yes, she could do the work, but she wouldn’t be great at it, and she wouldn’t be thriving.

This insight gave her the motivation to focus on what she was really good at.  She thought about the kind of work that gave her the most energy. And this focus on her strengths gave her the nerve to turn down the guaranteed income of the “wrong” job.

She also downloaded the webinars on Authentic Networking, and Building your Personal Brand.

Karen then put her consulting offer together based on her strengths. She packaged herself and her new company to promote the work she was truly gifted at doing. Then she started networking, and getting clients!

She is now highly respected and sought after in her field.

She makes more money than she did before, and is thrilled that she is doing work she is great at.

Karen did an impressive job of transitioning her career. She told me that being a member of Azzarello Group gave her a new way of thinking about her career, and the guts to make a change.

2. Mari  – Got a big promotion

Mari just landed her first promotion in over 10 years.

Mari was a manager in a large technology organization, but had been stuck at the same level for a really long time. She was frustrated with her boss, and did not feel like her contribution was being appreciated.

No one was stopping by her desk to offer her a promotion.

Mari was capable of much more.

She is very talented. Mari called into the member Coaching Hours each month and had discussions with me and other members on Leadership.

First, the coaching helped her realize that in her current position, she had the opportunity to maximize her learning, tune her experience and build career capital instead of just being focused on the frustrations. This new habit of going after experience proactively, helped her get ready.

But the big “aha” for Mari was that she should not wait to be discovered.

The advice she got helped her to gain the confidence that she, indeed, had everything it took to do a bigger job — she just needed to package it up and promote it better to others. She realized that she, herself, could position herself for a promotion, (and that no one else was going to do it for her).

From the webinars on Relevance and Building Your Credibility she realized that being clear and up front about her goals with others helped her land a C-Level mentor who helped her prepare.

Mari downloaded the Packaging and Positioning Yourself webinar which helped her organize her best stories and make the interviewing process much easier.

Mari used the tools and support she got from her membership to make this promotion happen for herself.

3. Karl – Got a better job (without changing jobs)

Karl was a project director in a retail company.

As someone who fell into the “work horse” category Karl was struggling to keep his head above water.

He is very talented.

He always delivered, so the work just kept getting piled on. And his reward for working so hard and getting so much done was, you guessed it — even more work.

Karl was stuck being over-busy.

From the member Coaching Hours and using the Career Year of Action Guide, Karl took control of his career path.

The Guide helped him create space in his work to be less busy and to do specific things each month to make his work more strategic, more visible, and more relevant to his company. The guide helped him build his credibility and his network, and better manage conversations and expectations with his boss.

The webinars and worksheets on Be Less Busy, Delegate or Die, and Ruthless Priorities helped him redefine how he approaches his work.

He realized that he could create a path for actually advancing his career, where before he was buried in the never-ending sea of day to day activities.

Karl was finally able to rise above the work.

He hasn’t changed jobs, but he likes his job a whole lot more and is getting more recognition than ever for the value of his contributions – not just for delivering lots of work. And he got a raise.

What do you want?

Why not join Azzarello Group to get the insights, the support and the advantage you need.

This is exactly what I formed the membership program to do — to encourage and support people to go for their breakthroughs.
Members get insights, tools, and access to me.

I really want to help. I had help. Help works.

So I priced the membership at a level that lets me continue to run it, and is easy for you to get approval for, or doable to pay yourself.

I have to say at $179/year it’s a screaming good deal. How much is a real career breakthrough worth to you?

Get your advantage.

Learn more about membership.
Join now.

Get the Career Year of Action Guide for Free

Special Offer: If you become a member this week (by March 15), in addition to being able to attend the member-only coaching hour calls with me, and getting access to all the  the webinars and resources in the member library, you will get a free copy of the Career Year of Action Guide.

This guide stages out all the things you need to do (over and above your job) to ensure that you make progress in your career and aren’t just endlessly delivering work and not getting anywhere.

New members who joined this year:

If you joined after Jan 1, 2011 and you would like a free copy of the Career Year of Action Guide, just send an email to support@AzzarelloGroup.com and request one.

No one cares how hard you work

Your company can absorb an unlimited amount of work from you, and they won’t appreciate it.  It’s up to you to change things.

Rewrite the script

Re-write the script of how your job impacts your happiness and fulfillment.

Fire the current writers that keep putting you in crappy, soul-sucking scenes, and start writing your own new screen play for the time you spend at work…

Every month I do a webinar and then publish a summary on my blog.

• Download the Podcast: More Energy, Less Stress
• Invite me to the free webinars

.
Some of the key ideas we covered in this webinar are:

Protect What Matters

1. Be YOU. Feeling like the real you is not welcome at work drains too much energy. We talked about how to bring your real self to work, and how much that matters. The daily personality lobotomy is just too painful.

2. Know what you value. Think about what is important in your life. Then think through the things you hate about your job. Be really clear about the gap. Make a plan to do something different.

3. Don’t zero out. If something is important to you, family, adventure, peace and quiet… don’t go through life feeling you are getting zero of this because of your job.  Zero feels really stressful. Do something small. There is a much bigger psychological and energy gain between zero and a little than there is between a little and a lot.

Deal with being overwhelmed

4. Activity does not equal value.  Getting control of your workload so you are not overwhelmed and working 24×7 is actually viewed by your management as a positive leadership behavior, not a liability. Being busy isn’t impressing anyone.

Re-negotiate your workload

5. Short term, renegotiate your workload to have more impact and don’t try and do everything.  Catch everything but don’t try and do it all.  You need to re-invent the workload to excel at a few key things.  Effective leaders do this all the time.

6. Long term, re-define the content of your job so that in includes more of what you thrive at and less of what you find draining.  This can take awhile. We talked about how to do this.

7. Add more Value. You need to propose how your modified role adds even more value to the company, not just how it’s more enjoyable for you! You win when you tune your role so you can thrive and your company benefits.

Take more control

8. Redefine the interaction you have with stupid annoying people that cause you stress.  And don’t take it home.

9. Don’t expect work to provide all your fulfillment. That’s up to you.  If you are not getting fulfillment at work, try to tune your work, but also make sure you do things on purpose in your life that give you energy and meaning.

10. Remember, they pay you for the part of the work you hate.  Dealing with all the crap that gets in the way of your job, is part of your job.

Make trade-offs on purpose

Sometimes you will accept jobs that take over your life, or are an energy drain because you are making an investment in your career.  It feels much better if you make these trade-offs on purpose, for a reason, for a time-bounded amount of time.

Negotiate with your family what you are doing and why.  Get their support.

Your work and your life will get better when you take control of and rewriting the things that drain your energy and cause you stress.

Want to know more?

• Download the Podcast
• Download the Complete Webinar

.
Downloads are free to members

Why not Become a Member?

• Become a member now
• Learn more

.
By the way, if you found this useful please, subscribe to this blog for free and never miss another post!

To those of you in the US, Happy Thanksgiving.

For those of you in the rest of the world.  Happy Thursday.

To all of you.  Thank You.

Patty

Getting people to agree…

If you’re ever frustrated that no one listens to your ideas…

If  your opinions are not appreciated, or your proposals get dismissed, you need to do a better job selling them.

SELLING YOUR IDEAS

Every month I do a free webinar, and then I publish 10 key points about it on my blog. (Invite me to the free webinars)

This month’s topic of Selling Your Ideas is such an important one, as I have seen it make or break careers many times over.  It has also been a huge factor in my own career.

The Harsh Reality

1. Right or Effective? Remember, you can be 100% right and zero % effective. Having good ideas is completely different than getting them acted on. You need to do the work to put yourself in a position to sell your ideas, and then you need to actively sell them.

2.  YOU are being judged. People are judging you as much as your content.  Don’t spend so much time on your content that you forget your Personal Brand is also on trial. Be mindful of your Executive Presence.  The way you present is as important as what you present.  What is your strategy?

3.  It takes Effort. You need to invest time, energy and personal relating,  if you want to gain support for your ideas.  Saying you don’t like politics is a cop out. It absolves you of any more effort. Successful people work to actively sell their ideas.

We talked about the things you can do to stack the deck in your favor, and get your audience ready to say YES.

Performing Vs. Presenting.

4. Don’t miss your 15 Minutes of Fame: My biggest career jumps have come from some very specific opportunities to present to important groups of people.  Don’t just present.  Use the opportunity to perform. We talked about the key differences of performing and presenting and how to make your communications the most persuasive.

5. Don’t bury the lead. Make sure to put the main point of your communication up front.  Don’t bury it with lots of archaeology and context about how you got there to show how smart you are.  It back fires.  People get bored and you miss your chance.

6. Own the Outcome. Always own the outcome of the communication, not just the communication.  What do you want to happen as a result of this communication?  Think it through.  If nothing is going to happen as a result, why are you communicating? Always ask for something.

Be More Relevant

7. Find a Hook. Make sure you connect your new information with things people already know and care about.  Always find a hook that is something already on their mind to hang your information on.  We talked through several examples of how to this.

8. Always translate: Be really careful not to use your jargon and your vocabulary when you are trying to convince others of something.  Always relate your ideas in their words.  One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about this is to make the name of the meeting something they would want to come to.

It’s Personal

9.  Not just the facts. Even the most analytical people act based on emotion.  The facts may make a compelling and persuasive case, but if you want people to act or change you have to also motivate them personally.  How do you compel them to act with your data?

10. Get support up front: Know how your ideas impact people, get their input, give them a chance to shape what happens ahead of time.  Don’t spring new ideas on people in public.  Build a relationship and get their personal support before you start announcing or requesting things in a group setting.

Want to know more?

• Download the Podcast
• Download the Complete Webinar

Downloads are free to members

Why not Become a Member?

• Become a member now
• Learn more

By the way, if you found this useful please, subscribe to this blog  for free and never miss another post!