The Road to CEO
You will be wondering as to how I am writing an article on ‘The Road to CEO’ without having experienced the position for myself. The CEO which I am discussing about is not the ‘Chief Executive Officer’ of an organization but it is primarily a position namely ‘Chief Effectiveness Officer’. Become a ‘Chief Effectiveness Officer’; continue putting your best of the efforts day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year & one day you are on ‘The Road to Chief Executive Officer’.
We all feel that we are extremely effective in our place of work. We do not know what effectiveness is & if we do not know we should ask & imitate those people who are effective. Thus, we are ignorant about effectiveness & our ignorance rubs on people who come in contact with us i.e. subordinates, colleagues, supervisors, officers & managers making them also ineffective. It is often said that the quality of the people determines the quality of the organization. If each & every people of the organization do not give their best in terms of their efficiency & effectiveness, the organization will cease to be effective & subsequently perish.
Thus, irrespective of the positions we hold in an organization, we need to be extremely effective. The organization may not designate you as a ‘Chief Effectiveness Officer’ but no one can stop you from designating yourself as a ‘Chief Effectiveness Officer’. You can give this designation to yourself only when you follow the strategies which are available.
Responsibility. Take responsibility for your work, for every aspect of your job. The people who ride high in their field are the people who act as if they own the place. They see themselves as self employed, no matter who signs their pay checks. That is the reason they are always the most appreciated & respected people in the company.
Direction. The more definite & focused you are, the easier it is for you to make better decisions on your priorities & the use of your time. The more you spend on your most important work, the more you accomplish, & the better you get at accomplishing even more. Thus, you put yourself onto an upward spiral that leads to ever greater accomplishments.
Service. If you wish to increase the quantity of your rewards, you must first increase the quality & quantity of your service. Your rewards in life will be in direct proportion to the value of your service to others. The focus on results, on pleasing customers better than your competitors, is the guiding force of successful businesses.
Effort. Nothing will bring you to the attention of your superiors faster than your developing a reputation for being a hard worker. Your commitment to hard work creates a force field of positive energy around you that attracts positive people & greater opportunities into your life. You must be working on high value tasks & activities aimed toward the accomplishment of meaningful & important goals.
Preparation. The mark of an effective person, or the real professional, in any field is that he takes far more time to prepare than the average. When you are preparing, get the facts not the obvious facts, the apparent facts, the assumed facts, or the logical facts. Facts don’t lie. Check & double check. In other words, it can be said that ‘Effective performance is preceded by painstaking preparation.’
Efficiency. Always ask these questions to yourself. Why am I on the payroll? What specific, tangible, measurable results are expected of me? There will never be enough time to do everything that you have to do. Only by stretching yourself can you discover how much you are truly capable of. It is therefore the efficiency in which you complete the job that matters.
Decision. Every great leap forward in life is preceded by a clear decision & a commitment to action. The people who have achieved great feats are not necessarily those who make the right decisions, but they are those who make their decisions right. They accept feed back & self-correct. They are always decisive, always moving forward, never wishy-washy or vacillating in their attitudes.
Persistence. Your ability to persist in the face of setbacks & disappointments is your measure of your belief in yourself & your ability to succeed in your professional life. When you demonstrate to yourself & to the people around you that you have the quality of self-discipline & self-mastery you will become absolutely indispensable & your effectiveness in the organization shall sky rocket.
Excellence. Commit to excellence in your work, especially in your key result areas & core competencies. In other words, a commitment to product or service excellence is the safest & most predictable strategy for achieving business success. Resolve today to commit to top performance & you will see that you move into the fast lane in your career than any other decision you can make.
Superb execution. Set standards of excellence for yourself & for everyone who report to you. You also need to be ruthless about weeding out incompetence & poor performance. You need to demand quality work from yourself more often & insist that people do their jobs
well. Identify your core competencies & continuously look for ways to upgrade them to see that you & your organization are the best in the business.
Relationships. People don’t buy products or services. They “buy” the people who are selling the products or services. First, you sell yourself as a likeable & creditable person, & then you sell what you represent. Maintain & strengthen high quality relationships with internal customers (subordinates, colleagues, bosses, vendors) & external customers to see the company forging ahead.
Priority. To achieve great results, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value in terms of work. Continually ask yourself; what is the most valuable use of my time, right now? And whatever it is, work on that. Your ability to discipline yourself to work on those few tasks can make the greatest difference between effective or ineffective manager at work.
The said strategies as given above are priceless & the same need to be mastered in order for anyone to emerge the best. The managers / officers who have occupied vital positions in organizations have sincerely & deliberately worked their way minutely & carefully to progress ahead in their career. Some of the managers who are holding pivotal positions have also been putting these principles at work unconsciously without knowing that these principles are at work. Thus, it can safely be interpreted that the results of any organization can skyrocket if each & every manager puts these universal strategies to test.
Problems, difficulties & obstacles are a normal, natural & unavoidable fact of life. If you have to get ahead of life you have to face a series of problems ceaselessly without getting weary. Your work will be a continuous succession of problems, like the waves coming in from the ocean, one after the other. You will have problems all day long which might vary in size & importance.
The only part of this situation that you can control is your attitude, the way in which you approach each problem as it arises. Unfortunately, most people allow themselves to be overwhelmed by problems. They get scared, frightful & portray it larger than life as if they are going to eaten away by them. They think & talk continually about who is to blame, why the problem has occurred, & the possible repercussions in terms of damage or cost. But this not at all helpful.
Instead, your job is to be solution oriented & concentrate all your energies on what can be done to resolve the problem, whatever it is.
People who are solution-oriented are the most valuable people in any organization. They are extremely positive & constructive. They concentrate & focus like eagles on what can be done now rather than what has already occurred & cannot be changed.
There are several strategies as how to dilute the problems & difficulties.
You can change your attitude from negative & worried to positive & constructive in a single moment by simply switching your thoughts off of the problem & onto the solution. Instead of asking or worrying about who did what & who is to blame, you should instead ask the questions, “what do we do now?” & “What’s the solution?”
Program your mind well in advance on the problems & difficulties you are going to face when faced with challenges. If you plan in advance for the inevitable, when they come, you will be psychologically prepared. You are not caught unawares. It is not easy but with constant practice your mind will come out with some solution. This is where you show yourself, & everyone around you, what you are truly made of.
Ask yourself why are you on your company’s pay roll? Draw a list of everything you have been hired to do. Also be sure to differentiate between activities & accomplishments, between inputs & the required outputs of your job. Then organize your list of priority, by what is most important & what is less important. You have been given a certain designation, status, authority & responsibility & salary in your company to resolve the problems & come out with a solution.
When confronted with bigger problems, difficulties the other alternative could also be to involve your boss. List out the problems you are facing in your work with the solutions & take it to your boss. What does your boss consider to be the most ideal solution to the problem you are confronted with in your work place, whatever his answer, immediately resolve to work every day, every hour precisely on those tasks to come out with a solution.
Be a kind of person to bring in ideas, imagination & creativity when you come to your work place. Only by practicing & putting it daily your ideas & imagination will get better. Once the ideas start flowing, they get better & better. Once they get better, they keep improving. If these ideas, imagination which get generated automatically is put for diluting problems in your work place, you tend to rated as highly valuable.
Remember, all of life is a test. For you to emerge successful in terms of solution, you must pass the ‘persistence test.’ You take the persistence test whenever you are confronted with unexpected problems in the place of work. Once you decide not to give up come what may in terms of decimating the problems, you will be termed as a problem solver. Eventually, you will reach a point in life where you become absolutely unstoppable.
In business & in life, the better you get at solving problems, the bigger will be the problems you will be given to solve. The bigger & more the problems you solve, the more money you will be paid, the more power you will have, & the higher position you will attain.
Resolve to be solution oriented in your approach towards life & work. Be the kind of person that people bring their problems to because you always have ideas as to how to go about solving them. The more you focus on solutions, the more effectively you think & the better solutions you come up with. You can put your entire life & career on the fast track towards being paid more & promoted faster by becoming an intensely solution-oriented person.
Written by: Iyer Subramanian
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Tagged as human economy, management, personal assistant, personal growth, work improvement, work organization + Categorized as Economy articles, Ladership & Management
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