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How to quickly move up the corporate ladder? (Part 2)

23 May

Corporate LadderThis post on moving up the ladder is a continuation to my last post. So in this post I will provide you with few other ideas through which you can quickly move up the corporate ladder.

Keep learning: This sounds really simple, but it should be very important part of your life, if you want to continuously grow in your career. With organizations, technologies and laws changing every day, you need to keep yourself up-to-date with the current knowledge. I know, it becomes really tedious to handle work, family, and other things at the same time in your busy working life, but it is very important to grow with the world. Thus, you need to always find opportunities to learn new things, it can be learning new stuff to become a subject matter expert at your work, or to diversify your knowledge. If possible, try to get new certifications. If you already have few certification in one subject area, try to diversify (depending on your work needs). Most of the companies pay for tuition reimbursement, so make the best use out of it. Investing in yourself is never going to go to waste. At the least, your manager will get aware of your learning aptitude and your capabilities. I am sure, it will help you in one way or other.

Change your job: Unfortunately, sometimes you might be working in the wrong company. There might not be as many promotion opportunities as you would like. If your primary motivation to get that next promotion is the salary increment, then you might have to change your company, if your company doesn’t have those opportunities available. If you are not one of the person like me, who is looking for challenging opportunities with a minimal pay raise, then this might be your best bet. There is nothing wrong about it. Everyone have their own motivation criteria, so if moving up the ladder is one of your criteria, then go for it. If you can get an opportunity somewhere else that you deserve, then why not? If I were you, I would keep my LinkedIn up-to-date, have my updated resume on job portals, etc. You are not actively applying here, but you are also not invisible to the whole world. So, if people will like you then they will call you. And yeah! Since you are already satisfied with your current job, always apply for the job which you want to have, instead of a replacement job. In this way, if you don’t get any job, no issues. But if you do get one, then you will get the dream job that you have always wanted.

If you have additional suggestions on how you would quickly move up the corporate ladder, then please let me know.  I would love to hear your thoughts.  All your comments are very welcome and appreciated. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

 
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Posted by on May 23, 2013 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

 

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How to quickly move up the corporate ladder? (Part 1)

09 May

PromotionI had a conversation a few days ago with somebody about how to get that next promotion. Her company had a huge hierarchical structure, and it seemed almost impossible for her to grab that next promotion. So, what does it take to get that next promotion or getting to the next level?  I am not an expert on the subject, but I have had some insight through my personal experience and few internal promotions, which I would like to share with you here.

Communicate: By communicate, I am not recommending you to butter-up your Boss. I am rather suggesting you to display your work to your team members and your Superior. I might be doing an excellent job of coding (programming), but if I am poor in communicating my achievements to my team, my work won’t get the credit it deserves. Communication is not that difficult as you see. Consider these simpler techniques……..schedule a bi-weekly meeting with your manager to discuss about your progress and what you can do to improve myself. This meeting will not only serve the purpose of your achievements advertisement, but it will also give you an opportunity to get some quality counselling session with your manager. If you don’t get anything out of it, you will at least be able to develop some personal relationships. If you find communicating with your manager is intimidating in-person, then you can also send an e-mail to your manager, and your team members about your bi-weekly accomplishments. You don’t want to spam them with e-mails every day, but you need to shoot them couple of e-mails by showing what you have finished in past 2 weeks, what you are going to do in next 2 weeks, and any concerns (if you have any). This practice will definitely help you a lot in keeping your team informed about your work, and letting them know about your potential.

Be helpful: We are all passionate about helping others. But most of the times our juniors are not the one who will have our promotion done, so many people don’t help their juniors that often. If you think that, then you are completely wrong. If you are helping your juniors then you need to make sure that your effort of leading (helping) your juniors is visible to your manager through your one-on-one meetings or bi-weekly e-mails. Don’t treat your juniors any differently, consider them same as you. You never know, someday someone can become your manager, and they might be the reason for your next promotion. The key here is…….always be positive, and demonstrate your helping nature to your everyone. Whenever you have a discussion with your team, try to add some value to the conversation, instead of being a silent listener all the time. Be friendly, it will take you a long way. You will not only earn respect from your team members, but you will also demonstrate your leadership qualities to your superiors as well.

See my next post for the rest of the advice….

Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi.

 
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Posted by on May 9, 2013 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

 

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Practical tips on how to become successful in life (Part 2)

16 Jul

Success

In my last blog, I have discussed about how you can come up with the practical definition of your successful life, and how you can break it down in achievable goals. In this blog, I will provide you with some pointers through which you can achieve those goals to become successful in life.

Ask for advice: My Dad always told me…….”If you want to become successful in life, then you need to take help from 2 different kind of people. ONE: Those who are successful according to you. SECOND: Those who followed the same path as you might want to pursue, but who are not as successful as others”. This approach will not only help you visualize your successful life, but also give you an idea on how your future would look like, if you couldn’t achieve all of your goals. One might ask…….where would I find those kind of people? The answer to that question is very simple. Internet. I would personally prefer to ask someone who I know, but you can’t always have people around you, who share similar career goals as you, and who are successful in that. Thus, you can become a member of few online forums, which are related to your interests, and then cultivate your relationships with those members. Once those relationships are established, you can then ask them for their advice. Chances are….they might be able to even help you with your goals.

Give your best to everything you do: I know, this seems to be very obvious, but hardly anyone follows this rule. For example: Let’s say……..you are stuck in a job that won’t lead you towards your ideal success, and you want to get out of that job as soon as possible. At that time, most of the people (8 out of 10) would focus their energy in looking for a better job, and won’t provide their complete attention to their existing job. While this approach might be able to get you a new job that you love, but in the process of finding this job, you might ruin your existing relationships with your current coworkers, and maybe establish a stereotype of being a slacker. Thus, I would recommend all of you to give your best to everything you do. You never know…..maybe your existing Manager might recommend you for the ideal job that you have always dreamed of.

I hope these tips will help to achieve your ideal life. Do you have any other ideas through which you can have a successful and filling life?

Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi.

 
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Posted by on July 16, 2012 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

 

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Practical tips on how to become successful in life (Part 1)

10 Jul

SuccessFew days back, I was advising one of my friend on how to expand his start-up. During that conversation, I realized that some of my advices are very common for everyone to follow. Whether you are a fresh graduate or an experienced professional or a proud new business owner, you should always follow some simple tips to become successful in life. With this blog post, I am going to share those tips with you.

Define success: Every person will have their own dreams, and hence their own definition of success. An engineer wouldn’t consider an artist a successful person, and vice versa. Thus, before you start hunting for an ideal successful life, you might want to self-analyze yourself and define your specific success criteria. And while you are in that process, make sure that you consider your happiness as a part of this process. After all, no one wants to be successful and not happy. Right? Let’s say………your definition of success is to make couple of million dollars in few years. To achieve that………you might need to work 7 days a week with existing salary that you earn. In this case, you might want to think if you are willing to sacrifice that time away from your family or not, and then adjust your definition of success accordingly.

Establish achievable goals: Once you have done the hard part of defining your success criteria, now it’s time to establish some goals. Make sure that those goals are achievable, otherwise you will be discouraged when you realize that you can never achieve your goals. Let’s say……..your success criteria is to become a highly paid artist. In that case, you want to establish few goals like…….I will draw at least 2-3 paintings a month, or I will display my art in 5-6 art exhibition a year. Ideally, these goals should be smaller milestones towards your successful life. So, make sure to keep a checkpoint on these goals. I would advise you to revisit these goals every 3 months.

In my next blog post, I will provide you with few ideas through which you can achieve your goals to become successful. Until then, if you have any other ideas or comments about becoming successful in life, then please feel free to share it here on my blog.

Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi.

 
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Posted by on July 10, 2012 in 21st Century, Leadership, Management

 

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