How Performance Affects Your Career
Students and professionals alike are often thinking about the future of their career. Our focus often becomes about changing, learning, and growing. All of this is good stuff but is it really how performance affects your career?
Many people buy the book, they watch the video, and they pursue additional education. Certainly, those are worthwhile investments.
Short-term Events
Unfortunately, many of those same people will attempt to position what happens next based on a short-term event. Get the new job, achieve a promotion, and insist on the higher salary. All good ideas, but they are events.
Some change may occur the moment you decide you’re going to make it happen, but getting there is usually a long-term process.
Presenting Problems
Recently, a client telephoned me with an expressed need. In my line of work, we often call this the presenting problem. The presenting problem was what they viewed as a technical issue. They were seeking some technical training but expressed they couldn’t find any training programs that fit.
In reality, the technical skills were present, the workplace habits and culture was the root of the problem. We all know that a problem fixed, that isn’t at the root, is a problem that will reoccur.
Presenting problems and the real problem are not always the same. What they wanted, as commanded by the CEO, was a technical fix. What they really needed was a program related to their technical need but one that reinforces changing their habits and organizational culture.
Perhaps most important is that this organization was looking for an event that would solve their problem.
Change Process
Events may single handedly inspire change. It may create the moment that you decide. Events typically don’t yield systemic change. An event may spark it, but long-term effort is what will create it.
This is true for organizational development. It is also true for individual career growth.
Performance Affects Your Career
Change is a process that includes persistence, tenacity, and consistent effort. It is not just a one-time occurrence, or single event, but a long-term process.
Performance affects your career, but for growth, it will take more than a single event or learning a technical skill. It will be what you develop across time. It is a process of habits consistently repeated.
– DEG
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
