Improving personal performance at work

This article aims to help you improve your performance at work because being effective is essential, especially in today's economic environment. The only way to secure your present position and get the most out of your working life is to develop your skills and abilities; since you are your brand.

There are primarily two aspects to this:

1. to bring out the best in yourself and

2. it’s the best protection against inflation.

The two go together. First, let’s deal with bringing out the best in yourself, and this has several levels, with most below the surface, a bit like an iceberg. At the surface level, we want satisfaction from doing a professional job, and being recognized for it improves our reputation, secures our present position, and helps to advance our career, nothing but benefits all the way.

Doing a good job ensuring we complete each task efficiently and effectively is underwritten by a professional attitude. And this comes from our values such as a strong work ethic, setting and achieving high standards, a good day’s pay for a good day’s work, and if a job’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing well.

An unprofessional attitude is unhealthy, a barrier to job satisfaction, and prevents advancement. Then work is nothing but a demoralizing existence, and it leads to a poor reputation and will eventually get you fired. Consequently, a professional attitude to work is essential, but there’s a price to pay.

Hence to bring out the best in yourself, you need to examine your values in the cold, hard light of day to see where you fall short. And this will require feedback and can be obtained from appraisals and others such as clients, co-workers, supervisors, and managers. It also takes time to amass and assess the evidence before deciding on the necessary changes. Remember, the more exacting the research, the more accurate the diagnosis and the answer, but the payoff is worth spending the time to do it well.

Another way to bring out the best in yourself is to have a vision for your working life, which means the place in the future where you want to be. Success is achieving an aim, in this case, your vision, something worthwhile to work towards. Having a meaningful goal to work towards is empowering and provides inspiration and enthusiasm, which gives you a purpose, and people with purpose, have power.

A vision focuses our energy and efforts and compels you to develop the necessary skills to deliver it. Inspiration and enthusiasm fuel the engine of motivation, but without them, we will flag and then fail and won’t know why. But since they are emotions, they wax and wane, so need to be nurtured, not ignored. One way to achieve this is to cultivate a positive frame of mind.

The alternative to not having a vision is to drift and surrender to the mercy of events because “if you don't know where you are going, then you will end up somewhere else.” We all want to succeed in life, especially in our careers. Therefore having a carefully crafted vision is vital to bring out the best in ourselves and achieve something meaningful.

The next step is to prepare an Action Plan, listing what to do, when, and why you need to do it, all within a time frame. With a written plan, you can track your progress easily. It also provides a sense of satisfaction when you achieve the tasks.

Another aid is to keep a work journal to record progress, successes, failures, problems, solutions, etc. It’s the professional way to manage your career as you compile evidence of achievements that helps when you have your appraisal, as you’re not relying on your memory but documented facts. And when you go through a tough time, it can be a source of reassurance knowing your past achievements, thus giving you hope and confidence for the future.

Inflation is here, and by all accounts, it is set to get worse. One way to protect ourselves against it is by developing our skills and abilities to the highest standards possible. Then we become such an asset to our employer that they cannot afford to lose us, giving us job security.

The next step is to develop the skills and abilities that will ensure continued employment and move us forward by promotion to a higher position or as an internal consultant or strengthening our present position.

All of these should bring recognition, an increase in salary, or a bonus, but if it doesn’t, you know you’re working for the wrong outfit. It’s time to look for where you will be appreciated and rewarded. Efficient, effective, and highly skilled people are always in demand, so there’s nothing to worry about.

What is the alternative to failing to develop and progress? If you don’t progress you will regress since life is dynamic, not static. I’ve witnessed people stagnate because they failed to push themselves and become classified as deadwood. Therefore, it’s essential to take the initiative and be active in driving your career.

To sum up

No matter what the economy does, efficient and effective people with a healthy attitude to getting the job done will always be in demand.

This article is from my book How to Revolutionize Your Working Life and advance your career and is based on a body of empirical data gained from personal international experience over several decades. Once I find the right publisher, it will be available to the public.

Copyright © Stephen R. Champion

CEO

Alpha Performance Management Limited.

Please feel free to contact me via

steveapm37@yahoo.com