Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
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Strength in Numbers
Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.
Keeping your job when others around you are being laid off isn’t easy. A 30-year Gallup survey ("Investing in Strengths”) of more than two million workers revealed that employees who refined their talents stood a better chance of being promoted than employees who turned weaknesses into strengths.
More specifically, rather than boning up on several skills, employees who demonstrate proficiency in one or two areas--areas that also happen to be critical to organizational success--are in the best shape.
Start by thinking of yourself as a business and your employer as an investor, advises Vaughan Evans, economist, business strategist and author of Backing U! A Business-Oriented Guide to Backing Your Passion and Achieving Career Success.
If your boss were to assess your prospects for future success, what would be your defining strengths, the ones worthy of financial backing? These are the ones that ought to be targeted for development, Evans asserts. Most project managers ought to have many high-value strengths worth promoting.
The author has developed the following six tips for fine-tuning them:
Step 1: Identify top strengths. These are the half dozen qualities and skills for which you've become known--the capabilities for which you receive compliments from co-workers and praise from managers. Be specific, …
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"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time--a tremendous whack." - Winston Churchill |