From the course: Success Habits

Four qualities for promotion

From the course: Success Habits

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Four qualities for promotion

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- What makes people get chosen for a promotion? Is it technical ability or the person who's going to make the best manager? Maybe partly, but I think we'd all agree there's more to it than that. In fact, both for promotion and for general success in your job, I think there are four qualities, or perhaps I should say behaviors, that are vitally important. Even if you're self-employed and watching this, these four qualities are still gonna have a massive effect on how successful your business is. They spell out the word pear, so I think of this as the pear of promotion. The P of pear is for positive. Well all want to work with positive, can-do people rather than negative types who are always saying it can't be done and looking for the problems. Although this is a bit unfair, since someone does need to think about the risks and potential pitfalls of any plan, it's the positive people who bosses and customers generally want to have on their team. Try to project a positive outlook in the things that you say to other people and that will make you more likely to be promoted or chosen. The E of pear is for easy to work with. Nobody wants someone who is high maintenance. We just want them to do their job, make it happen, don't come to me with endless questions and demands. Don't ring me up endlessly, going around in circles with yes, but, and I should, but I can't, or checking every detail. Where will you park? What if it doesn't go exactly to plan? I don't wanna know, I just want you to sort it for me. I wonder if high-maintenance people know that they are that. I wonder if they ever notice the face of the other person who's getting fed-up, but could that be you? Can you spend less time on detail with your boss? The A of pear is to appear in control. Again, vital for promotion at work and also if you're self-employed. Bosses and customers like to see people who are in control. A nice, tidy desk, a nice, neat plan, maybe a colored in GANT chart or a checklist of tasks with half of them ticked off already, that's what we want to see. Turning up early for meetings rather than late and delivering work early rather than after the due date, these are the signs of someone in control, who can take on more work or a higher level job. This requires time management and project management, but it's not that hard to do and it's important. An additional tip for appearing in control is to get to work slightly earlier than other people, so you have time to get the small stuff out of the way before everyone else arrives. They'll come in and see you're already there, calm and organized. Once everything starts to get busy, you'll be ready for it. You'll never walk into work and encounter a storm that's already started. You'll always be a step ahead of everyone else. Finally, there's the R of pear which is reliability. Always doing what you say you'll do. I've talked about this before. It's a bit of an obsession of mine, but I do find it amazing how many people are unreliable. Write everything down and then make sure you do it. An unreliable person is much less likely to be promoted to a higher level and a more difficult job. They're much less likely to be recommended by customers. How crazy to be great at something, get all your marketing and selling right, and then shoot yourself in the foot by not being reliable. That's the R of pear. We've got positive, easy to work with, appear in control, and reliable. Are there any parts of these four where you sometimes let yourself down or where you could be even better?

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