1. Become a quick-change artist

⇒ Organisations want people who adapt fast not those who resist or psychologically “unplug”

2. Commit fully to your job

⇒ expect your employer to expect more from you

⇒ They have to do more faster and better with less. This calls for highly committed people.

⇒ Having high job commitment actually serves my best interest, even as it benefits the company.

3. Speed Up

⇒ Organisations must accelerate or they will die

⇒ Accelerate in all aspects of your work, even if it means living with a few more ragged edges

⇒ Emphasise Action

⇒ Don’t bog down in endless preparation trying to get things perfect before you make a move.

⇒ Sure high quality is crucial, but it must come quickly.

⇒ You can’t sacrifice speed

⇒ Learn to fail fast, fix it, and race on.

⇒ Seek radical breakthroughs, quantum leaps , rather than relying solely on incremental, step-by-step

⇒ Consider this: New hires join up ready and willing to help drive the organization in new directions. They’re eager to prove themselves and make their mark. You would be that same way if you left your present job and hired on with a different outfit. So why not take that approach right where you are? Now.

⇒ Make yourself valuable

4. Accept Ambiguity and uncertainty

⇒ Don’t pull back, waiting for someone else to happen along who can frame out the specifics of your duties in painstaking detail.

⇒ Chase down the information you need.

⇒ Fast.

⇒ Show initiative in getting your bearings, and in aligning your efforts with the organisation's larger plan.

⇒ Then give yourself permission to attack the job as best you understand it.

⇒ Indeed, trying to manage your career will resemble E.L. Doctorow’s description of how it feels when writing a book: “It’s like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

5. Behave like you're in the business for yourself

⇒ Your employer wants more than your body, more than just Four arms and back and brain. Your employer wants you to act like an owner.

⇒ You’ll need to assume more personal responsibility for the success of the entire enterprise, rather than focusing narrowly within the boundaries of your old job description. To act like an owner you need a sense for managing the whole. You need peripheral vision.

⇒ Think of yourself as “self-employed

6. Stay in school

⇒ Today’s world takes no pity on the person who gets lazy about learning. Either you take personal responsibility for continuing your education, or you end up without the knowledge you need to protect your career.

⇒ We must constantly retool ourselves, become perpetual students, or we risk becoming obsolete.

⇒ The more I know how to do, and the better I do it, the more valuable I become. The better positioned you are to market yourself. The greater your job security.

7. Hold yourself accountable for outcomes.

⇒ Organizations are insisting on new levels of accountability in their employees. Responsibility, power, and authority are being pushed down to the lowest levels. For this to work I have to stand accountable for results.

⇒ These lines are not enough “I tried…I really worked hard… I did high quality work…I did my part”. All of these lines are sound good on the surface, but they won’t sell if the overall results aren’t there.

⇒ Look beyond the specifics of your job description to see if you’re really doing all you should to bring about the right results.

⇒I’m less likely to waste time, energy, and other resources on low-payoff work routines if my real passion is for reaching results. So…streamline your approach, eliminate unnecessary steps. Get rid of tasks no one can justify.

⇒ Do your part. Drive the Blnk directly toward the outcomes that count the most.

“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us”
— Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead

8. Add Value

⇒ Employees often mislead themselves, assuming they should get to keep their jobs if they are responsible and do good work. Some of them even have the idea that sticking around for a long time makes them worth more to the organization.

⇒ We must realize that however, that we can use history to justify our continued employment for only so long. We still need to add value now.

⇒ The mere fact that a person has been on the payroll for years says nothing. You don’t get points for just “putting in your time”. It’s contribution that counts. Not the hours (or years) you put in. Or how busy you are.

⇒ Prove your worth to the organization. Make a difference. Add enough value so everyone can see that something very important would be missing if you left.

“The factory of the future will only have two employees, a man and a dog.
The man will be there to feed the dog.
The dog will be thee to keep the man from touching the equipment.” — Warren Bennis

9. See yourself as a service center.

⇒ I need an in-depth level of who these people are.

• What do the developers using Blnk do or build, and how do I fit into the picture?
• What are their needs?
• What does it take to please them?
• How can I contribute to their success?

⇒ Sharpen your insights into your personal “marketplace”, and I’ll see exactly what I should do to make myself indispensable.

⇒ The more you allow your service to go soft, the greater the odds you could end up in some downsizing statistics. Or, the organization might simply decide to outsource your work, to farm it out to some other firm that specializes in do ing what you do.

⇒ I must get close - intimately close- to my customers (developers).

⇒ Seek regular, direct contact with them.

⇒ Build a strong relationship

⇒ Deliver the highest quality service possible.

⇒ Anticipate their needs, and develop a reputation for responsive

“They laughed at Joan of Arc but she went right ahead and built it — Gracie Allen”

10. Manage your own morale

⇒ If we attribute more emotional sufficiency to people- if we expect ourselves to stand personally responsible for our attitudes - we’ll all be much better off.

⇒ I am far better off to assign myself potential responsibility for attitude control.

⇒ Don’t let low moral drain away precious energy, destroy your self-confidence, or damage your attractiveness as a job candidate.

⇒ So, take charge of your moods.

⇒ Act upbeat, and you start to feel better.

⇒ Show resilience - bounce back on your own own - rather than allowing yourself t o wall in negative emotions such as anger, depression, or grief.

⇒ What’s best for your career? Depersonalize the situation- accept it as the luck of the draw- and harbor no resentment toward higher management.

11. Practice kaizen

⇒ A strong organization is in the best position to protect your career. If it’s financially successful, your paycheck is more secure, if it keeps getting better and better in the way it does business, your future usually gets brighter.

⇒ But the organization can’t improve unless its people do.
Continuous improvement - the Japanese call it kaizen - offers
some of the best insurance for both your career and the organization.

⇒ Kaizen keeps you reaching, stretching to outdo yesterday. The continuous improvements may come bit by bit. But enough of these small, incremental gains will eventually add up to a valuable competitive advantage.

⇒ Also, if every employee constantly keeps an eye out for improvements, major innovations are more likely to occur. The spirit of kaizen can trigger dramatic breakthroughs.

⇒ Without kaizeny you and your employer will gradually lose ground. Eventually, you’ll both be “out of business,” because the competition never stands still.

Tom Peters puts it this way: “Good quality is a stupid idea.
The only thing that counts is your quality getting better at a more rapid rate than your principal competitors. It’s real simple. If we’re
not getting more, better, faster than they are getting more, better,
faster, then we’re getting less better or more worse.”

⇒ Every employee should assume personal responsibility for upgrading his or her job performance.

⇒ My productivity, response time, quality cost control, and developer service should all show steady gains.

“The first time I walked into a trophy shop, I looked around and thought to myself, ‘This guy is good!’ ” — Fred Wolf

12. Be a fixer, not a finger-pointer.

⇒ Instead of being a finger-pointer, and rather than trying to single out somebody to blame, assume ownership of problems.

⇒ Let the solutions start with you. You’ll increase your odds of career success.

13. Alter your expectations

⇒ Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that you’re automatically “entitled” to pay increases, promotions, or even your job…even if you perform well.

⇒ Circumstances will keep changing. The best thing you can do is constantly upgrade your skills and stay flexible.

⇒ Never con yourself into thinking that your employer is supposed o protect your future.

⇒ Take personal responsibility for your career.

⇒ Embrace change, and developer work habits you need for job success in the Information Age.

Quotes

They are only putting I a nickel but want a dollar song — Song Title

“The certainty of misery is better than the misery of uncertainty. ”
— Pogo comic strip

“There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on…”

— Robert Byrne

“It’s a question of whether we’r going to go forward into the future, or past to the back.” — Vice President Dan Quayle