Today's Professional Role

Today’s Business Professional Success Model

The Rules of the Road

1.       Understand your company’s values and share them with every person every day; understand the values of each member of your work team in your company

2.       Always strive to belong to or help create one of the top 2 to 3 companies in a value space (see definition is earlier entries) – business success will follow

3.       Your goal is to become a trusted partner/counselor of senior management – good things will then follow and selling yourself will become unnecessary

4.       Make an investment in understanding the business challenges your company is facing now and will likely face in the future

5.       Be present; observe with your eyes and ears what is happening within your company’s businesses, not just what is complained about

6.       Obsess around company impact – so what value did I or we as a team add this month?

7.       Forward think around what value you can add to your company’s business – if you don’t make senior management uncomfortable sometimes, you are not pushing the envelope enough

8.       Have a thoughtful contribution to every business meeting – never go to a meeting unprepared or to one that does not have an agenda

9.       No surprises – business meeting, prepare, prepare, prepare – not only your team, but senior management also – no surprises

10.   Whether you know it or not, you are an information technology professional today (at least to some extent) – lack of functional information technology knowledge today is a career killer

11.   Technology is not the vision or the answer – seamless business/technology innovation is

12.   Before you answer management’s technology question, begin with a business understanding of what is driving the question

13.   Be honest with your management, even to the point of polite dissent – it’s your duty

14.   Make your work transformative and high impact – tell management something that makes them think differently about their business

15. Never define your role exclusively by the wording of a contract or agreement  -- seek out opportunities to help your company outside of your defined duties – what about your supervisor’s important upcoming meeting, how can you help her excel

16.  Pay for and reward staff performance, not hours, sales or events – cross pollinate team thinking

With a history of value, you are unlikely to be displaced