46 | The Lion King
I
n today’s resource- constrained en-
vironment, many of us are delivering
120% on the current demands of our
job but devoting little time to devel-
oping ourselves further or positioning
ourselves for higher responsibilities.
But simply plugging along in our cur-
rent roles is more dangerous than it
might seem. The business environment
changes quickly and sometimes unpre-
dictably and, if we do not shift along
with it, we risk becoming Irrelevant.
Here are 7 ways to boost your career.
1. Stay alert and attuned to your envi-
ronment.
Those who want to develop
themselves must create opportunities.
That means coming to understand how
your organization works, how it makes
money, and who its key people are. This
is an obvious prerequisite to figuring
out how you might shift your own work
in the direction of what really matters.
Tuning in to the outside is unstructured
work—networking, going to lunch—we
do not even know where to begin. Val-
ue it as much as the required meetings.
The payoff will come in the long run.
2. Create slack in your schedule.
New
ways of working require a precious
and scarce resource; Time. When we
are stretched to hilt, it is hard to ask
“Am I focusing on the right things?”
7 ways to
boost your
career
By Abayomi Orungbe
No organization or institu-
tion helps employees free
up their time to work on the
frontier of their jobs. Instead,
once people have leader-
ship responsibilities, their
calendar gets crammed with
more and more meetings
and trips.
3. Make strategy your day
job, no matter what your
title is.
Most people would
like to take a more strategic
approach to their work but
cannot because they do not
know what strategy really
means. Strategy is about
asking “what” should I be
doing—figuring out what
problems the organisation
should be tackling, sensing
what is happening in the
world and learning how to
apply it to your work.
4. Get Competitive.
The
wrong type of competition in
a workplace can turn a high-
five work environment into
a head butt workplace, but
that does not mean there
is no place for competition
at work. As Celine Roque
points out, friendly work-
place competition keeps you
on top of your game, helps
you identify your strengths
and weaknesses, and can
ultimately lead to strong col-
laboration.
5. Teach.
It is commonly said
that there is no better way
to learn than to teach. Ap-
parently this contains a lot
of truth. You can learn a lot
about a subject by read-
ing about it. You can learn
more by doing it. But when
you go a step further and
start teaching, you can learn
more about it.
6. Work outside your comfort
zone.
After years at a job,
you are pretty confident that
you are good at what you
do. You have got habits. You
have gotten comfortable.
You may have even gotten
complacent.
Stop. Break out of your
comfort zone. Find an area
where you could expand
and see what you can do
there. Make an effort to work
outside your comfort zone.
You may meet new people
and learn new things, who
knows - you may even find
something you are better at
and enjoy more than what
you are doing now.
7. Finally, make a plan.
Ac-
cording to baseball legend
Yogi Berra, “If you do not
know where you are going,
you will wind up somewhere
else.” You do not want to be
too rigid with your career
path, but it will be pretty
tough to steer your career
in the right direction if you
do not know what direction
you want to go. Take time
to break out of your normal
work schedule to look be-
yond next week into where
you want to be next year,
five years from now, and
even ten years from now.
Many of life’s failures are
people who did not realise
how close they were to
success when they gave up.”
- Thomas Edison
Career Tips
The Lion K ng | 46
