Identify Your Success Factors and Deliver on Them

In any organization there are certain things that need to be achieved for the organization to be considered successful. Those things are achieved through the efforts of people. This is a fact of organizational life and it is true at all levels of all organizations. Organizations exist to get things done. They get things done through people.

Your job as a key contributor is to identify what you need to deliver on to be considered successful and a major contributor to the success of the team. As some of you may have learned this is easier said than done. However, you are still going to need to find your success formula for you in your organization or find a different organization.

What can you do to be sure that you are focused on the things that will deliver the results your boss is looking for and support the overall success of the organization?

• Make every effort to understand the overall goals of the organization.
• ?Understand your boss?s goals.
• ?Create a set of goals for yourself that you believe will support your boss?s success as well as the overall organizations success.
• ?Present your goals to your boss and get her/his approval that these goals are appropriate and meet the SMART goals criteria.
• Get agreement on how success will be measured as well as a feedback system with your boss.
• ?Get to work and achieve the goals.
• The above process makes a few assumptions.
• There is not a clear performance management process in place in your organization.
• You can learn what the company goals are.
• You can learn what your boss?s goals are.
• You and your boss can agree that your goals support her/him and the organization goals.
• You can agree on the success measures.
• You can agree on the feedback system.

If you are unable to get clarity as described above, chances are you are not going to have success at this organization and you should consider a change. However, I have found that if you take the steps defined above you have a reasonable chance of getting clarity on expectations and experiencing success at any organizational level. Bosses are usually grateful when team members are proactive in defining their goals and checking in with the boss to be sure they support her/him and the organization.

Your career success will always be driven by you and your tendency to initiate actions that truly support organizational success along with the success of your immediate boss. You can?t wait for someone else to develop you, the ball is in your court, grab it and score.