Prioritize!

When your technical skills are great and you really care about your constituents you should be getting lots of kudos for your work.

Right? Well…not so fast.

Number one is, you MUST prioritize your RELATIONSHIPS.

So often people skills are what creates a limiting career path. Now, what exactly do I mean? I mean YOUR personality may be the limiting factor.

Here is an example: Jim, the head of client services in a large company was in charge of buying and placing new furniture for the open space casual meeting area. There was a team meeting and the team decided what they wanted. Hear me…the TEAM DECIDED. They even picked the fabric colors and decided how to have the furniture lend in a soothing way with the colors of the walls.

All well and good. Almost!

Then Jim, who took being the head of client services to heart, spent time rethinking the plan. He called the team together with his new ideas. They voted and still wanted what they had picked. After all, this was a TEAM DECISION.

New furniture was delivered and placed in the open space, for, oh about a month. Jim hated the way it looked. He called some maintenance men to change this furniture with some that was in a long forgotten work room.

How did his team handle this? Was there a conflict resolution meeting? Did Jim lose his job? Was there a battle of the decorating mavens?

None of the above.

Jim became the butt of many jokes, some funny, some vicious, some clever.

Was that the end of it?

Not quite. When it came time for promotion Jim was astonished that he did not get the VP position he was sure had his name on it. Word back to Jim in his performance review was “he is very difficult to work with and he always wants his own way.”

Lesson: Pick you battles, opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.

PRIORITIZE!