Know Yourself - Goals
Before you start the process of reclassifying your users into customers, you first must be sure of who you are and what you stand for. This is critical, as there will be challenges along the way, and you need to make certain you have a good, solid foundation on which you can build. For example, my mission is to strive to make life a little bit better for those around me by being enthusiastic, honest, caring, and genuine, and I hope that this infectious spirit will inspire people to join me and make others’ lives better. If I am undertaking work that does not align with this, I am probably not doing myself or the work justice.
The same is true of my goals:
- Improve the lives of others
- be true to myself
- remain upbeat
- develop my leadership skills
- seek harmony between my office and personal personas
These goals need to align with my values: hope, faith, love, family & friends, humor, communication - in summary, faith, family and football! The process of identifying these lead me to identify core competencies, products/services and a leadership philosophy (listed below) that I need to stay true to. Later I will offer some suggestions on how you might do the same.
Core Competencies -
Empathy, Understanding, Humor, Loyalty, Diligence, Accountability, IT – Software development, IT – Software development management, IT – Infrastructure management,
IT – Promoting IT to the business community, IT – Change agent, Articulation
Products/Services -
IT process development, IT best practice alignment, IT budgetary oversight, IT application delivery, IT project management, IT primary platform value extension, IT customer liaison,
IT technology solution definition, Mediation, Internal account management, Junior associates/interns coaching, Team building, New infrastructure technologies promotion
Define leadership philosophy -
My leadership philosophy - We must not only cherish our clients but also our staff. We must serve each other well. We need to build a sense, not only of team, but also of community - an environment where colleagues quickly become friends. Work should be a place we love coming to, with people we cherish, where we still hope to make a difference. We must empower others to accept responsibility, accountability and risk, to communicate freely and openly, and try to put the needs of the group before our own. We will do so with a good dose of humor and humility, as there will be challenges, failures and great successes. We will remember just how much a genuine smile communicates, aim to rise to the challenges, and enjoy what we are doing!
Coming up with these tenants for my career was not an easy or quick process. They took time, reflection and many revisions. But once I had them established, my performance improved, as did my work-life balance. Essentially, I was no longer fighting against myself. At a previous employer, my boss mandated that I not develop operational tools, but focus solely on product development. I struggled with this, as I knew a little time invested in learning would greatly improve operational efficiency, but my boss disagreed. This led too much conflict, both directly with my boss, and also within me. If I had better understood my values at that point in time, I would have been able to communicate what I needed from my boss, and would have been more successful in that role. Do you appreciate what you aspire to be?
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