In my many year in the Information Technology industry, I’ve met many types of people that managed to be successful in their career.   Each of those folks has his/her own journey to their desired position.   Some were on a fast track; others have a great or strong network, while others let their work speak for itself.

In my effort to understand their source of success, I observed and watched how they conducted themselves.   How did they interact with others? And, more importantly their relationship with others.

Here are my observations:

• They connect with their people – they try to understand what their customers want and focus on delighting their customers
• They have laser sharp focus – they keep their eye on the prize and aim to work toward achieving the goal by leading their team or guiding and/or inspiring them to getting the job done
• They believe in continuous improvement – learning is a big part of what they do. They seek to learn something new and improve their overall capabilities
• They invest in others – to increase their overall capacity they develop the people around them. They spend time to enable them to grow and develop
• Ability to communicate their vision – painting the picture is one thing, but one’s ability to state the way to achieve that goal is priceless. It is also what differentiates successful from unsuccessful people
• Find new ways of doing things – they try their best to find new ways of doing things. This helps their team learn and stretch outside of their comfort zone
• They believe in their people – people are still our most important asset. If you don’t care about them, you cannot increase your team’s overall capabilities.   It reminds me of the CFO and the CEO discussion. It goes like this, CFO asks his CEO, “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave the company?” CEO answers, ‘What happens if we don’t, and they stay?” To raise the level of our capabilities, we need to develop people around us.
• Finally, pretty much everyone has the BIG “D”.   The BIG “D” is delivery. Everyone has something that they deliver to help the company financially, productivity, time to market, cost savings or developing others.   Ultimately, people assess your value by your delivery.

To conclude this post, I remember what my father used to tell me when I was young. People will only remember you for the things you do for them.   They value your delivery and will continue to work with you and come back for more because you’re reliable and always get things done.   Let me know your thoughts on my post.