Building Successful Careers

My friend Suzy’s New Year party has been the one that everyone looks forward to each year, not only for the great food, but also for gathering with friends hard to meet. The party turns to magic and we laugh for hours. Suzy is a great business person, mom, wife and friend. We chat about life and our careers at her party. Suzy finds much wisdom among her friends and shares it with all of us. She recently visited a successful business woman in her late 70s. The lady shared the secret of her success. “A person who thinks he is very capable, that’s not enough, People around them must think he is capable. Well, that’s not enough, His manager has to think he is capable, however, that is not enough either, His manager must be capable; Even his manager is capable, it is not enough, he must have great health. Without health and energy, it is not enough to be successful” The take away from Suzy’s party is: Exercise for great health, work hard, demonstrate your skills and strength, follow a...

Many people ask me how I motivate myself. I respond, "How do you motivate others? Are you positive or critical?" Pat and I have talked about this topic many times. This morning, Pat just said in a very point blank way: “You need to love yourself!” Many high-achievers are extremely critical of themselves. They frequently beat themselves up for the most minor mishaps. They never feel they have done enough to make themselves and their families proud. Being introspective is not a bad thing, indeed, it helps you avoid being aloof and keeps you working harder towards your goals. Being overly critical of yourself however, plays an opposite role when you start to blame yourself for every unfortunate event in your life. It becomes a heavy load that drags you deeper and deeper into a sea of hopelessness and despair. You may spend all your efforts fighting the darkness and end up drowning in depression. Depression kills your spirit, creativity and dreams. Life without dreams a...

Recently, I spoke to the Association of Woman in Science (AWIS), a group of highly intelligent professional women. To my surprise, one member asked the question about glass ceiling that I didn't expect from this group of highly accomplished women. The young lady, a Ph.D. Student at Stanford asked me what I think about it and how I broke it. Some very accomplished women were raised by their families that they were less important than their brothers. They carry that concept with them, and accept unfair treatment and blame their gender for all their lost opportunities. Gradually, they fail to pursue their opportunities aggressively and eventually lose their drive to compete with men. Over the time, their glass ceiling becomes a concrete ceiling or a steel ceiling, totally blocking their vision, drive and opportunity of career advancement. They live with the resentment and bitterness of not having equal opportunities. My answer has always been, "The whatever ceiling first res...

My friend is an accomplished professional. She constantly deals with big clients. Recently, she worked on a complex business negotiation with her company's largest client. The client was very skillful in applying various negotiation skills including changing positions, escalating and blaming her for delays, renegotiating terms back and forth. She struggled through the long and unpleasant negotiation process. Finally, every party was satisfied and the deal was made. But she felt bruised inside and out. When we went to lunch to celebrate the success, she questioned if could she do better given the same case again in the future. "What's the most troublesome issue you faced?" I asked my puzzled friend. She lamented, "Communications with the client, internal business partners and my boss. Everything became convoluted, the client's negotiation techniques mixed with their hidden agenda. I was accused of being the defensive and making many excuses. Some information...

During my recent talk at Microsoft, a program manager shared her frustration on having trouble making quick decisions with very limited data, say 10-20% of data. Her manager considers this ability is one of the major indicators of professional maturity. I agree with her manager. But how can one make quick decisions with very limited data? The key is to become systematic in the decision making process. Summarize and build decision making models that take a few parameters. If you constructed many simulation models in the business world, you can change a few parameters and provide quick conclusions. Once these models become part of your thought process and part of your intuition, you can accelerate your decision making process significantly. Of course, you can always compare with incoming data and validate your conclusions again. Observe the senior people around you as they face the same challenges. Find out how they come up with quick decisions and why they think the way they do. Y...