The Career Development Pack

1. The Career Development Pack How you can continue to shape your career

2. Introduction As many people know, the world of work has changed. This pack provides practical tools you can use to do satisfying work and shape your career. Anybody can do work they love, the art is getting somebody to pay you for doing it. How to make this happen? One approach is to learn from creative people and great service givers who have made a living doing work they love.Such people do satisfying work by focusing on their: Strengths: they build on their strengths. Sponsors: they find sponsors – employers or customers - who will hire them for what they do best. Success: they help those sponsors to achieve success.

3. Satisfying Work That Earns A Salary You can build on your strengths, find sponsors who hire you and help those sponsors to achieve success.

4. Great service givers also recognise that people buy success, not the theory of success. So when working with a customer it is vital: * To clarify their Picture of Success. * To clarify the road map towards achieving the Picture of Success. * To clarify and do whatever is required to achieve the Picture of Success. This pack provides many exercises you can use to follow these steps in your own way and shape your future career.

5. The Exercises The following page provides an overview of the topics we will be covering in the pack Please excuse the crammed format. But we have put them on one page so you can get the overview. It is important, of course, for you to take the best and leave the rest. Please use and apply the ideas in the best way for you. So here are the topics we will be covering.

6. * Strengths. - You can build on your strengths. - You can follow your successful style. - You can clarify your specific contribution – this includes clarifying your perfect customer and how you can help them to succeed. * Sponsors. - You can clarify each sponsor’s agenda – their challenges and goals - and how you can help them to achieve success. - You reach out to sponsors in a way that fits your values system – you can give to people and help them to succeed. - You can, when appropriate, make clear contracts for working together to achieve their picture of success. * Success. - You can perform superb work, proactively keep your sponsors informed and deliver great service. - You can find creative solutions to challenges. - You can deliver success and produce success stories.

7. My Picture of Success – My Life Goals

8. Introduction Everybody is different and has different pictures of success. What is your picture? Looking back on your life when you are 80, what for you will mean you have had a successful life? This is a particularly challenging exercise, so only do it if you feel okay about it. The exercise invites you to ‘start from your destination’ and define your overall life-goals. People often cover three themes when doing this exercise. * Positive Relationships. They focus on how they want to be remembered as a parent, partner, friend or whatever.

9. * Positive Contribution. They focus on how they want to follow their vocation, do good work or make a positive contribution to the world. * Positive Memories. They focus on how they want to enjoy life, pursue experiences and have no regrets. You may prefer to clarify your life goals in another way. Whatever approach you take, clarifying these goals can act as a long-term compass. You can bear in mind these aims when making key decisions. When given the opportunity to take a new job, for example, you can ask yourself: “Will taking this step help me to achieve my longer-term picture of success?

10. My Picture of Success - My Life Goals Looking back in later years, I will feel my life has been successful if I have done the following things: 1) I have For example: * * *

11. 2) I have For example: * * * 3) I have For example: * * *

12. Strengths

13. Introduction Everybody has strengths. They have specific activities in which they deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs. The key is to build on your strengths and manage the consequences of your weaknesses.The following pages invite you to focus on: * Your strengths. * Your successful style of working. * Your specific contribution towards helping a sponsor – an employer or customer – to achieve success. This section starts with some initial questions. You are then invited to tackle exercises on these themes.

14. Strengths Some questions you can explore with a person to help them to find their strengths

15. 1) What are the deeply satisfying activities in which you deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs? 2) When do you feel in your element – at ease and yet able to excel? 3) Where do you have a natural feeling for an activity? Where do you feel at home and say: “This is where I was meant to be?” 4) When do you flow, focus and finish? Where do then, as a by-product, get a sense of fulfilment? 5) What are the activities that give you positive energy – even when you just think about them?

16. 6) When do you follow your passion, translate this into a clear purpose and achieve peak performance? 7) What are the specific activities in which you do things you find stimulating, set stretch goals and achieve your picture of success? 8) Where do you have the equivalent of a photographic memory? 9) When do you see the destination quickly? When do you go ‘A, B ___ then leap to ___ Z’? Where do you have a track record of delivering Z? 10) What are the situations in which you quickly see patterns?

17. 11) Where do you have good personal radar? Where do you seem to know what will happen before it happens? Where do you also have the repertoire to deliver the right results? 12) Where do you make complicated things look simple? 13) What are the situations in which you are calm? 14) When are you good at dealing with ‘crowdedness’ – many things happening at the same time? 15) What are the activities in which you continually do creative problem-solving by focusing on clarity, creativity and concrete results?

18. 16) What are the activities where you naturally do mental rehearsal? 17) What are the activities in which you have natural self-discipline? Where do you score highly on drive, detail and delivery? 18) What are the activities in which you enjoy the journey as much as reaching the goal - the process as much as the prize? 19) Where do you always do the basics and then add the brilliance? 20) Where do you reach the goals by adding that touch of class?

19. 21) What is your successful style of working? Looking back at your positive history, what for you have been the most satisfying ‘projects’? What was satisfying about them? What were the principles you followed to be successful? How can you follow these principles again in the future? 22) What do you think may be your vocation? How can you express this vocation through various vehicles on the route to doing valuable work?

20. 23) What for you would be the most stimulating kind of Project, with stimulating People in a stimulating Place? 24) Who are your perfect customers – the kinds of people with whom you work best? What would be the specific things you could deliver to your perfect customer to help them to achieve success? 25) How can you do satisfying work? How can you build on your strengths, find sponsors - people who will pay you - and help them to achieve success?

21. My Strengths

22. * Describe the deeply satisfying activities in which you deliver – or have the potential to deliver – As rather than Bs or Cs. • These may be particular kinds of projects, tasks or other activities. Try to be as specific as possible. Give concrete examples. Please note. The emphasis is on the word ‘Deliver’. • * Describe the activities in which you deliver Bs or Cs. • The B activities are probably those that you can do reasonably well. They are not your As, however, or maybe they were once but now you get bored doing them. The C activities are those where you have little aptitude or desire to learn.

23. * Describe how you can build on your strengths. • Try to be as specific as possible about how you can continue to develop in the activities that you do best. • * Describe how you can, if appropriate, manage the consequences of your weaknesses. • * Describe the specific things that you could deliver for a potential sponsor – an employer or customer. • The emphasis is on what you can ‘deliver’, not what you • can ‘do’. Lots of people can do lots of things, but • employers and customers buy what you can deliver. • We will do more work on this theme in a later exercise • called My Contribution To An Employer.

24. My A Strengths As. The deeply satisfying activities,projects or other tasks in which I deliver – or have the potential to deliver - As are: 1) For example: * * *

25. 2) For example: * * *

26. 3) For example: * * *

27. My Bs and Cs Bs. The activities in which I deliver Bs are: * * * Cs. The activities in which I deliver Cs are: * *

28. Building On My Strengths The specific things I can do to build on where I deliver As are: * * *

29. Managing My Weaknesses The specific things I can do to manage the consequences of my Bs and Cs are: * * *

30. My Strengths – The Specific Things I Can Deliver The specific things I can deliver for a potential sponsor – an employer or customer - are: * * *

31. Positive Energy

32. Introduction Energy is life. This exercise invites you to list the things that give you positive energy. These may include doing certain activities, being with certain people, following certain passions, doing certain professional projects or whatever. The activities that give you positive energy – even when you simply think about them - can provide clues to your strengths. They can also help you to make decisions. When in doubt, you can ask yourself: Which option gives me the most positive energy? So try completing the following exercise.

33. Positive Energy The things that give me positive energy are: * * * * *

34. My Element

35. Introduction When do you feel in your element? What are the specific situations in which you feel at ease and yet able to excel? When do you feel at home and say: “This is where I was meant to be?” When are you able to flow, focus, finish and, as a by-product, gain a sense of fulfilment? Different people feel this way in different situations. So you may feel it when writing, gardening, solving a particular problem, teaching a class, giving a keynote speech, leading a team, reading a balance sheet, performing a play, playing top level sport, cooking superb meals, solving a particular kind of crisis or whatever.

36. Try tackling the exercise on this theme. * Describe when you feel in your element – when you feel at ease and yet able to excel. * Describe the reasons you feel in your element in these situations. * Describe the specific things you can do to put yourself into more situations where you are in your element.

37. My Element I feel in my element when: 1) The reasons I feel in my element then are: * * *

38. 2) The reasons I feel in my element then are: * * *

39. 3) The reasons I feel in my element then are: * * *

40. The specific things I can do to put myself into more of the situations where I feel in my element are: * * *

41. My Passions

42. Introduction Peak performers love to follow their passions, translate these into a clear purpose and achieve peak performance. This exercise invites you to do two things. * Describe your passions. You may be passionate about fixing certain types of problems, gardening, working for justice, designing, encouraging people, playing music or whatever. * Describe the reasons you feel passionately about each of these things. Try to be as specific as possible. Certainly you may love the actual activity. But there may also be other reasons why you feel passionately about something. For example, expressing values that you care deeply about.

43. My Passions My Passions are: 1) The reasons I feel passionately about this are: * * *

44. 2) The reasons I feel passionately about this are: * * * 3) The reasons I feel passionately about this are: * * *

45. Calmness

46. Introduction One clue to your talents is in the situations where you feel calm, clear and deliver concrete results. Looking at your life and work, what are the situations where you experience these qualities? You may be tackling a certain kind of problem, taking charge in a situation which others find chaotic or making complicated things appear simple. * Describe a specific situation in which you feel calm, clear and deliver concrete results. * Describe the specific things you do in this situation to be calm, clear and deliver concrete results.

47. Calmness The situation where I feel calm, clear and deliver concrete results are: 1) ________________________________________ The specific things I do in this situation to be calm, clear and deliver concrete results are: * * *

48. Seeing the destination quickly and getting to ‘Z’. Z A B

49. Introduction One clue to your talents is in where you go into specific situations and see the destination quickly. You gather information, look for patterns and see what must be done to achieve success. You go: ‘A, B ____ then leap to _____ Z’. You quickly see the end product or picture of success. For example, a renovator may go into an old house and quickly see how it can be restored beautifully; a retailer goes into a shop and sees how it can boost profits; a trouble-shooter goes into a situation and sees what must be done to deliver success.

50. Try tackling the exercise on this theme. * Describe the situations where you quickly get to ‘Z’. * Describe the specific things you do, or have done, in those situations to do superb work – or enable others to do superb work – and get to ‘Z’ successfully.