The Full Package - Make Yourself an Irresistable Candidate

Success is hard work; it does not come easy and seldom does it come quickly. I think we can all agree with that statement. But there’s another aspect of success that is a bit more controversial and that’s the idea that success is fluid. What made you successful yesterday may not make you successful today. In fact, yesterday’s success factor can become today’s failure point. The fast-paced changes bombarding today’s business environment can leave you reeling unless you have a foundation for success that is unshakeable. You need a set of critical success factors that will still be critical five years from now. You need something that you can anchor personal development plans and training programs around. This podcast will take a look at 10 foundational success factors that have been tried and proven reliable in any situation.

Critical Success Factors

Understanding the teachable from the unteachable is critical for leaders, recruiters, and mentors. If they’re going to invest your time in a person, they want there to be some chance of success. So, your job is to give them something to work with. Of the 10 qualities exhibited by successful leaders that we examine, six can be taught and coached but the other four must be something that the individual either already possesses or develops through a transformative experience. These four “unteachable” success factors are motivation, character, attitude, and talent. Let’s look at each one of these briefly.

1. Motivation (drive, energy). You can't teach motivation. You can help motivated people increase their drive and energy through fine tuning and you can help them better focus it. But you can’t instill motivation into someone. It comes from within. It’s what causes you to keep striving and trying despite difficulties. It’s what causes you to work a little harder, to push yourself a bit further to reach your goals. A motivated person focused on the right goal, with the right attitude, and the right character is worth his or her weight in gold. You want that person on your team. So be that person.

2. Character – the reality is that by the time people enter the workforce, their character has been shaped. They either have integrity or they don't. You’re environment merely serves to highlight their character. It either reinforces the good aspects or provides room for the negative aspects to flourish. While life circumstances and a spiritual renewal can completely transform a person's character, a work leader cannot. Code of ethics, policies and procedures, and rules and regulations are only relevant to people with good character. Good character cannot be legislated or mandated. A person that has no qualms with acting unethically will find a way to act unethically in his or her job. If you happen to be a person with a character flaw, own it and do something about it. Don’t expect your employer to overlook it, they can’t afford to turn a blind eye.

3. Attitude – Attitude is all about how you choose to view your world. I've supervised, worked with, and worked for people with positive attitudes and people with negative attitudes. A person can be loaded with talent but have a negative attitude. And that negative attitude will limit them from achieving their full potential. These people are poison to a team. They only see problems instead of opportunities. They shift blame onto others, it's not their fault or their issue. They don't believe they have any room for improvement. They know it all. They've done it all. They just need you to get out of the way and stop messing everything up. When things don't work out quite the way they expected, they are all doom and gloom. They're lacking in resiliency. Instead of serving as a source of inspiration and motivation, they're energy drainers and time wasters. You try to avoid them when you can. No one wants to work on their project. Now who did you think of as you listened to this? I'm pretty sure someone came to mind. In fact, several people came to mind for me. The question is, what are you going to do about? If you’re a peer, it's harder to take action but if you're the leader and you're not addressing it, shame on you. Think of what you're putting your other people through. And if it’s you, commit to change NOW!

4. Talent – As controversial as this statement is, I’m a firm believer of it. Individuals come to the table with natural talent. There are some people that are just naturally gifted for the acquisition of languages or mathematical theory or musical expression. A language-gifted person will develop fluency with ease while others have to work hard at it and may never reach the level of someone that is naturally gifted. Some people are naturally gifted with athleticism. These people seem to just excel at whatever sport they decide to focus on. It's not that others can't become good at that sport with lots of practice and effort. It's just that they may never reach the heights of individuals with natural talent that fully apply themselves. So it’s okay to focus on talent when hiring or promoting. But the caution here, is that --- as leaders --- we need to distinguish between the requisite talent and the required level of skill. Talent is developed but skills are taught. Talents are much more transferable than skills. A talented writer can succeed in many different types of jobs including internal or external relations, social media marketing, educational design, etc. Someone who knows how to work with Peoplesoft in a manufacturing environment is much more limited. One is a talent and one is a skill. Unfortunately, we often intermix these items within our competency model. We treat them as interchangeable when they are not. Know your talents and the talents of those on your team, in your group, and in your department.

Once motivation, character, attitude, and talent are evaluated, then it’s time to move on to the 6 teachable qualities briefly.

5. Discipline - is not to be confused with motivation or attitude. Discipline manifests itself in a variety of ways. It's a key player in time management and punctuality. Discipline also determines your ability to focus and apply yourself. Discipline allows you to stay committed over a longer period of time. Discipline is what causes you to dig in and do something that you’ve committed to even though you’re not really motivated to act. When you look at all the areas that discipline impacts, you can see why it’s important. But I stress once again, discipline is taught.

6. Empathy - human beings are naturally selfish creatures. From the time we are a child, we're taught to navigate and take control of our world. We're queried about our dreams, our hopes, our aspirations. We're wired by media, society, and relationships to think about our wants, our needs, our emotions, and our feelings first. We're convinced that we alone our responsible for our happiness and if we want something, then we need to go out there and get it. Nowhere, nowhere, does empathy enter into the picture. In fact, empathy is often painted as an obstacle to growing and becoming all that you can be because it makes you "too tender-hearted". An empathetic person is often painted as someone that can't make the difficult decision. Empathetic people are labeled as pie-in-the-sky people persons that should be confined to the ranks of nurses, teachers, and human resources. But contrary to popular opinion, having empathy does not mean that you are soft and it is not for wimps.

7. Flexibility - if I was asked what separated leaders with staying power from those that crash and burn, I would point straight to flexibility. Strong and resilient leaders understand that life does not go according to plan. They put the time in to strategize and plan but they also are prepared to make course changes as situations arise. They don't allow emotional attachments, pride, or fear to get in the way.

8. Vision - It's absolutely true that vision is a mark of a leader. You must be able to see a destination and chart a course toward it. But it need not be nearly as complicated as we've made it. Visioning is all about using your imagination, your talents, and your critical thinking skills. You need to be able to see things differently than what they are now. Then you need to be able to chart a path toward that new future. It’s problem-solving 101.

9. Communications - being a person of many words does not make you wise. In fact, too many words can increase confusion and lead to futile expenditure of time and energy. When it comes to communication, our goal should be to communicate more using less words. One of my favorite quotes in this regard is by Abraham Lincoln --

“I'm sorry I wrote such a long letter. I did not have the time to write a short one.”

This quote sums up the biggest challenge in regards to communication -- it takes time to do it right.

10. Collaboration - we have a very similar problem when it comes to collaboration. Successful collaboration requires time. All parties involved need to understand the big picture and their individual roles. They need to understand the relative strengths of the team and have a solid game plan as to how they are going to work together. At the heart of this level of collaboration is communication. That's why communication and collaboration link together when we look at critical success factors.

So there you have it, 10 critical success factors that are relevant today and will also be relevant tomorrow. Motivation, character, attitude, talent, discipline, empathy, flexibility, vision, communications, and collaborations are competencies that are transferable to any job and any situation. They apply regardless of your level. So I encourage you to assess yourself against these factors to identify whether there are any opportunities for improvement.