A Guide -- Workplace Success
Ten Steps to Career Advancement
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
“No one can
make you feel inferior without your consent.”
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
5
Continuously assess your strengths and weaknesses.
If you want to be the best,
you must continuously work at improving your skills and broadening your
knowledge. There is always room for
improvement. Continuous learning is a
critical attribute to develop and cultivate as you progress on your career
journey.
The first step to
improvement is to honestly assess your strengths and weaknesses. You can build on your strengths and use them
to your advantage only when you understand what they are. On the other hand, you must work to
eliminate and improve your weaknesses.
You can begin by analyzing your short-term and long-term career goals
and the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required to attain your
goals.
One simple way of beginning
that process is to develop a four-column table with the headings “Strengths,”
“Weaknesses,” “Need to Improve” and “Timeframe.” See the table at the end of this section. List all of your strengths in the first
column. List your weaknesses in the
second column. Under the third column,
identify how you plan to improve and eliminate your deficiencies. Consider options such as on-the-job training
(OJT), formal training, college courses, process action teams, task forces
and/or rotational assignments. When
you’ve completed a personal assessment, ask a supervisor, manager, mentor,
professor, or trusted ally who knows your skills and competency to help with
your assessment and give you honest feedback.
Once you have the first three columns complete, set a timeframe (week,
month, quarter, six months, or year) to improve each of your identified
weaknesses.
After you complete the
actions outlined above, start to work immediately on columns three and
four...weaknesses and the time allowed.
Monitor your accomplishments by checking off each of your
completions. Try to stay within the
timeframe established. If you encounter
any obstacles or constraints, make note and plan strategies to avoid them so
that you keep up your momentum. Next
time around if a similar obstacle arises, you will have hopefully developed
strategies to get around it. By doing
that, you will see growth and maturity in dealing with similar impediments.
Expect a few setbacks every
now and then. Your determination and
persistence are critical in keeping up your momentum to improve those critical
skills and competencies that will help you achieve your career goals. Other options for improvement could include
working side by side with an expert or seasoned professional as well as reading
professional journals and reference materials related to the skills you want to
improve.
As you make progress on
improving your weaknesses, acquire the habit of formally documenting your work
projects and tasks. Establish a
computer database to track knowledge and skills learned, key actions,
completions, and results. Use the Actions and Accomplishment Form provided
in this guide. It can help you get
started. You might want to use 3-ring notebooks
to keep track of the papers, memos, and other primary sources of your
contributions. This is a record keeping
process that has benefited me over the years.
In fact, I use notebooks with color-coded headings to distinguish topics
and subjects. This way, the information
is in chronological order. It could
possibly help you with keeping track of your own accomplishments and
contributions that link to the mission and goals of the organization.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
This is a guide that focuses on workplace
interactions; behaviors and relationships that will perhaps help you achieve
career success. Based on her own career
journey that includes DOD, Office of the Secretary of Defense (assignments in
Japan, Philippines, England, and Belgium), and advisor to the Director of
Central Intelligence on Workforce Issues and Diversity Management, the author
painstakingly addresses ten key steps that illuminate a prescription for
workplace success. Outlined under each of the ten steps are optional actions
and strategies that can be immediately put to use. The author includes job aids to help the reader assess skills and
competencies. As an added bonus at the
end of the guide, the author identifies a list of Workplace Dirty Dozen Behaviors
that she believes are detrimental to career success and advancement.
To facilitate the reader in planning and
implementing a course of action, the author provides a personal action planning
form at the end of each step. The form
is a tool that helps the reader identify personal action steps, including notes
to refer to later. The process
facilitates documentation of strategies and ideas that could be helpful to
advancing one’s career.
This guide is perhaps particularly useful for new
and returning workers. College students
who are about to embark on their career journeys might find this guide very
useful prior to and during the initial employment period. Without a doubt, those first few weeks on
the job can be rather contentious due partly to building new relationships and
the learning curve of adjusting to new work demands.
Let this guide provide you with insights that can
bring you a sense of balance, smooth the transition from college to work, and
lessen the stress of dealing with those nuisances and unwritten rules prevalent
in most work environments today.
About the Author
Dr. Lenora Peters Gant is a
member of the Senior Intelligence/Executive Service; she advises the Director
of Central Intelligence (DCI) and the Deputy DCI for Community Management (CM)
on Community diversity management policy and issues. She leads a team of professionals and provides oversight for
policy development for Work Force Issues that include human resources, training
and education, Intelligence Community Officer Program (ICO) and the
Intelligence Community Assignment Program (ICAP), and diversity management. Dr. Gant chairs the Intelligence Community
Diversity Issues Board (CDIB) and other functional area committees that perform
oversight and develop and coordinate policy for thirteen Intelligence Community
(IC) national agencies and components. She
facilitates effective management processes and practices in the formulation of
strategic plans and policy development.
Dr. Gant monitors policy implementation progress across the IC for Work
Force Issues congruent with the DCI Strategic
Intent and IC functional mission plans.
Dr. Gant establishes collaborative and beneficial partnerships with
federal agencies, academia, and industry.
Dr. Gant has extensive work experience with the
Department of Defense; she has held a wide variety of progressively responsible
positions where she managed multi-million dollar budgets for human resource
initiatives. From 1991-98, she served the Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA)/Directorate for Administration as special assistant and senior planner
directing six subordinate offices and senior level personnel for executing
strategic plans. Dr. Gant also served as the Director of Instructional
Technology and Learning Resources at the Joint Military Intelligence College.
From 1987-91, she served the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a Senior
Human Resource Manager; her travel assignments included NATO, Brussels, Belgium
and visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Business
Institute. Dr. Gant worked at the
Marine Corps Institute, Washington Navy Yard, as Lead Instructional Systems
Technologist for training programs from 1985-87 with travel assignments to
Germany, Naples and Rome, Italy. During
1984-85, she served with the U.S. Army as a Senior Management Resource Analyst
Team Leader. From 1980-1983, Dr. Gant performed as an instructional program
manager, DoD Dependent Schools, U.S. Air Force, Oxfordshire, England. From 1978-80, she served as Assistant
Education Officer for Programs, Navy/Marine Corps Base, S. D. Butler, Okinawa,
Japan.
Dr. Gant’s academic credentials include a B.S. from
the School of Business and Industry, Florida A & M University; an M.A. in
Education from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University; and a Ph.D.
from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Leadership and
executive programs completed include DoD Executive Leadership Development
Program; George Washington University Executive Contemporary Development
Program, American Institute for Managing Diversity; Diversity Management/EEO
Institute at Hollins College; The Brookings Institute Senior Level Benchmarking
Program, and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government:
Leadership for 21st Century and Harvard’s Program for Senior Managers in
Government.
Dr. Gant’s awards are many; they include The Department
of Navy Award for Meritorious Civilian Service, Office of the Secretary of
Defense Civilian Service Award, DIA Director's Award, DIA Award for Exceptional
Civilian Service, DIA Award for Meritorious Civilian Service, and the Marine
Corps Commanding General’s Outstanding Employee Award. Dr. Gant is the author of several
publications that include the The Pennsylvania State University, American
Distance Learning Association On-Line Symposium, (30 OCT 98) Distance Learning Quality Indicators:
Teletraining Two-way Electronic Classroom, DEOSNEWS Vol. 8 No.10,
http://www.ed.psu.edu/ACSDE/; Government Learning Technology Symposium
Proceedings (JAN 98) Implementation of
Distance Learning: Critical Factors; the International Society for
Performance and Improvement, Inc. Performance & Instruction Journal,
Lessons in Developing Distance Learning
(FEB 96, Vol. 35, No. 2); Use of Emerging
Technologies: Training Troops Around the World (JAN 95, Vol. 34, No. 1);
Defense Intelligence Agency Communique, TQM: Human Needs-The ABC's of Nurturing the Human Potential, Spring
95; Defense Intelligence College NEWS, Use of Emerging Technology: Linking for Learning, (FEB 93, Vol. 1,
No. 4); 30 Key Steps to Successful
Diversity Management: Mentoring, Networking, and Sponsorship (SEP 00, Vol. 39, No. 8), the International
Society for Performance and Improvement, Performance & Improvement.
The DCI appointed Dr. Gant
as the Community’s representative to the White House One America Initiative.
She is also an active executive board member of the Board of Trustees for
Episcopal High School, a co-educational boarding school in Alexandria,
Virginia, where her daughter, Lela, graduated.
Dr. Gant is a member of the Executive Management Advisory Council at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University at the Northern VA
Graduate Center. As a member of Delta
Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., she has held leadership positions and represents
the chapter at local and national level events and conferences.
Dr. Gant resides in Fort Washington, Maryland with
her husband, a retired U. S. Air Force Officer, Raymond C. Gant, DDS; they have
two daughters, Raemeka and Lela.