Junior staff in our firm ask me how they can improve and advance in their careers. My answer is in 3 parts.

You have to understand the business deeply.

You have to understand the business and how the things you're doing affects the business's bottom line. If your current role is managing the social media presence of the company, then aside from focusing on the social media engagement you are generating, you should dive deeper into how these engagement are bringing real business value to the business.

Are you generating leads that converts to paying customers? Are you helping resolve PR nightmares that saves the company millions in branding?

How much in $$$ are you bringing in? How much in $$$ are you saving for the company?

Learn to package what you do into "How is it good for the business?".

You have to take full ownership.

Whether it is success or failure, take full ownership. No finger pointing or passing the ball to another person.

When a project is successful and management sees your result, share the accreditations with your team. When a project is failing and didn't achieve its original target, take full ownership of the failure and let the puck stop at you.

Following this rule with everything you do will slowly command respect from the people working for you and generate trust with your superiors.

You have to WANT to improve.

In today's age, one can improve across disciplines and industries with all the free knowledge available on the internet. But before you do that, you need to go deeper and ask yourself why you want to improve.

A case in point:

1. Why do I want to improve? Because I want to contribute all that I can to help the startup that I am working for succeed.
2. Why? Because I think technology startups are the future and by bringing my current startup to a successful stage, I will have made a name for myself in the industry and also accumulated enough knowledge to help other startups or my own venture in the future.
3. Why? Because ultimately, money matters. Monetary windfall combined with my strong interest in technology points me to this exciting path where I get to do what I love for a chance to make a comfortable living in the future.

So don't just go asking your superiors what you can do to improve without asking yourself why. I can tell you that you need to improve A and B by doing X and Y, but without you really wanting and knowing why you want to improve, nothing will really happen.

Only by answering the why question will you have the drive and motivation to pursue the how.

Once you have questioned yourself enough and gotten an answer that can honestly convince yourself, your superiors' and mentors' advice will go a much longer way.

共勉