7 ways to be a rockstar at work
There are about 11.5 million jobs in the tech industry just in the US alone and a majority of them are related to software development and testing. While working in these software teams have you ever noticed that, when a group of people join a company, after a few years there are some of them who get multiple promotions and raises while the rest are left behind still doing the same kind of job and are in the same state as they were in when they joined the company? Why do some people have more success than others when starting from the same base, in the same playing field?
One of the reasons for this is, there are seven common traits these overachievers practice that set themselves far apart from their competition and make them outliers. These traits help to make them a rockstar at work and get all the promotions and recognition they deserve.
1) Establishing credibility
You need to put in the effort and do the work you were hired to do. You have to meet deadlines and be consistent in meeting those deadlines. The biggest problem with individuals these days is, just two months into their new job they are already thinking about the next promotion and salary and forget to focus on the task in hand. This derails them from their focus, vision and goals. The first thing anyone needs to do in a new environment is work really hard and smart to establish credibility. Only when you establish credibility, people start trusting you with more work, responsibilities and opportunities.
2) Working for a cause
Irrespective of whether you're a developer, tester, business analyst or a manager you need to work for a cause. For example; a developer may want to build the features that help to solve people's problems, a tester may want the user to have a seamless customer experience. Everything you do as part of your job should be tied to a cause. This makes you perform better.
3) Spreading the knowledge
There are many things you try or implement at work. Some of them work out and some don’t. You need to share this knowledge with other people in your team as well. If you try something new and it works, and saves a lot of time, cost and effort for the team it is worth sharing with other people.The more you share, the more people get to know about you and it's a whole ripple effect where you start attracting people’s attention and get more opportunities in the future. Knowledge sharing can be done through various channels such as blogs, lunch and learns, team meetings or even stand-up meetings. This knowledge can not only be related to your success stories but failures and lessons learned as well.
4) Taking pride in your work
When you work for a company, you need to start believing in their product and the services they provide. You need to believe their solutions help to solve people's problems. This is when you can do your best work, convince other people about the value of your product and get a whole level of respect for the work you do on a daily basis.
5) Leading with empathy
Quite often people get confused between the word empathy and sympathy. It is important to understand the difference. Sympathy is when you're consoling another person or feeling bad for them when he or she is explaining their situation but empathy is trying to step in the other person's shoes and feeling what they are feeling at that instant of time. Remember to always lead with empathy because they're always gonna be situations where a particular task wasn't done properly or something didn't get delivered on time. In these kinds of situations, instead of immediately coming to conclusions on why a person defaulted on their tasks, show empathy and listen to what the other person has to say. In many cases, there could be a legitimate reason why they could not accomplish a particular task.
6) Continuous learning
We need to continually keep learning about different technologies, programming languages, latest trends and developments in our workplace. You never know how your life would change or what kind of job you will be doing several years from now. Take me for example; I started off being a hard core developer, then I moved into testing, became a tech lead, got into a managerial role, started doing developer evangelism and now; run my own company doing tech career coaching, speaking and tech evangelism for multiple clients. The reason I could make these transitions were, I was continuously learning and keeping my eyes and ears open for new opportunities that came up through my learning. I discovered and developed new interests. The same thing can happen to you too.
As Albert Einstein said “When you stop learning you start dying”. So keep learning.
7) Growing your network
Your network is your biggest asset. For example; for my last four jobs I didn't submit a single resume; everything was through word of mouth from networking. Building a network opens up new opportunities. So ensure you attend meetups, conferences and social events. These events need not be necessarily related to your field. You will be pleasantly surprised at what career paths you could discover when you are open to meeting new people and learning from their experiences.
Remember, if you want to be EXTRAORDINARY, you need to go the EXTRA mile. This is where the word extra comes into picture.
If you can relate to any of the above points or have some similar experiences, please share it in the comments below.
Also, here is a video where I go through these 7 key factors to be a rockstar in detail. Check it out and subscribe for more inspirational content.