Keys to Career Success
(From Mitch Barn’s Blog)
Keys to Career SuccessTwo weeks ago, I spoke at the Wharton Asia Business Conference, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School in Philadelphia. One of the other speakers was Donald Tang, Founder & CEO of CITIC Securities International Partners, a prominent financial firm in China. Mr. Tang has had a very successful career including serving as Chairman & CEO of Bear Stearns Asia before joining CITIC.
After each speaker’s talk, there was a Q&A session. At the end of Donald Tang’s talk, a member of the audience asked, “What are the keys to a successful career?” He replied by saying, “Three things:
- Be confident. Confidence is rewarded with opportunity.
- Work hard. The goal is not to work harder than everyone else. You cannot really know just how hard everyone else is working, so that isn’t the best benchmark. Instead, just give your very best every day.
- Take risks. Don’t take just any kind of risk. Take smart risks, where you have weighed the pros and cons. But take risks.”
It was good advice, but I could sense the audience was not impressed. It sounded so simple, so basic. The person who asked the question then said, “That sounds like good advice for someone just recently out of university, but what about someone who is further along is his/her career?”
Mr. Tang then said, “Same advice. In fact, those three things are even more important later on in your career, after you’ve had some success. For example
After you have had some success, sometimes your confidence turns into arrogance. Confidence is positive to success. Arrogance is not.
After you have had some success, you might be less motivated to work as hard as you can. You’re tempted to think that you’ve already proven yourself so maybe you don’t need to work so hard any more. Beware.
After you have had some success, then you have something to lose and so maybe you are not as willing to take more risks. That limits your potential and your impact.
So, do you see? This advice is even more important later on in our careers, once we’ve had some success. It’s then that we are most vulnerable to falling down on these points.”
After initially waving off his advice as “too simple and basic”, now nearly everyone in the audience was nodding in agreement and in a hurry to write his three points down. This was especially true for those of us—myself included!—who were already well along in our careers. We knew he was right.
成功的关键
两星期前，我在宾西法尼亚州费城沃顿商学院赞助的亚洲商业年会上作受邀演讲。其中一个演讲嘉宾是Donald唐，中国一家著名的金融公司——中信证券的创始人和CEO。唐先生有着非常成功的职业生涯，包括在中信之前在贝尔斯登亚洲担任董事长和CEO的时候。
每位演讲人说完后都有Q&A环节。在唐先生讲完之后，有一位观众提问：“职业生涯成功的关键是什么？”他回答道： “三件事情：
- 自信。自信会换来机会。
- 努力。不需要比所有人都要努力。你不可能知道别人此时此刻如何努力，所以这不是一个好的参考标准。而是应该每天都尽自己所能地努力。
- 冒险。不要什么风险都去冒。承担你能权衡过利弊后觉得小的风险。但是要要敢于冒风险。”
这是一些好的建议，但我觉得没给下面的观众留下什么印象。它听起来太简单，太基础。这个提问的观众接着说：“这听起来比较适合刚刚毕业的人，但是对于工作多年的人有没有建议？”
唐先生说：“同样的建议。其实这三件事情在你工作数年后会变得更重要，尤其是你获得一些成功之后。举个例子：
- 在你获得了一些成功之后，有时候自信会变成自大。自信是促进成功的，但自大可不是。
- 在你获得了一些成功之后，你会失去一些尽可能努力的动力。你会倾向于相信你已经证明了你自己所以也许你不需要再做更多努力了。这时候要警惕了。
- 在你获得了一些成功之后，你开始害怕失去一些东西所以不愿意再去冒风险。这限制了你的潜力和影响。”
所以，你看到吗？这建议在你工作数年后会更重要，尤其获得一些成功之后。这往往是我们容易掉入上述这些状态的时候。”
刚刚那些说他的建议“太简单太基础”的人，几乎每一个都点头同意并且匆匆记录下他刚才说的三点。这就是我们这些已经在职场上顺利走过数年的人——当然也包括我——身上的特点！我们意识到他说的是对的。