Catalyst Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Catalyst

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Zusammenfassung von Catalyst

Name: Catalyst
Rating: 4.2 (106 reviews)
Author: Chandramouli Venkatesan

Chandramouli Venkatesan

The Ultimate Strategies on How to Win at Work and in Life

4.2 (106 Bewertungen)

21 Min.

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Inhaltsübersicht

Catalyst
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Kernaussage 1 von 8

What’s in it for me? Plan your path to a kick-ass career.

What do you need to build a successful career? A couple of the ingredients are pretty obvious. You’ll need a job you love, for one. A little old-fashioned elbow grease won’t hurt, either. Add a dash of social smarts and topnotch communication skills to the mix and you’re all set. But we’re still missing one key factor – the stimuli that kickstart and support your growth.

Think of them as catalysts: the magic people and actions that precipitate success. Whether it’s a boss who encourages you to answer your own questions, or learning why it’s so important to postpone gratification, these are the active ingredients that can accelerate your career without leaving you feeling burned out.

The tips and tricks in these blinks are designed for long-term and sustainable success. Start putting them into action today and there’s no telling how far you can go.

Along the way, you’ll learn

Why fretting about that next promotion is a waste of time;
What the fabled race between the tortoise and the hare tells us about timing; and
Some telltale signs that your next boss is a good match for you.

Focusing on personal growth is much more fulfilling than fretting over promotions.

Today’s business world is a rat race. Getting ahead means moving up the ladder – the higher, the better. That’s the general idea, at least. In reality, careers rarely progress as swiftly or smoothly as we’d like. It’s easy to feel frustrated.

So let’s take a fresh look at your relationship with your job.

A good way to start is by letting go of the illusion of control. Remember, your career progression isn’t solely up to you. Like a ship sailing its way across the ocean, a typical 40-year career has to make the best of unpredictable headwinds and tailwinds. Sometimes an industry booms and people in that sector with specialized skills are suddenly in high demand. If you’re one of those people, this tailwind will help carry you toward your destination: promotion and a bigger paycheck.

At other times, though, headwinds check your progress. Just think of someone who’s been a committed, loyal employee of the same company for years, waiting for an opportunity to get promoted. Then, when her boss finally announces his retirement, management announces a new strategy and the position she worked so hard to reach is eliminated completely!

Careers might be unpredictable, but that doesn’t mean you need to let the worry over promotions and raises stress you out. Instead, your best bet is to focus on your own personal growth. That means gaining professional experience, and improving and expanding your skillset.

Imagine you’re a baseball batter. If you concentrate on hitting each ball tossed your way as perfectly as possible, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll win the game. Step up to the plate with nothing on your mind but winning the game, though, and you’ll probably be so nervous that you’ll end up missing every time you swing.

Careers are just like that. If you take your professional life one swing at a time rather than obsessing over the big picture, you’ll end up excelling.

Experience is the fruit of active learning not just doing a job.

Interviews are often pretty formulaic, so you can usually guess a lot of the questions that’ll come up long before you’ve walked through the door. Top of the list? Experience. Usually, you’ll say you’ve been a manager, a lawyer, an accountant for fifteen years – and the interview moves on.

But what do all those years actually tell us about the quality of someone’s experience?

Seeking out and contributing to major projects is a great way to gain experience.

What do the most successful people have in common? Here’s one thing: they’ve all contributed to a major company project from its inception to its completion.

This is called a learning cycle. Say a company wants to launch a new product. The team has to identify what the new product needs to work, draft a business plan, develop and test prototypes and finally, implement the necessary infrastructure for production, sales and service. Then, at last, they can launch the product. That’s a full learning cycle.

Success is all about timing, so learn to delay gratification.

We all know about the tortoise and the hare. Here’s a new way to think about it: while you obviously want to hit the ground running when you start your career, it’s vital that you don’t peak too soon. Typically, people focus on the first half of their working lives and forget about what comes later. But long-term success is all in the timing – like a marathon runner, you want to hit your stride as you enter the second half of the race.

To see why, let’s take a look at two marketing employees. They’re both hardworking and capable people, and both have done well for themselves. After a decade of experience in their field, both head up marketing departments in decent-sized companies. This is the midpoint of their careers – what happens next is key.

The first half of your career is the perfect time to boost your problem-solving skills.

Imagine the following scenario: You’re a young office worker with about five years of experience under your belt. One day, a competing firm reaches out to you. Their old boss has unexpectedly quit and they’re convinced you’re the right person for the job. You’ve just been offered your first senior position – great news, right?

Not quite. As we saw in the last blink, there’s a good reason to take things slow when you’re just starting out on your professional journey. Snap up that company’s offer and you might just end up missing out on something vital: the chance to really focus on going deep in your work and improving your skills. Typically, that’s something you’ll only ever really get to do once, in the first half of your career.

Great bosses can inspire you to truly excel; seek out the best in the business.

Our age has become increasingly individualistic. Everyone, the argument goes, is responsible for their own success. That’s not necessarily wrong, but it does leave out something important: virtually everything you pick up along your journey is learned from someone else. More often than not, that person is your superior. That’s why it’s so vital to work with the right bosses.

But before we get to how you can seek out the best in the business, let’s take a closer look at the two different kinds of boss you’ll likely encounter during the first half of your career.

Challenging hobbies can help you remain competitive even as you take on more team-focused roles.

Remember how the most successful people all have experience in seeing projects through from start to finish? Well, there’s another thing the author noticed while observing senior executives in major companies: they’re all passionate about challenging hobbies.

These aren’t just any old pastimes, however. In fact, they’re usually what the author calls striving sports. These are competitive, individualistic and difficult to truly master – think of running, cycling, swimming or golf. More importantly, they encourage you to focus on yourself. Whether you’re competing in a race or teeing up shots, your aim is always the same: to beat your previous record.

When it comes to effective leadership, values are just as important as position and message.

The world is full of leaders. Every nation, region, community, religious group, council and company has one or more leaders. But not all of them are cut from the same cloth. Some are merely obeyed while others inspire intense loyalty. So let’s look at the difference between humdrum leaders and exceptional ones.

There are a couple of factors. Let’s start with a leader’s position and message. One way to measure the effectiveness of a leader is by looking at how many followers she has and how much influence she has over them. Generally speaking, the more senior a leader’s position, the more trust she’ll inspire in her followers. That’s why a CEO usually commands more respect than a vice president.

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Worum geht es in Catalyst?

Catalyst (2018) is the ultimate A to Z guide to navigating one of life’s trickiest journeys: your career. Jam-packed with actionable insights rooted in author Chandramouli Venkatesan’s years of first-hand experience with today’s most successful corporate go-getters, these blinks shed light on key topics from picking the right boss to the value of taking it slow and becoming an effective leader.

Bestes Zitat aus Catalyst

I believe career growth is something like that - the more you focus on it, the less effective it is.

—Chandramouli Venkatesan

Wer Catalyst lesen sollte

Ambitious professionals
Executives and managers
Coaches and work psychologists

Über den Autor

Chandramouli Venkatesan is an author and management expert with over 26 years of experience on the corporate front lines. His previous employers include Asian Paints, the largest manufacturer of paint in India, British confectionary giant Cadbury and Mirc Electronics. Venkatesan is currently the CEO of Pidilite Industries. He is also the author of Get Better at Getting Better.

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Career & Success Personal Development

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