Highly effective people can be successful or unsuccessful.

The likelihood of success at a point in time varies directly with fit — fit with environment including people, values, style, role, and expectations. So often it is poor fit, which creates many different types of conflicts, that is the real cause of "performance issues."

It is much more likely that an individual's natural approach to work creates problems when there is poor fit. You can adjust behavior when there is a bad fit, to try to better understand how your needs align with the organization's, or to buy time to work on how you can be more effective.

Do you fit where you are? How well? Are your behaviors aligned with the "norm" at your organization, at least enough to be effective? These are difficult but necessary questions during the process of examining your career.

Some Organizations Have Difficulty in Communicating Reality
How do you know whether you are doing well? Of course, you have your own standards. People work, contribute, and succeed based on their own standards. This judgment is important — are you doing things that make you feel good about yourself?

What about the perceptions of others? Are you getting straightforward feedback about how you are doing? How are you getting this feedback? Our experience is that many, many people do not get good feedback. Sometimes when it does finally come, it is communicated by the organization out of frustration — because management has reached a "breaking" point. What can you do to make sure you get good feedback? It's your responsibility.

Career Self-Management is Complex (and Difficult)
Sometimes, even when communication by the organization about performance is effective, some people have difficulty in understanding what has been communicated, or in making adjustments based on their understanding.

The trend in organizations today is to leave the ultimate responsibility for career management up to the individual. We believe this is appropriate, provided there is some support from the company. Without this approach it is much more difficult for people to become self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is positive and contributes to positive self confidence, dependence does not. All of us have been taught (more or less) to be dependent on the organizations and institutions around us.

What does it mean to manage your own career? How do you do it? How do you know you are doing a good job? We will work with you to find answers. For career management to be useful, it must be based on reality. That is what SSP is all about. Understanding (and then acting on) reality.

Change Happens Quickly
One of the practical difficulties with change is that when it happens fast, or when it is not communicated well (which is almost always), it is so easy to fall behind in your understanding of the reality around you. Then, when you think you have it figured out, it changes again. To be successful in an environment, you need to understand as well as possible the requirements and perceptions of those around you. But how?

A Constant Focus on Learning Goes a Long Way to Enabling Success
The quickest way to get in trouble with your career is to stop learning. A strong focus on learning new things, constantly, will go a long way to ensuring success. What choice have you made? What choice will you make?

People Make Choices Without Understanding They are Making Choices
We are not controlled by external events. People are motivated by forces inside us. Our behavior is a series of choices to control our lives and to satisfy our needs. Do you believe this? Do you place blame on others for your problems? This behavior is a choice, which is not effective. Placing blame on others or things will never allow you to take effective control of your life. Are you conscious of the choices you are making?

Each Person is Unique
Because everyone is different, we all react differently to workplace events. Most organizations view people as "employees" who as a group are assumed to have some kind of consistent reaction to change. The majority of development efforts assume you fully understand the reason for the training, and that you believe the development is important and useful. An assumption is also made by many organizations that people listen to feedback and understand it in the same manner as it was given. We believe each may be incorrect assumptions.

We also believe that because each individual is unique, any change management effort, including one to help a person adapt or improve, must be developed just for that person. Another key question we will ask time and again is "How will your behavior result in what you want and need?"

An Experienced, Outside Perspective Can Enable Success More Quickly
It may seem to you that all of these issues are so complex that there may be no hope or at least it's going to take a long time to get anywhere. That's where we come in. We believe that the solutions are not impossible because changing behavior almost always helps you solve your problems, if that change is focused on helping you get what you want. But you really have to do it. Focus will help ensure that you make the changes necessary to be successful, now and in the future.

Personal Issues Can Influence Your Success
As people, we cannot completely separate our personal lives from our work lives. Are there issues from your personal life than might possibly be influencing your behaviors at work?

Balance is Critical
A basic foundation for success, both for you and your organization is balance — between your needs and the organization's, and between your offer and the organization‘s offer. Achieving balance is a primary focus of this program — through a plan that we will help you develop.

SSP's Q5 Framework
The Q5 Framework is a tool to use to manage your success and to understand and achieve balance between your needs and those of your organization.

Understanding the world around you is critical to your success. When change happens, especially rapid change, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay in tune with your environment and reality around you. Often difficulties arise because people have in some part misunderstood (or not paid enough attention to) the world around them. Or they are not in tune with their own interests and needs which impact their perceptions of the world around them.

Our Success Framework helps individuals to more clearly see what is required to be successful, and to implement a plan to enable individual success. Contact us for more information.