4 tips to get promotion

How to get the promotion in 2013?

Doing your job really well isn't enough if you want to climb the career ladder – you need to be positive, resilient and strategic

This is the time to  reevaluate your career aspirations, choices and make new decisions.

5 things you need to do to get recognized at work:

1. Manage your personal brand.

2. Bring your own unique  value so that you become a go to person.

3.  You need to systematically train yourself on  hard skills. Psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson called this deliberate practice.This will be the main differentiators between average hard working people and you.

4. You need to smart enough to stand out in the crowd – amongst your peers and colleagues. Here is a great article "Want That Promotion? Practice Your Job." by CAl Newport on WAS.

5. Promotions are not just a function of skills and aptitude, the CTI (Center for Talent Innovation) report argues. Executive presence is “a required yet unwritten” competency for leaders.

I was talking with Dr. Malavika, a famous Calcutta based human resource consultant on recent trend of management training and steps to getting paid more and promoted faster.

How to get promoted: Secrets to promotion success 

Malvika explained one of the strategies for getting yourself promoted in knowledge based industry to get training in latest techniques. She mentioned 4 games you need to play & learn to get recognized at your work. 

She put forth  a very important concept on importance of games in development of business skill. She told that playing games and learning game theory is must of those who want to be successful at 'cxo' level.

4 games that can help to get next promotion

Be bold to get recognized

1. 'Beer game' by John Sterman of MIT-Sloan. This is based around the production, sale, and distribution of the eponymous beverage, and can be played by as few as four to as many as several hundred participants.You will learn virtue of wait and how to act instead of complain.

2. She mentioned that there are some coaching centers who took the concept a step further—out of the office or factory scenario. These games are actually play involving real hot issues. Where aspiring managers plays instead of professional actors.

Common topics are euro zone problem, how America should overcome financial cliff, how to find price & production anomaly, how to manage the company during disaster.

It develops analytic skill as well as train the people on how to influence others in an important meeting. Actually, these games help you to learn reframe of your experience. You need to convert most horrible experience into a learning lesson.

3. She mentioned that the management institute Mannaz, in Denmark has devised a program based around the world’s most popular online game, World of Warcraft, which aims to show how international teams can improve their leadership effectiveness through shifting strategies that place high demands on communication and the management of tasks and team mates.

4. Chess is one of the best game for learning strategy. Chess demonstrates the need for combining big-picture thinking with the balance of resources and an in-depth understanding of your competition. If you are a regular chess player, you know the importance to build a network of players also.  This is important.

Every employee in the workplace is 100% responsible for his or her promotion.

I asked Malavika why smart people having good track records fail?

She mentioned that in an attempt to be useful and adaptable people normally say yes to too many good projects and opportunities. But, I finally they end up feeling overworked and underutilized.

How to get a promotion

She continued that we hold the key to unlock our true potential & success.  You need to find which ideas from the past are important and pursue those. Throw out the rest. This life audit is important for your professional success.

Greg McKeown  article "The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" is a must read to avoid career regrets.


The reality is, your boss or your company will not go out of their way to give you a promotion or a raise. You have to prove to them that you are worthy of a promotion .


You have to do the things that trigger or merit promotions. In a moment, I will reveal to you exactly how to do so. Read "How To Get A Promotion And Pay Raise At Work ?", an  interesting article referred by Malavika .

As a departing comment she told all these games will make a person more deserving. 

You can follow  Glenn Llopis, article on "5 Ways to Get Promoted in 2013"

Skills to be successful in Professional life

I got 127 comments & mails on my last post "How To Get A Promotion?". Several people gave various idea . In this post, I'm adding top 5 mush have skills based on people comment and my research on this topic.

1. Effective communication & Building rapport 

2. Personal Accountability

3. Persuasion

4. Interpersonal skill

5. Working knowledge on subject matter

In summary,  people are successful for a reason and many of them highly display certain personal skills.

Let's discuss this below...

What I learned from Live of Pi Movie

A very personal review of Life Of Pi of by Ang Lee

Let me first share the story


Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, is a magical adventure story centering on Pi Patel, the son of a zoo keeper. Dwellers in Pondicherry, India, the family decides to move to Canada. After a shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a 26-foot lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, all fighting for survival. In short “Life of Pi” is a wonderful adventure story with a philosophical message.

9 Great Lessons I learned from Life of Pie book by Yann Martel 

1. It’s difficult to follow different paths at the same time, as many of them are conflicting in nature and often create confusion and make it difficult to stay focused and at times, lead to wastage of crucial resources.

2. Ensure your own identity. Pi associated a story with his name and that does the trick for him.

3. In spite of your intelligence, a well thought out plan is necessary just like PI followed the survival guidebook after his ship capsized

4. It’s NOT advisable to enter unknown and uncharted territories without adequate research. Pi decided to shift to the raft because he got scared of Richard Parker (tiger) but he was not aware of the whale that will upturn his raft throwing all his supplies to the water.

5. Learn to leave with your aggressive colleagues in a very competitive market. After the whale incident, Pi had to reconcile to the fact that he has to live with Mr. Parker on the lifeboat, an idea, which he had been resisting so far. You need to define your territory & protect the same from your competitor.

6. Don’t stop midway because this might deprive you from larger success. When Pi reached the mysterious floating island of carnivorous algae inhabited by meerkats, it seemed like, he has reached an oasis of life with bountiful food, water and shelter. But, it probably symbolizes the idea of settling for something average when there could be something much better in store. But, covering the last mile is often the most difficult part of the journey when body and mind wants to give up.

7. Never stop and always try to innovate even in a toughest time. Only mentally tough people can survive. I just like the attitude how Pi never gave up hope of survival even in the black sea or the dark clouds or the ominous waves or the hungry predator as company.

8. The idea of timeless existence makes Pi more spiritual because it takes away the obligations in life leaving only the peace you need to become one with whatever religion you may choose. This is a revelation to me. First my life I understood spirituality starts where religion ends.

9. Tough time challenges your creativity. This innovative skill is important to overcome all odds in life.

In summary -  Life of Pi is an intelligently scripted and gorgeously crafted piece of film making. It’s a visual touchstone in modern film making. And if you’re going to see it, you need to see it in theaters and in 3D. 

Revenge of Mediocre

Why Academic Qualification Is Not Enough?
Other day, I was talking with career counselor, Rima on depression at working place. During our discussion, she mentioned an interesting fact that several people feel frustrated during their mid-career because some of their school or college mates, who used to be back benchers, are professionally more successful than them today. 

Rima quoted this as the ‘revenge of mediocre.’

Here are her explanations-

1.    Good students have been taught to work hard to get excellent grades at exam. So, these toppers spent all the time in reading and remembering the content of the books.  And, obviously, they did well in our mechanized education system. 
2.    By virtue of high grades they got admission in top Engineering, Medical or Business Schools. In a way they give a dream start to their career. 

Problem starts here- 

Most of them are capable and skilled but they are not street smart.   These hard skills, along with academic qualifications, make them fit for the job but do not guarantee the success in job.

Whereas, the so called back benchers might not have a flying start in their career. This forced them to acquire some additional skills. Initial hardships helped them to learn various soft skills. Good soft skills are a key to success in this highly competitive corporate world.  

Moreover, large corporates employ people who have technical as well as business knowledge. The truth is that in majority cases these business people bring revenue and increase the profitability of a company. 
Generally, academically sound students join technical course to pursue a secure and bright prospects. But, others learn the ‘business’ game in a tougher way. This forces them to learn how to be diplomatic to tackle complex situation, how to negotiate for success and how to be proactive to solve the problem. 

Disadvantages of an elite education system

(1)    Students pursing education from elite colleges think that they are the best and brightest.  This arrogance sometimes becomes a disadvantage in professional world. 
(2)    To be successful you require social intelligence, emotional intelligence and creative ability, which either you have it on your own or you need to train yourself, as these are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite.
(3)    Actually, elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. The tests like SAT, GPA, GRE do measure your ability to take tests, but this is only a small slice of the real test.   


I would like to conclude this article with Stephen R. Covey’s quote ““Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.” 

Success follows anyone who is keen to achieve it. You need hard skills as well as soft skills to be successful in life, in career or whatever you are doing. Do not just think that academic qualifications are enough to be a CEO. 

In the next article, I will discuss on how to develop soft skills to be successful.