Keys to Success in the Workplace

I woke up this morning, re-heated a cup of yesterday’s coffee, and sank into my home office chair. As I scanned the new e-mails that surfaced overnight, I immediately noticed a message from a current student.  As the summer months cause student-withdrawal for me, I eagerly opened her e-mail first:

Hey Boz!

I am writing a section in a newsletter for the company where I am interning. The question I am supposed to answer is, "What do your professors claim to be the biggest challenge for you entering public accounting in the next few years?"

Can you please talk briefly about a challenge or two that you see in the next few years? I appreciate it.

Thanks!

Sarah

Before writing any further, I should say a few things.  First, I love the student’s introduction and use of an exclamation point!  She sounds excited to be sending her message to me, causing me to be excited to reply to her.  Second, don’t stop reading because you aren’t an accountant and think this blog will not apply to you, The solutions I will discuss apply to most fields, and the cool thing is that if you can excel at applying them, you will be reading my blog from your Caribbean timeshare before long.  Third, instead of using the word “challenges” as is stated in Sarah’s e-mail, I will generally use the phrase “keys to success” – with the challenge being the need to mastering these keys.  Fourth, these are keys to success in the early years; keys to success evolve as you progress in your career.  Fifth, for the most part, these are not new keys to success, but I feel they are becoming increasingly critical as the world around us changes.

When addressing the keys to success, I’m not going to drone on about the importance of technical knowledge.  Just as CPA’s needs to understand accounting rules, each profession has knowledge that must be gained, if not mastered.  Clearly, if I’m on an ER table coding someday, I could care less about many of the intangible skills my doctor possesses – if he or she doesn’t have the skill to shock me back to life, I’m just hoping that my life insurance premiums are current.  However, I feel that a breakdown occurs in that technical knowledge becomes too much of a focus in college education, and that students who possess deep technical knowledge but lack in the other skills I discuss below will not reach their full potential.

Understanding this topic better has been a passion of mine, so over the past few years, I have asked dozens of successful business professionals about their opinions on the keys to success early in a business career.  One of my contacts did in all seriousness say “we need to find people who like to drink beer,” but most of the answers I received were a bit more useful.  According to the business professionals, the top five keys to success (in addition to possessing strong technical knowledge) are communicating well, effectively using relevant technology, thinking critically, teaming well with others, and working with determination.

Communicating well is an enormous challenge given the impact that technology is having on society as a whole, but especially our students.  Many professors and business professionals lament that the explosion of texting and instant messaging is hurting the written communication skills and inter-personal skills of students.  I believe this is true and that students need to be able to write e-mails and other written documents clearly, concisely, and courteously.  I also believe they need to know when and how to talk to someone face to face vs. over technology (if you ever e-mail a question to someone who is working ten feet from you, you should probably receive five demerits).  At the same time, we need to realize that these texting-monsters are increasingly climbing the ranks of management.  Thus, the challenge is not deciding if new forms of electronic communication should be used in the workplace, but rather learning how, when, and with who to use these new forms of electronic communication.

Effectively using relevant technology means to understand what tools are key in your profession and to do your best to master them.  For accountants, if you can’t effectively use Microsoft Excel, learn now.  And when I say now, I mean now - well, finish reading this blog entry first, but then avoid checking your Facebook account and instead Google something like “how to use Microsoft Excel,” and start practicing.  Figure out the shortcuts, click on things just to see what happens, and learn by observing others.  You may think you can just learn on the job someday, and while that is true to an extent, managers will immediately flock on day one toward new associates who can use technology very efficiently, and run like the wind away from those who cannot.

Thinking critically is certainly one of the most difficult traits to both teach and learn.  However, it is becoming even more crucial, as routine jobs are being increasingly automated or outsourced: China for manual labor and India for services.  If you can’t think critically and if you can only process information, you are in danger of your job pulling a David Copperfield and disappearing.  So, what does it mean to think critically?  Question everything you don’t fully understand, except maybe why your boss brings the newspaper with to the restroom (I had a boss who regularly did that).  Never be satisfied with simply knowing how to do something, know why you are doing it (thanks to my first boss Tom for that wisdom).  And always look to improve upon the project you have been asked to do.

Teaming well with others makes this list as the world we are living in is becoming too complex to handle alone.  We need others to survive in the workplace.  Also, to an extent, students are so strapped to technology that they are not as accustomed to sitting down with others and working face to face.  Just today, I received a call to be a reference for a recent grad.  I gave him a positive reference and cited the fact that he is sharp, respectful, and will likely show up every day and work hard.  An employer can do a lot with those traits and I was happy to stick my neck out for him.  However, when asked for drawbacks, I was honest and said that the student was fairly introverted and I did not regularly see him working with others – and as a result I recommended him more for jobs where working in a team wasn’t a main focus.

Working with determination is the final key repeatedly cited in my interviews of business professionals.  This means whenever you are assigned a task, take ownership of it, attack it right away, and complete it to the best of your ability.  Maybe even work some overtime (shudder) to get it done.  I believe this is even more of a challenge today due to technology.  Back when I started in the “real world” in 1995, I would show up, put my head down and work for 10 straight hours, with only a lunch break thrown in.  It was easy.  Why?  There wasn’t technology to distract me.  There also wasn’t technology to automate the easy stuff, so I could work mindlessly for hours on end and that was considered productive.  To further illustrate this point, I recently brought two successful business professionals into my classroom and somewhat (okay, considerably) embarrassed them by asking them to describe what made their colleague so successful.  One cited the other’s ability to accept any task and to work harder than anyone else.  The other cited their colleague’s desire to seek out the most complex tasks and complete them to the best of her ability.

Well, those are the five keys that were frequently repeated when I interviewed dozens of business professionals.  If you don’t mind, I’d like to quickly add two thoughts of my own.  The first additional key to success is passion.  You must love, or at least like, what you do.  If you don’t, you will be miserable and drag others down.  You won’t feel inspired to work with determination or to think critically.  Your bosses will hope that you have an early-life crisis and quit so they don’t have to fire you and watch their unemployment premiums rise.  So find something you love doing and figure out how to make a career doing it.  That doesn’t mean that you have to love every single part of what you do.  Obviously, I love teaching more than accounting work, evidenced by the fact that I left my CPA career to become a professor.  But, I keep active with CPA work, even though it isn’t my primary passion, because I still enjoy it, and it makes me a more effective professor.

The second additional key to success is to develop global awareness.  The world is becoming more integrated everyday, and those who hide from this realization are doing themselves a huge disservice.  Be open to working with those from other cultures and seek out those opportunities…so you don’t end up like Dave.  I remember walking into Dave’s office one day to ask a question which involved the word “international.”  As soon as I said that word, I think Dave soiled himself.

That’s all I’ve got for today…Uh, oh.  I just re-read the initial e-mail again, and Sarah asked me to briefly talk about a challenge or two.  Whoops!!!  Well, if I had to sum it up in one sentence, here is what I would say: I believe the challenge is finding a job that you will want to work at with determination and a critical mindset, because if you do that, most everything else should fall into place.