Win at Work!: The Everybody Wins Approach to Conflict Resolution

Epilogue "Working the Circle" as You Advance Your Career

If we divided our careers into sections, those sections might look something like this:

1. Getting started

   • Landing the first job

   • Learning the system

   • Exploring different environments, people, and positions

   • Developing a view—probably somewhat unrealistic at this stage—of one's strengths and weaknesses

   • Hungering for feedback

   • Feeling intimidated by, yet wanting to be among, senior management

   • Developing organizational loyalty

2. Building the résumé

   • Finding greater autonomy

   • Feeling some disillusionment with the system

   • Accomplishing successful project management

   • Developing allies and adversaries

   • Gaining deeper insight into one's strengths

   • Gaining greater awareness of one's weaknesses

   • Still desiring feedback, but lower expectations of getting it

   • Feeling diminished organizational loyalty

3. Gaining competence (Note: This usually implies you've had two or three jobs by now, though not necessarily)

   • Having less reliance on feedback

   • Gathering leadership opportunities

   • Defining preferences for environments, people, and positions

   • Moving up the organizational chart (if that has been a goal)

   • Achieving greater financial independence

   • Experiencing, perhaps, being laid off or even fired

   • Growing skepticism toward senior management

   • Taking pride in one's strengths, concern about one's weaknesses

   • Having loyalty to oneself and one's manager (if he or she is a positive role model), as opposed to the organization

4. Focusing on the 401(k)

   • Not needing feedback

   • Having less patience for those who ...