Over a month ago, I wrote this post and promised to be back in a few days with a thoughtful response to Peter Weddle’s blog entry. A month and a half later….sorry, I took a bit longer than expected.
One sentence from Peter’s blog seemed to spark some conversation in the comments–and Peter even stopped by to comment! That sentence is: “concentrate on building up the capability, flexibility, utility and visibility of your talent — your DNA of excellence.” That’s a great sounding sentence, but what does it mean? Here’s my interpretation.
Capability. Do you know the stuff you’re supposed to know? Accomplish this by staying current on research and best practices in your functional area and/or specialty. If you’re feeling less than confident about your skills, seek out additional training, whether formal or informal. Make an effort to communicate regularly with leaders and practitioners in your field so you’re exposed to a variety of opinions and experiences.
Flexibility. Are your skills transferable? Expand your skill set so it can be applied to other functional areas on campus, or even other industries. Explore alternate delivery methods–your career counseling skills may be stellar when a student is in your office, but are you comfortable counseling on the telephone, skype, or using social media? Another important aspect of flexibility is the types of stakeholders you’re comfortable working with. Hopefully everyone reading this works well with students, but other groups to consider are: parents, faculty, support staff, community members, private sector employees, and people much older or younger than you.
Utility. Are you spending your time developing expertise in an area that is truly useful to the profession? It’s important to recognize if your focus has jumped the shark. Assuming your knowledge-base is relevant, can you clearly and concisely explain why what you do is useful and worthwhile? Everyone’s heard of an elevator speech. Imagine you are in the elevator with a senior administrator at your institution. When he/she asks “what have you been up to?” are you able to provide a 10-15 second answer that showcases your skills and value as an employee? Is your answer so good that he/she would stop outside the elevator to ask you more about it?
Visibility. Are you recognized as a leader in your field? There are lots of ways to accomplish this:
- Present at conferences
- Submit articles for publication
- Utilize social media to connect with others
- Actively participate in professional association committees
Local visibility is important too. When your department or area of interest is mentioned on campus, does your name come up? Some options to increase your campus visibility include:
- Join committees and actually contribute
- Reach out to others when you need their expertise; they’ll likely return the favor at a later date
- Attend campus social events (for staff as well as students)
- If your campus maintains an “experts list,” find out what you need to do to be included on it.
All of this contributes to your DNA of excellence…and it will be much easier to develop it if you truly believe that you are excellent at what you do. If that’s not how you view yourself, focus more on the “capability” aspect and you’ll improve quickly. Have a conversation about this with your supervisor – what boss doesn’t want their employees to learn new things in order to become a better professional?
Be patient. I’ve been in my position for 5 years, and only recently have I begun to think about myself and my career in this manner. Does this resonate with anyone? Is there a dimension of the DNA of excellence that is missing? What strategies have you used to develop your DNA of excellence?
