Where Do I Want to Be?
It ia a good article got it by email form one of my friend.
Where Do I Want to Be?
Now answer the question "Where do I want to be?"
This is your destination on your life's map in about two to three years from now, and it's the most important question in your Clarity. The more precisely and detailed you answer this question for the areas you want to improve, the better your chances are of actually getting there.
Again, imagine how hard a journey would be if you didn't know exactly where you wanted to go. You would be absolutely stunned by how few people and businesses actually have a clear vision (Clarity) of where they would like to be!
To make this process easier, imagine precisely what your life, business, or situation will look when you can say you've "made it" in a particular category of your life in a perfect two to three years. Now take a snapshot of the image you see and list as many details as you can. I suggest choosing a two to three-year future point for your Clarity. Why? This will give you plenty of time to take action in order to bring about the future vision you desire. But it also isn't so far in the future that if you don't start taking some action now, and a little every day, that you'll be able to reach your vision. It's the perfect middle ground! This two to three year goal maximizes your motivation by keeping an attainable, yet challenging future vision consistently in front of you.
Let's look at some areas to apply this critical question.
In business, answering "Where do I want to be?" means knowing, at the very least, how much you want your business to be worth; what the salaries will be of you and your employees; knowing exactly how many employees and the type of personnel structure make up your company; your needed gross revenues to satisfy all of your needs and growth desires; where this revenue must come from; and how much time you want to work each day.
At work, this means detailing what position you want; the company or industry you want to work in; the salary you desire or how much you'd like to make from commissions; how much time you want put in on a daily or weekly basis; and how much you want to enjoy your job.
At home, this means detailing how much time you want to spend with your loved ones; exactly how you'd like to use that time; how much leisure and personal time you'd like for yourself; how much you'd like to have in savings and investments; and how much you want to reduce your debt.
And in your health, this means detailing what you'd like to look and feel like; how much energy you'd like to have; how healthy you'd like to be; how much sleep you'd like to get each night; and how much mental rest you'd like to have each day.
Don't let this exercise overwhelm you! Pretend that you have a piece of clay, which represents your future, and you now have free reign to mold it into any future you'd like to have. Be creative, and most of all, have fun doing this. Once again, don't be a perfectionist. Get a good, detailed list of your desired future, and try to do so in an hour of solid effort. You can always add to your Clarity as you move forward in your journey to success.
Having just answered "Where do I want to be?" you now know exactly where you want to go on your life's map in two to three years. You know where you are, and you know where you want to go. Once you know these two critical elements, life becomes so much more easy and clear.
So few people have taken the little effort required to define where they are and where they want to be in any detail. Think about it, though. How can anyone expect to have any chance of achieving his or her success unless they define that success in detail? No wonder so many of us are frustrated and overwhelmed.
How can you get more time in your life unless you know how you use your time right now, exactly how much more you want, and exactly what you want to use it for? Get Clarity!
How can you successfully grow your business unless you know the health of your business right now and exactly where you want it to be in the future? Get Clarity!
How can you improve your home life and relationships unless you know what you're doing right now and where exactly you want your home life and relationships to be in the future? Get Clarity!
And how can you be more healthy and have more energy unless you know where you stand right now and exactly what being in better health and having more energy means for you in the future? Again, get Clarity!
Appraisals
In theory, appraisals should be a chance for you to get feedback on your performance and help you think about your career aspirations and how to achieve them. More often than not, however, they focus on past performance rather than future plans, more of an end-of-term report than an opportunity to discuss career plans. In addition, managers are rarely trained or properly motivated to do them properly, and neither do appraisees do enough thinking and preparation for the event. If you think of your appraisal as a bureaucratic chore, you may be missing out on an opportunity to make a good impression on your manager, discuss new projects to keep you interested, and further your own career.
Preparation
Much of the work comes in a little forethought. Take time to:
Recall your achievements over the months since your last appraisal. In particular, think of the skills that you have developed in those months. What have you learnt?
Think back to mistakes you made or tasks that you felt you did not do well. Rather than wait for your manager to point out flaws in your performance, it is far more constructive for you to admit to your own faults. Were there genuine mitigating circumstances causing these flaws or mistakes? In addition, try to think about the learning points from those mistakes.
Refer back to your previous appraisal. What were the expectations laid out in that appraisal and did you achieve them or not? If not, you need to think of a way to explain your failure as well as give confidence to your manager that you will achieve them in the coming months.
Looking at both your achievements and mistakes, weigh up what training or type of projects you would like over the coming months to develop your skills. Are there courses that you could go on? Would working closely with another colleague help to enhance your skills in a particular area? Is there any support that you would like from your manager? Think also about the timescales for any training or development: is it something that could happen over a period of only a few weeks or does it require many months?
In suggesting to your manger that you need to be sent on a training course that costs money, try to think of the benefits that it will achieve for the team or organization. Talking only about the benefits for you is a much less compelling argument. For example, think of time efficiencies or ways that you would be able to help other members of the team.
Handling the meeting
If you invest time in thinking beforehand, the meeting itself should be much more straightforward. However, do be assertive about what you want to say. If you do not agree with your manager's opinion, then do not just sit there and accept his or her criticism or observations.
Handling covert criticism
Most appraisals will involve some degree of criticism from your manager. However, few managers will choose to criticize you overtly; it is much easier for them to adopt the more insidious tactic of making 'observations' with covert value judgements behind these so-called observations. So you need to be alert in order to contest these veiled criticisms:
1. Listen to what your manager has to say. Even if you do not agree, give your manager the opportunity to finish rather than interrupting him or her, which can make the situation appear more confrontational than it needs to be.
2. If you agree with the criticism, then you need to accept it, perhaps offer an apology, and then move towards suggesting ways of improving your performance.
3. If you do not agree with the criticism, you must first respond by accepting that the manager is allowed to have his or her own opinion.
4. Then think through what you do not agree with. Do you not understand what the manager is trying to say? If not, perhaps you could ask for examples of when you allegedly behaved in the unacceptable fashion.
5. Alternatively, if you understand the situations that the manager is referring to, you should put your point of view across. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances that you need to explain. Or perhaps your manager had misinterpreted or exaggerated a particular situation.
6. Whatever the discussion, make sure that you work towards agreeing how you will behave in the future. A useful way to check that you are on the right road to improving your performance is to suggest to your manager that you meet up again in, say three or four months, as opposed to waiting until your next annual appraisal. In this way, you can get some interim feedback on how well you are improving (or not).
Giving upward feedback
Use your appraisal as a formal opportunity to give some feedback on your manager's management of you. This needs to be done sensitively. One approach to giving constructive upward feedback is to talk about:
1. What do you like about your manager's management style? What would you like your manager to continue with? Giving your manager some positive strokes will make the negative feedback easier to take.
2. What do you not like about your manager's style of management? However, also think about a good reason why his or her style is not appropriate. It is not enough to say, 'I don't like it.' Try to think about the impact it has on your work: for example, 'The fact that you keep checking up on me several times a day means that it takes me a lot longer to get the job done.'
3. Finally, how would you like your manager to behave differently? Come up with a solution as opposed to just complaining. So, rather than saying, 'I don't want you to check up on me so often,' perhaps, 'After you give me a task, I would rather report back to you once a day at an agreed time.' And again try to point out the benefits for your manager: 'This would mean that I could get the work done more quickly for you.'
Promotion
If you want to get promoted, the most important lesson to learn is that being good at your job is not enough on its own to guarantee you a promotion. Getting a promotion involves at least three essential elements: competence, confidence, and a compelling argument.
Competence
It should go without saying, but unfortunately people can occasionally overlook the fact that before you can be promoted to a new role with additional responsibilities, you need to be sure that you are performing competently at your current role. Take a hard look at your current performance. Are there any areas at all in which your performance could receive criticism? If so, there is no point in trying to get a promotion.
Once you are sure that you are performing your current job competently, you need to begin to exhibit the behaviors that are required of the role that you want. If there is a job description that outlines the requirements of the role that you would like to be promoted to, you need to understand this thoroughly. A good job description may also mention the competencies or skills that are required of the new role. Typically, organizations are looking for people who can motivate members of the team to deliver customer service and/or boost revenues and profits. Is there any way that you can begin to change your behavior to show some of those new skills?
Confidence
The next step is to put yourself in the shoes of the people who can make the decision whether to promote you or not. The key here is to give them confidence that you can do the job. Quite often, senior managers have an idea of how newly promoted people should behave; they are looking for people who can 'walk the talk'.
Look around the organization at the people who are already doing the job that you want. If there are no incumbents in exactly the same job, then look around at the next level of supervisor or manager above you, perhaps in other departments. What sort of work or projects do they get involved in? What day-to-day activities do they engage in? Is there anything in their behavior that marks them out as different from the people that they manage? For example, are there any technical skills that the role requires, or does the role require a shift from doing work to delegating work to others?
Once you understand the answers to some of these questions, you can begin to pick up these new skills with the aim of impressing the decision-makers. Focus on what you will need to do differently, and focus on getting yourself noticed for these new skills.
Compelling argument
The third essential element is a way to persuade the decision-makers that you are right for the job. At the beginning of the section, I mentioned that doing a good job is not necessarily enough to gain you a promotion. You need to make the decision-makers aware of your desire to be promoted. There are many people who enjoy doing the job that they currently do and do not wish to have the stress that might go with a promotion. So unless you make yourself heard, how else can the decision-makers distinguish you from someone who is entirely content in his or her current role?
Consequently, identify the key decision-maker. It may not be your boss, but perhaps your boss's boss or the head of a different department entirely. Then go to that person and make your case, presenting evidence of your good work in recent months.
Timing
There is a fourth element to being promoted, and one you have little control over. Even though you may have the right skills and motivation, there are often only limited opportunities for promotion. So there is an element of luck and timing in achieving a promotion as well. For example, an organization in the middle of a cost-cutting program is unlikely to be looking to promote people when it might be trying to make people redundant. Or there may simply not be any positions available because of a lack of movement in the hierarchies above you. If this is the case, you have two options. Either you can wait it out for a vacancy to arise within your organization, or you could consider options in other companies. Exactly how much do you want a promotion?
Resigning
Over the course of your working life, you might find the need to move perhaps several times in your efforts to secure more pay, better opportunities, less stress or whatever else you are looking for in your career. No matter how much you disliked your colleagues, hated the work, or detested your boss, it never pays to leave on bad terms with an employer. For a start, you never know when you might need a reference in the future. The people at a previous employer can often form an important part of your network. And should the worse come to the worst and a new job or business venture should go sour, resigning on good terms makes it easier for you to ask for your old job back.
Before we think about how to resign with good grace, let us think about how not to resign. First, you should never threaten to resign. People who threaten to resign often believe that it is a bargaining tactic; they hope that their boss will see their value and beg for them to stay, offering better working conditions, promotions or whatever else they want. However, the reality is often very different. Bosses often have large egos that make it extremely difficult for them to acknowledge other people. Even if you are invaluable, they might feel obliged not to show how much they need you. If you threaten to resign, you could easily find your boss accepting it on the spot.
Similarly, avoid resigning when you are angry. Often, when you are feeling calmer, the situation will seem completely different. If you do threaten to resign, or resign, when you are angry, you might end up backed into a corner. You could end up being either forced to resign and having nothing better to go to, or forced into issuing a humiliating retraction.
If you are thinking of resigning, consider the following points:
Always ensure that you have something better to do. That 'something' could be a firm offer from a company that you feel will offer you the right career opportunities. Or perhaps you have already taken steps to set up your own business and now feel that the time is right to work for yourself full-time.
Think about how you will explain why you are leaving to your boss. No one says that you have to be entirely honest. Focus on the positive attractions of your new career choice as opposed to whining about the negative points of your current job.
If you do want to mention any negative points about your current job, then at least keep it professional: never personal. Talk about professional issues such as limited opportunities, bureaucracy or other issues, but not clashes with your manager or other difficult individuals.
Bear in mind that your employer might make a counter offer. If he or she did offer you more money, more interesting work or whatever else you say you are looking for in your new job, would you consider staying? Ask yourself why it took the threat of resigning to force your employer into recognizing your worth. Do you believe that the employer can really deal with the issues that are making you leave?
People are divided as to whether it is better to write a formal letter and hand that in or to have an informal discussion with your manager first. There is no 'right answer'. However, many people find that it helps them to get their thoughts together by writing a resignation letter and then handing it personally to their boss, perhaps saying at the same time, 'I've decided to resign, but I wanted to tell you in person.'
Exit interviews
Many employers have one final organizational hoop for employees to jump through: the exit interview. The idea behind an exit interview is to establish what the organization could be doing better. Best practice dictates that exit interviews should be conducted by an impartial third party, perhaps by HR or a colleague from another department who does not have an axe to grind with you. On occasion, however, an exit interview could be performed by your manager, making it even more perilous for you to be too honest.
If you are expecting to have to participate in an exit interview, the secret to passing it with flying colors is much the same as handling your resignation:
Have in mind a story to tell about the positive aspects of the new career choice that you are making.
Rehearse a few careful comments on what you did not like about the organization. The interviewer is likely to ask you specifically what was wrong with the organization. Be critical, but constructive; be impersonal rather than personal. One tactic is to focus on ineffective systems and processes rather than mentioning people problems. An alternative might be to talk about the clash between departments - perhaps the constant tension between the sales department and finance - rather than the clash between individuals.
Finally, think what was good about your organization. Emphasize the qualities that make it difficult for you to leave. In this way, you will maintain good relations with your former employer, paving the way should you ever need to return to them for a reference, advice or information, or even your old job.
Where Do I Want to Be?
Now answer the question "Where do I want to be?"
This is your destination on your life's map in about two to three years from now, and it's the most important question in your Clarity. The more precisely and detailed you answer this question for the areas you want to improve, the better your chances are of actually getting there.
Again, imagine how hard a journey would be if you didn't know exactly where you wanted to go. You would be absolutely stunned by how few people and businesses actually have a clear vision (Clarity) of where they would like to be!
To make this process easier, imagine precisely what your life, business, or situation will look when you can say you've "made it" in a particular category of your life in a perfect two to three years. Now take a snapshot of the image you see and list as many details as you can. I suggest choosing a two to three-year future point for your Clarity. Why? This will give you plenty of time to take action in order to bring about the future vision you desire. But it also isn't so far in the future that if you don't start taking some action now, and a little every day, that you'll be able to reach your vision. It's the perfect middle ground! This two to three year goal maximizes your motivation by keeping an attainable, yet challenging future vision consistently in front of you.
Let's look at some areas to apply this critical question.
In business, answering "Where do I want to be?" means knowing, at the very least, how much you want your business to be worth; what the salaries will be of you and your employees; knowing exactly how many employees and the type of personnel structure make up your company; your needed gross revenues to satisfy all of your needs and growth desires; where this revenue must come from; and how much time you want to work each day.
At work, this means detailing what position you want; the company or industry you want to work in; the salary you desire or how much you'd like to make from commissions; how much time you want put in on a daily or weekly basis; and how much you want to enjoy your job.
At home, this means detailing how much time you want to spend with your loved ones; exactly how you'd like to use that time; how much leisure and personal time you'd like for yourself; how much you'd like to have in savings and investments; and how much you want to reduce your debt.
And in your health, this means detailing what you'd like to look and feel like; how much energy you'd like to have; how healthy you'd like to be; how much sleep you'd like to get each night; and how much mental rest you'd like to have each day.
Don't let this exercise overwhelm you! Pretend that you have a piece of clay, which represents your future, and you now have free reign to mold it into any future you'd like to have. Be creative, and most of all, have fun doing this. Once again, don't be a perfectionist. Get a good, detailed list of your desired future, and try to do so in an hour of solid effort. You can always add to your Clarity as you move forward in your journey to success.
Having just answered "Where do I want to be?" you now know exactly where you want to go on your life's map in two to three years. You know where you are, and you know where you want to go. Once you know these two critical elements, life becomes so much more easy and clear.
So few people have taken the little effort required to define where they are and where they want to be in any detail. Think about it, though. How can anyone expect to have any chance of achieving his or her success unless they define that success in detail? No wonder so many of us are frustrated and overwhelmed.
How can you get more time in your life unless you know how you use your time right now, exactly how much more you want, and exactly what you want to use it for? Get Clarity!
How can you successfully grow your business unless you know the health of your business right now and exactly where you want it to be in the future? Get Clarity!
How can you improve your home life and relationships unless you know what you're doing right now and where exactly you want your home life and relationships to be in the future? Get Clarity!
And how can you be more healthy and have more energy unless you know where you stand right now and exactly what being in better health and having more energy means for you in the future? Again, get Clarity!
Appraisals
In theory, appraisals should be a chance for you to get feedback on your performance and help you think about your career aspirations and how to achieve them. More often than not, however, they focus on past performance rather than future plans, more of an end-of-term report than an opportunity to discuss career plans. In addition, managers are rarely trained or properly motivated to do them properly, and neither do appraisees do enough thinking and preparation for the event. If you think of your appraisal as a bureaucratic chore, you may be missing out on an opportunity to make a good impression on your manager, discuss new projects to keep you interested, and further your own career.
Preparation
Much of the work comes in a little forethought. Take time to:
Recall your achievements over the months since your last appraisal. In particular, think of the skills that you have developed in those months. What have you learnt?
Think back to mistakes you made or tasks that you felt you did not do well. Rather than wait for your manager to point out flaws in your performance, it is far more constructive for you to admit to your own faults. Were there genuine mitigating circumstances causing these flaws or mistakes? In addition, try to think about the learning points from those mistakes.
Refer back to your previous appraisal. What were the expectations laid out in that appraisal and did you achieve them or not? If not, you need to think of a way to explain your failure as well as give confidence to your manager that you will achieve them in the coming months.
Looking at both your achievements and mistakes, weigh up what training or type of projects you would like over the coming months to develop your skills. Are there courses that you could go on? Would working closely with another colleague help to enhance your skills in a particular area? Is there any support that you would like from your manager? Think also about the timescales for any training or development: is it something that could happen over a period of only a few weeks or does it require many months?
In suggesting to your manger that you need to be sent on a training course that costs money, try to think of the benefits that it will achieve for the team or organization. Talking only about the benefits for you is a much less compelling argument. For example, think of time efficiencies or ways that you would be able to help other members of the team.
Handling the meeting
If you invest time in thinking beforehand, the meeting itself should be much more straightforward. However, do be assertive about what you want to say. If you do not agree with your manager's opinion, then do not just sit there and accept his or her criticism or observations.
Handling covert criticism
Most appraisals will involve some degree of criticism from your manager. However, few managers will choose to criticize you overtly; it is much easier for them to adopt the more insidious tactic of making 'observations' with covert value judgements behind these so-called observations. So you need to be alert in order to contest these veiled criticisms:
1. Listen to what your manager has to say. Even if you do not agree, give your manager the opportunity to finish rather than interrupting him or her, which can make the situation appear more confrontational than it needs to be.
2. If you agree with the criticism, then you need to accept it, perhaps offer an apology, and then move towards suggesting ways of improving your performance.
3. If you do not agree with the criticism, you must first respond by accepting that the manager is allowed to have his or her own opinion.
4. Then think through what you do not agree with. Do you not understand what the manager is trying to say? If not, perhaps you could ask for examples of when you allegedly behaved in the unacceptable fashion.
5. Alternatively, if you understand the situations that the manager is referring to, you should put your point of view across. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances that you need to explain. Or perhaps your manager had misinterpreted or exaggerated a particular situation.
6. Whatever the discussion, make sure that you work towards agreeing how you will behave in the future. A useful way to check that you are on the right road to improving your performance is to suggest to your manager that you meet up again in, say three or four months, as opposed to waiting until your next annual appraisal. In this way, you can get some interim feedback on how well you are improving (or not).
Giving upward feedback
Use your appraisal as a formal opportunity to give some feedback on your manager's management of you. This needs to be done sensitively. One approach to giving constructive upward feedback is to talk about:
1. What do you like about your manager's management style? What would you like your manager to continue with? Giving your manager some positive strokes will make the negative feedback easier to take.
2. What do you not like about your manager's style of management? However, also think about a good reason why his or her style is not appropriate. It is not enough to say, 'I don't like it.' Try to think about the impact it has on your work: for example, 'The fact that you keep checking up on me several times a day means that it takes me a lot longer to get the job done.'
3. Finally, how would you like your manager to behave differently? Come up with a solution as opposed to just complaining. So, rather than saying, 'I don't want you to check up on me so often,' perhaps, 'After you give me a task, I would rather report back to you once a day at an agreed time.' And again try to point out the benefits for your manager: 'This would mean that I could get the work done more quickly for you.'
Promotion
If you want to get promoted, the most important lesson to learn is that being good at your job is not enough on its own to guarantee you a promotion. Getting a promotion involves at least three essential elements: competence, confidence, and a compelling argument.
Competence
It should go without saying, but unfortunately people can occasionally overlook the fact that before you can be promoted to a new role with additional responsibilities, you need to be sure that you are performing competently at your current role. Take a hard look at your current performance. Are there any areas at all in which your performance could receive criticism? If so, there is no point in trying to get a promotion.
Once you are sure that you are performing your current job competently, you need to begin to exhibit the behaviors that are required of the role that you want. If there is a job description that outlines the requirements of the role that you would like to be promoted to, you need to understand this thoroughly. A good job description may also mention the competencies or skills that are required of the new role. Typically, organizations are looking for people who can motivate members of the team to deliver customer service and/or boost revenues and profits. Is there any way that you can begin to change your behavior to show some of those new skills?
Confidence
The next step is to put yourself in the shoes of the people who can make the decision whether to promote you or not. The key here is to give them confidence that you can do the job. Quite often, senior managers have an idea of how newly promoted people should behave; they are looking for people who can 'walk the talk'.
Look around the organization at the people who are already doing the job that you want. If there are no incumbents in exactly the same job, then look around at the next level of supervisor or manager above you, perhaps in other departments. What sort of work or projects do they get involved in? What day-to-day activities do they engage in? Is there anything in their behavior that marks them out as different from the people that they manage? For example, are there any technical skills that the role requires, or does the role require a shift from doing work to delegating work to others?
Once you understand the answers to some of these questions, you can begin to pick up these new skills with the aim of impressing the decision-makers. Focus on what you will need to do differently, and focus on getting yourself noticed for these new skills.
Compelling argument
The third essential element is a way to persuade the decision-makers that you are right for the job. At the beginning of the section, I mentioned that doing a good job is not necessarily enough to gain you a promotion. You need to make the decision-makers aware of your desire to be promoted. There are many people who enjoy doing the job that they currently do and do not wish to have the stress that might go with a promotion. So unless you make yourself heard, how else can the decision-makers distinguish you from someone who is entirely content in his or her current role?
Consequently, identify the key decision-maker. It may not be your boss, but perhaps your boss's boss or the head of a different department entirely. Then go to that person and make your case, presenting evidence of your good work in recent months.
Timing
There is a fourth element to being promoted, and one you have little control over. Even though you may have the right skills and motivation, there are often only limited opportunities for promotion. So there is an element of luck and timing in achieving a promotion as well. For example, an organization in the middle of a cost-cutting program is unlikely to be looking to promote people when it might be trying to make people redundant. Or there may simply not be any positions available because of a lack of movement in the hierarchies above you. If this is the case, you have two options. Either you can wait it out for a vacancy to arise within your organization, or you could consider options in other companies. Exactly how much do you want a promotion?
Resigning
Over the course of your working life, you might find the need to move perhaps several times in your efforts to secure more pay, better opportunities, less stress or whatever else you are looking for in your career. No matter how much you disliked your colleagues, hated the work, or detested your boss, it never pays to leave on bad terms with an employer. For a start, you never know when you might need a reference in the future. The people at a previous employer can often form an important part of your network. And should the worse come to the worst and a new job or business venture should go sour, resigning on good terms makes it easier for you to ask for your old job back.
Before we think about how to resign with good grace, let us think about how not to resign. First, you should never threaten to resign. People who threaten to resign often believe that it is a bargaining tactic; they hope that their boss will see their value and beg for them to stay, offering better working conditions, promotions or whatever else they want. However, the reality is often very different. Bosses often have large egos that make it extremely difficult for them to acknowledge other people. Even if you are invaluable, they might feel obliged not to show how much they need you. If you threaten to resign, you could easily find your boss accepting it on the spot.
Similarly, avoid resigning when you are angry. Often, when you are feeling calmer, the situation will seem completely different. If you do threaten to resign, or resign, when you are angry, you might end up backed into a corner. You could end up being either forced to resign and having nothing better to go to, or forced into issuing a humiliating retraction.
If you are thinking of resigning, consider the following points:
Always ensure that you have something better to do. That 'something' could be a firm offer from a company that you feel will offer you the right career opportunities. Or perhaps you have already taken steps to set up your own business and now feel that the time is right to work for yourself full-time.
Think about how you will explain why you are leaving to your boss. No one says that you have to be entirely honest. Focus on the positive attractions of your new career choice as opposed to whining about the negative points of your current job.
If you do want to mention any negative points about your current job, then at least keep it professional: never personal. Talk about professional issues such as limited opportunities, bureaucracy or other issues, but not clashes with your manager or other difficult individuals.
Bear in mind that your employer might make a counter offer. If he or she did offer you more money, more interesting work or whatever else you say you are looking for in your new job, would you consider staying? Ask yourself why it took the threat of resigning to force your employer into recognizing your worth. Do you believe that the employer can really deal with the issues that are making you leave?
People are divided as to whether it is better to write a formal letter and hand that in or to have an informal discussion with your manager first. There is no 'right answer'. However, many people find that it helps them to get their thoughts together by writing a resignation letter and then handing it personally to their boss, perhaps saying at the same time, 'I've decided to resign, but I wanted to tell you in person.'
Exit interviews
Many employers have one final organizational hoop for employees to jump through: the exit interview. The idea behind an exit interview is to establish what the organization could be doing better. Best practice dictates that exit interviews should be conducted by an impartial third party, perhaps by HR or a colleague from another department who does not have an axe to grind with you. On occasion, however, an exit interview could be performed by your manager, making it even more perilous for you to be too honest.
If you are expecting to have to participate in an exit interview, the secret to passing it with flying colors is much the same as handling your resignation:
Have in mind a story to tell about the positive aspects of the new career choice that you are making.
Rehearse a few careful comments on what you did not like about the organization. The interviewer is likely to ask you specifically what was wrong with the organization. Be critical, but constructive; be impersonal rather than personal. One tactic is to focus on ineffective systems and processes rather than mentioning people problems. An alternative might be to talk about the clash between departments - perhaps the constant tension between the sales department and finance - rather than the clash between individuals.
Finally, think what was good about your organization. Emphasize the qualities that make it difficult for you to leave. In this way, you will maintain good relations with your former employer, paving the way should you ever need to return to them for a reference, advice or information, or even your old job.
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