focal fever ...

what keeps us busy aside from the CHRISTmas season during december and the

multitude of parties that we need to attend to is the thought that the year is

coming to a close.  what this means for a lot of us is to start remembering what

significant projects we've managed to accomplish during the year and try to capture

that in an eloquent manner simple enough for your manager to understand and

defend it.

 

over the course of working for intel and taking my MBA, the most sane work advices

i have heard have increased a bit and there are indeed some of them worthy to take

heart.  Work now, the money will come later.  this is what one of my professors

in organizational behavior said and he quoted this based from his experience of starting

from the bottom-up.  i think there is a lot of wisdom in this saying and it is really

important for us to level our expectations - meaning not expect too much too soon.

Patience is a virtue.  it really is! when they say "good things come to those who

wait," i think in more ways, people eventually get rewarded - how quickly is something

i can't answer.  i think the world has an invisible way of setting things right, that sooner

or later, if you really are good (you think you are, and other people think the same) then

your accomplishments will speak for itself.  Work well to earn their respect.  over the

years, i have come to realize that it pays well to work well and establishing good business

rapport with the people you work with pays off handsomely.  your 360 degree feedback

will come with glowing reviews how easy it was to work with you, how you are a teamplayer,

how your leadership talents show and how you have a  lot of potential.  if you're manager

doesn't see your potential before, pretty soon, the reviews will be bound to contradict

his perception.  The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.

there are a lot of them out there who thinks they can get ahead without actually putting

in the work.  wake up! also remember that its not only the quantity that matters but the

quality of work that you put in that counts most.

 

in my eight years of stay, i think i've gotten good at writing accomplishment reports. 

the key is to exaggerate your accomplishments without lying about your contributions. 

You pad those accomplishments by using good adjectives.  If you have a laundry list of

accomplishments, group them into leadership, productivity & savings, systems/biz process

improvements and in that order.  summarize your accomplishment in one GRAND statement

(or stitch up a few sentences together).  you should say "exemplary leadership in managing"

rather than "lead a team of ...blah." remember, managers are pitting you with your peers so

its important that you call out the accomplishments that differs from the others.  projects

that can be proliferated into the VF usually have major points than if you will implement it

locally.  although of course in one portion or another you should be able to say that aside

from these million projects your involved with, you are able to meet the basic expectations

of your work.  how would it look like if you write, managed and organized 20 intel successful

events and then the extra curricular activities cut into you being able to do your real job. 

super duh di ba?

 

last thing to remember is that no matter how glowing your accomplishment reports look like,

there is always a possibility that somebody has accomplished more than what you have

accomplished during the year.  it doesn't mean however that you can't get a good raise. 

oh well, focal ... can't really please everybody.