Improving Your Impact
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If you’re like most people, you’ve probably seen some of the reality-show talent competitions… The Voice…Top Chef…So You Think You Can Dance. The hopeful contestants perform and wait anxiously for response from the judges and the audience. They crave that instant feedback, applying it to make improvements and compete at a higher level.

So why don’t more people apply this principle in business? If we want to move ahead in our careers, we need to know how other people feel about working with us. What score would they give us as we compete for promotions and top assignments? In other words, what is our professional reputation?

Here’s what I can tell you: your reputation depends on much more than whether you have the skills and talents to perform your job. It’s about how well you communicate and collaborate, how you lead others, influence them, inspire them. All of those things rolled together make up your reputation – your overall performance score.

We need to uncover that true reputation, to find out if we’re being perceived the way we intend. If the answer is no, we’ve got a huge head start on making improvements that really matter. We pinpoint the gap, and we close it. Those are the changes that can dramatically accelerate our careers.

The solution for getting feedback is simple: ask. Focus on those you interact with every day. Beyond informal conversations, you can use a 360 survey or an online questionnaire. Talk to a mentor or trusted advisor. Pay attention to casual comments that might hint at others’ impressions. The important thing is to find out what they think.

Getting feedback about your reputation and actively working to improve it can be a powerful professional development tool. I hope you’ll use this information to enhance your career success so you can compete at a higher level.

Until next time, I’m Sara Canaday.