Submitted by Mostafa Zommo on May 25, 2015 – 12:15pm

This blog was inspired by an encounter with a student, who spent the summer working with us, he asked me the following question about career growth and development; “What is the shortest route between me as a student and you as a Senior Executive, basically I want to know the fastest way to become an Assistant Deputy Minister/CIO!?; give me specific steps…”

While smiling and thinking to myself, I love these students and said good question, giving myself time to think… Drawing on the many years of working in the real world and school of hard knocks, I said I will share the steps that helped me; they will likely shorten your trip on the road ahead of your career growth and success. Keeping in mind success is a relative term, here is step one:

1. Become a learning machine – learn the business you are in, learn all you can about your organization, its mission, and what they are trying to accomplish [be crisp and laser focused in your learning about your section and projects], learn the environment [context] around you and learn as much as you can about the people you work with. But above all, learn about yourself, who you really are and what it is that you want that is in alignment with your inherent talent, values and personal mission. Self-awareness is least understood but most critical to success! Spend quality & honest time discovering yourself; you’re worth it.   Learning about yourself and of your organization will help gauge your alignment and engagement with your organization.  Give yourself a relative mark. Ten is when all of you is aligned to all of your organization, its management and its goals this is ideal career situation. Zero is when none of you is aligned to that of your organization; time for a new job 😉 I will expand on this in future blogs.Always take a learning posture, especially in the face of difficulty, adversity and conflict. When in conflict, don’t get mad, get facts; don’t be angry, be fair. As hard as that maybe, and it’s hard, put yourself in the other person shoes and learn their reasons; it’s the best you can do to resolve a conflict. When in doubt ask around, so that you may remove that doubt with more information. More than likely, you will learn that there are more than one right answer… But, finally and basically never graduate from learning! In the coming weeks, will share with you the other five steps that I shared with my students’ employees of what I called the Six Pack of Success… see you soon!