What is career growth? Criteria for career growth: what is professional success.

Moving up the career ladder is a very difficult process, especially given the fact that now the competition is growing very strongly in absolutely all specialties. Therefore, you need to really have outstanding talent and the ability to present yourself in order to seriously qualify for a promotion. Remember that only the very best can improve their careers, so you should learn some ways to accelerate your career in order to achieve success faster.

Work on goals that matter

Career growth is progress. But you won't be able to move forward if you don't have concrete goals in front of you. Therefore, if the authorities do not put them in front of you, install them yourself in order to always have the opportunity to strive for something. Only progress will allow you to grow and thereby qualify for higher positions. At the same time, try not to be scattered on all sorts of small and not the most significant goals - play big, and then you can get a decent win. Of course, tasks that you can easily complete on a semi-automatic are easier to work with, but something that almost everyone can handle will not lead you to a promotion.

Organization

If you want to move up the corporate ladder and not always stay at the same level, you may need a good time management system. Previously, it was not easy to create or find one, but now, in the era of the Internet, there are a variety of organizers and electronic diaries that have great functionality and allow you to organize your workflow. in the best way. So do not give up on the use of high technology, if they can really help you in your daily work.

Learn to earn more

Do not think that by doing your daily work, you will be able to grow. You will not only be able to move up the career ladder, but even gain new skills and abilities that would help you. So don't try to get higher just by doing what is required of you - learn more. On the Internet, you can now find a huge variety of courses that will help you learn new skills absolutely free. And already using these skills, you will be able to fight for promotion and further career advancement.

Power

High positions are always associated with an ever-increasing amount of power. Almost every person dreams of getting more power - at least a little more. However, it is one thing to gain power, and another thing to use it, to control it. This task looks already much more difficult, but it is necessary to solve it. After all, if you cannot retain power and direct it in the right direction, then you should not even think about higher positions than the one you are currently in.

Focus on results, not time

Almost all people start their careers in jobs that pay for the time you put in. Therefore, many people begin to equate the hours worked with the benefits created. However, one can hardly think of a statement that is further from the truth. You can sit, looking out the window, for several hours at the workplace - and at the same time you will not create any value, although you will receive your money for "worked time". In the lowest positions, this is possible, but if you aim higher, then you need to forget about such concepts as hourly pay or hours worked. The higher your position, the more emphasis is placed on exactly what you did, and not how much time you spent at the workplace. Good goal setting is the key to success.

Take full advantage

Many people work in companies and do not even think about what exactly this can give them. They focus only on getting a salary and a well-deserved rest on weekends and vacations. But if you are focused on promotion and career advancement, then you need to carefully study all the advantages that your work position gives you. And having studied all the information, you can use it to move up the career ladder as efficiently as possible.

Respect the network

If you work for any company, then you should understand that this is not about you. First of all, we are talking about the company itself, which consists of tens or even hundreds of employees forming a dense network. If you work for a small company, then you should study and respect the entire network - memorize your colleagues' birthdays, their favorite foods and movies in order to build good relationships with everyone. You may need the support of your team as you move up the career ladder, so you'd better set everyone up to treat you positively.

Watch your health

Your main value is yourself, your brain, your ability to work. Appreciate yourself and protect, take care of your health so as not to lose the ability to work.

Conflict management

If you want to move up the career ladder, then you will need to practice conflict management skills well, since at higher levels this skill is most honored.

Many noticed that I was a smart careerist, and they began to ask me for advice on how to ensure career growth in the IT industry. In order to avoid repeating the same advice to different people in private messages, I am writing this article, sharing in it the story of my own career growth and the main observations that I have made over 13 years of experience in large and small companies.
I will immediately warn you that I do not pretend to present a universal theory of the career growth of a spherical horse in a vacuum, and most of the comments are distorted by the prism of my perception. What has worked repeatedly in my case may not necessarily work in yours.

Briefly about my career achievements, so that there is something to compare.

I got a job as a student when I was in my third year and immediately wrote a full-time GUI on Qt under Linux. Linux I'd seen one and a half times before while my brother coached me for a job. Prior to that, he had academic knowledge in C ++ and C, so in terms of knowledge he was the most malicious newcomer. Literally four months later, I became the de facto (but not de jure) lead developer of the project to migrate the product to ncurses. So de facto that I had a painless quarrel with my immediate superior about the use of STL in base classes, and in this conflict the top authorities took my side, not his side.

Since then, I have been stubbornly arguing with all my bosses, and despite this (or maybe because of this), my career and salary went up. Over 13 years of experience, I increased my salary by 15 times (an average of 23% per year), although I myself actively demanded a raise only twice:

1. Because I was promised after the trial period and forgot
2. Because I needed the minimum rate to obtain a work permit for a highly qualified specialist (HQS), which made it easier for me to get registered in Moscow. This second time, the boss didn’t even ask what kind of promotion I was asking for - he just wrote a letter to the accounting department so that I could get the promotion I needed.

And now I'm thinking about how I did it.

Career Reflections

First, what is a career? For many, career and salary are almost synonymous. On this non-obvious synonymy lies a lot of misunderstanding. Many people, when they quit, argue about the lack of career prospects, although what they really mean is “I want more dough.” Probably because talking about money in society is indecent. And a career is so sublime!

For me, this synonymy never existed. Yes, I was pleased when they raised my salary, and yes, at the certification, I hoped that it would be raised. Yes, I would tell my boss to my face everything that I think about him if I knew that the salary was raised for everyone except me. And still, for me, the salary has always been something secondary. A consequence of something else. That is what makes a career. Namely - influence. I expanded my influence in order to have more opportunities to get the final result.

Career growth is the expansion of your area of ​​influence. And logically, the wider your influence, the more you get paid. It doesn't matter why - out of gratitude or out of fear of losing you. But the fact remains:

There is no career growth without expanding influence.

Hierarchies and the Peter Principle

It just so happened that in our civilization a hierarchy has been chosen to manage large organizations and processes. Those. many others are subordinate to one node. The higher the node, the more influence it has. Those. by our definition, the higher he is on the career ladder.


In such organizational structures, the principle formulated by the Canadian researcher of the hierarchical system Lawrence Peter operates. The principle goes like this:

In a hierarchical system, any worker rises to the level of his incompetence.

The rationale is simple: if you deserve a promotion, you will be promoted. If not, then you will hold the position that you hold. The proof is entertaining, but without a special reservation, by and large, incorrect. After all, there is an option that if a person does not cope, then he is fired. However, the nature of the hierarchy is such that figuring out whether a given node is doing its job is such an expensive operation that it is often sacrificed for other activities. Roughly speaking, instead of analyzing how subordinates work, the manager will give out kicks and commands that he receives from his manager in the same way. From all this history we draw the most important conclusion:

Your boss doesn't know and isn't particularly eager to find out how you work.

drum boss

Of course, there may be exceptions, but I was not lucky enough to cross paths with them.

The fact that bosses do not seek to find out how their subordinates work is evident at least from the fact that attestations are made analogous to population censuses in large organizations. If the bosses didn’t give a damn about the quality of work of their subordinates, there would be no need for universal attestation duty - just a competent boss, seeing the efforts and competence of his subordinate, would himself take the initiative to improve it, and lazybones, of which there are a great many in any large organization, here or kicked out.

In management theory, by the way, concern about the career growth of a subordinate is one of the most important points. In theory. For 13 years, none of my managers cared about my career. Even though I was lucky and had a wonderful American manager. Not once did he discuss with me the prospect of my career growth. Although my case is special (details below). But he also did not discuss career prospects with my colleagues.

Star manager

There are bosses whose people grow like mushrooms after rain. They have the most in the department a large number of workers with the prefixes senior, lead, experienced, advanced, superfood and their various combinations. As a rule, these bosses also don’t care how their subordinates work, and they inflate their people for their own sake, since, of course, a star should also manage a star team. Woe to the one who got the "star" manager. Nothing puts an end to a career (in my understanding) like a vain manager. It's hard to appease your own vanity when your manager, for no reason, says that people from other teams are no match for you. I know what I'm talking about - I experienced such a suggestion on myself.

If your manager praises you out of nothing, run away from him! He is fooling you!

Career ladder, not an escalator

Career growth is provided by the career ladder, not the escalator. If you want to be at the top, you have to go yourself, and not wait for someone to bring you there. And this is defined by one single word - initiative. A rolling stone gathers no moss. If you do not take the initiative to expand your sphere of influence, it will not expand on its own. This is where the main crossroads lies when choosing the path to expand the sphere of influence:

1. Career path
2. The path of a professional

Career path

I’ll make a reservation right away that this is not the path that I went (naturally!), So I judge it by observing others. The leitmotif of this path is the formula:

To expand your sphere of influence, you need to influence the boss.

The careerist influences the boss in every possible way. Emphasized zeal appears, sucks up, engages in window dressing, claps his eyes, shows different parts of the body (if they are beautiful), etc. The ultimate goal is to be able to push your ideas to the boss through a dedicated channel. Since the boss is a signal amplifier, the expansion of the influence of the careerist in the organization is thereby achieved.

The path of a careerist can be called the path of vertical wobbling:

The disadvantage of the careerist path is that his influence on the team is colored in the tone of the boss. Colleagues feel the taste of the boss in the ideas of their classmate and experience sincere hostility and contempt for him. Most often, careerists are not particularly bothered by this, as they rise to the top, leaving enemies outside the scope of their interests. Well, the dog is with them, with the careerists, as Ivan Vasilyevich would say.

The path of a professional

The professional expands his influence horizontally.


The professional formula is:

To expand my sphere of influence, I need to solve those problems that prevent me from achieving efficiency.

The professional sees the team as a source of problems that he can solve. There is one very important point to which you should pay attention. Speaking about the problems to be solved, we are not talking about the tasks lowered to the employee from above, but about the problems that make the achievement of their immediate duties ineffective. Most often, these problems come up as a result of the question: “Why am I doing this nonsense?”, i.e. it's looking for the root cause of the problem from the company's point of view. This is the fundamental moment of mentally getting out of your context, followed by expansion of influence, and then career growth.

Influence on the boss is achieved as part of your extended influence on the entire environment. The boss will know that you are doing a good job because everyone will know about it. Therefore, it is not a surprise to anyone when you are promoted. After all, it's overdue.

An added bonus to the professional approach is that the employee expands their expertise in different areas. Instead of delving into his field, taking the task presented to him as an axiom, he learns the context of its appearance. He learns how people live who have thought of this before. He recognizes and often even does his task more correctly, as he understands the context.

Professional vs. Specialist

If I call a professional someone who goes up from a problem, looking for its root causes, thereby expanding his area and sphere of influence, then a specialist, in my understanding, goes in the opposite direction - he digs deep. The specialist is not interested why there's a problem, he's wondering How solve it. As a result of this deepening, the specialist gets a deep knowledge of his subject area, so deep that no one except him understands how cool he is. This is the secret of the difficulties of a specialist in certification: only another specialist of his level can understand his qualifications, which his manager, obviously, is not. Thus, the best thing that his boss can think of him is "doing some magic." He is forced to judge the degree of power of magic by indirect signs - the silent respect that colleagues have for a specialist. However, let's not forget that for this the manager needs to take the initiative, which managers in hierarchies do only in theory.

In no way do I want to prove that specialists are worse than professionals. I'm just trying to illustrate why a lot of good people are underestimated by their bosses.

So the output is:

Narrow specialization is not conducive to career growth.

Algorithm for professional career growth

So, forgetting about the bad careerists, let's formalize how the expansion of the influence of a professional is achieved, which, as mentioned above, leads to career growth.

1. Find the problem

If something in your work or in the work of your colleague caused you to have a healthy WTF? question, then you have a chance to expand your sphere of influence and grow in your career.

2. Identify the problem

Trace the problem back to its root cause. If it is in you, eliminate it by sim increasing your skills. Exit from the algorithm. Most often, the problem is not with you (you are perfect, aren't you?). Explore where it comes from. Most often, the problems are in the blurryness of someone's eye or his lack of competence (hello to the Peter principle). Study. This study will improve your skills. Having found the one in whose area of ​​responsibility the jamb lies, describe to him (here it is - the initiative!) The essence of the problem and how it manifests itself at your level. Come up with and clearly communicate other potential problems that may come up because of this jamb. Most likely, by the way, they have already surfaced, what the bugtracker will tell you. One way or another, advise a colleague how to fix this jamb. If a colleague agrees, you have done a good deed for the company, you have received a grateful colleague, i.e. slightly expanded their sphere of influence. And at the same time gained new knowledge outside your area. By the way, at the same time you fixed the jamb with someone else's hands, which is also quite encouraging.

Admittedly, most often a colleague will send you to hell. People in the hierarchies are already overloaded with all sorts of responsibilities in order to engage in useful work. But I still recommend reaching out for advice, even if you're looking forward to a turnaround. This is important so that later they could not accuse spheres of influence of raiding, because you will have an iron "I told you (a)".

One way or another, if we are denied, we move on to the most important step:

4. Do someone else's work yourself

Fix the detected jamb yourself, even though it is in someone else's area of ​​responsibility. Firstly, it will give you the opportunity to test your hypothesis, and secondly, you will fix the problem itself, not the symptom, which should be inspiring even apart from the rest of the theory - you have made the world a better place!

Either way, if you were right, people will quickly notice the improved process. People quickly get used to the innovation, accepting it as the norm, unable to return to the previous state, which was also considered the norm. You have just become indispensable, congratulations!

From de facto to de jure

It should be understood that according to the algorithm described above, you will always be underpaid. After all, you will always be loaded with duties for which others receive money. But this situation has several advantages:

1. Since you are already doing this work, getting it legally is a no-brainer as you have already proven your worth.
2. You are free to move in the direction that is most interesting to you, as you see the whole range of potential development paths
3. You are a freelance artist. The company understands that you do much more than you get, so you are allowed what others are not allowed to do. For example, you can troll the president

Final Thoughts on a Career

Companies and teams are different. What I described worked in all the teams where I worked, and there were 5 of them. In all these teams I got exclusive freedom, so I could say what I think, both privately and publicly even to company owners . Admittedly, early in my career, I stumbled upon a rather inadequate boss, which led to my leaving the company, which led to career and financial growth in another.

The main secret of the path I have described is that you grow from the inside, and the career is just chasing your growth. As a child grows out of children's pants, so you grow out of your current position. A child does not grow up because he is given larger pants. A career is the clothes you wear. You are your qualification, and it must grow first. And where to grow, they show the problems that your company is flooded with.

The described career growth algorithm is a consequence of your professional growth. And since you are a professional, you will fit anywhere. Just as you can outgrow your baby pants, you can outgrow your current company. And grow up to your own. After all, surprisingly, with approximately the same words

What does a person work for? If the answer is “for work” or “as it should be”, then this person is initially not set up for career growth in the organization and achieving high results in his professional activity. These are people who always prefer to work under someone else's leadership and perform only assigned tasks - that is, middle managers who never aspire to become a leader.

But if a person answers this question: “To make money” or “To realize their potential”, then this is definitely an ambitious, purposeful and hardworking person who is ready to work, learn and develop to ensure career growth in the company and improve their financial position.

Career opportunities in the organization

From the first days of work, such employees are closely studying all the opportunities for career growth in the company. This is quite simple if the company is small and has no more than 50 employees.

In companies with more than 200 employees, it is difficult for a new employee to find out how he will be able to secure the opportunity for career growth in the enterprise. And the main difficulty lies in the intricate organizational structure of the company, many departments, managers, their deputies and responsible persons.

Such a complex organizational web leads to the fact that talented and motivated employees are lost and it is often difficult for them to understand the sequence of actions for professional development and career growth in the enterprise. The result is a temporary professional "stagnation" due to the use of a large amount of time to visualize the full picture of career prospects and development within the organization.

Career management in the company

For each company it is very important that employees develop not “under pressure”, but independently strive to become first-class professionals. Indeed, at the same time, the employee makes significant efforts to fulfill his production duties and tries to achieve career growth for himself in the enterprise. As a result, the organization receives quality work and excellent results.

There are several ways for the HR department to explain to the employees of the enterprise career opportunities in the organization. One of the most effective ways today is a career compass - a schematic drawing that shows all the stages of career growth in an enterprise and the professional development of employees.

Stages of career growth in the enterprise

The career compass perfectly shows each employee his path and stages of career growth in the organization. In large companies, there will be several career compasses to more easily visualize the career path and achieve professional development in stages. At the same time, it will be inefficient to send out or hang out schematic drawings of a career compass in a crowded place, because not every employee strives to secure career prospects and earn a promotion.

Portal and career development of employees

One of the tools that helps to implement full-fledged information about career opportunities in an enterprise, to stimulate professional development and effective performance today is an intracorporate portal created on the Microsoft SharePoint and . With its help, the company's management has the opportunity to quickly and efficiently create and post information about career prospects in the company in the form of various career compasses. Each employee interested in their own development and management of career growth in the company can refer to the special section "Career Compass" on the portal. In this section, the employee will find comprehensive information about career opportunities and professional development at the enterprise.

Opportunities for career development of employees

The corporate portal allows not only to quickly and effectively show all the ways of development and career growth opportunities for employees, but also to conduct online trainings, tests and surveys to identify truly talented and promising employees. Also, using the portal, employees can find the necessary information and recommendations for successful professional development, a list of necessary trainings and distance courses, books, articles and a lot of other useful information for managing career growth in the company.

Thus, interested employees will have an effective tool for their own career growth and development, and the organization will receive a highly professional specialist.

At work, I constantly encounter employees who dream of achieving career growth. Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds and it does not always depend on the person, but, nevertheless, making a career is not so difficult if you follow certain rules.

The author of this article received his first leadership position at the age of 20, while the rest of the team was much older and had more experience and education. After that, there were many ups and downs on the career ladder, and there were downs that taught me a lot.

This article is designed primarily for those who want to become a leader and manage people.

Why do you need career growth?

Before you talk about how to achieve career growth, I really want you to answer the question for yourself: why do you need career growth? The fact is that the answers can be very different: who wants to earn more, someone likes to command, and someone is tired of working as a subordinate. Only a few become leaders to achieve new knowledge, gain experience and achieve new ambitious goals. The main difference between a leader and a subordinate is motivation, a leader cannot be, only for achievement. If you don’t quite understand what this means, I recommend reading about it, it will also come in handy in managing people.

I want to deliberately upset those who want to become a leader, because they won’t have to do the work of a subordinate, for example: sell, go to the fields, etc. Even if you become a leader, you still won't succeed. If you don’t like the job, you need to change it, that is, go to another field of activity. There is nothing worse than doing something you don't love.

A young girl worked for me for a long time as a seller, I saw that her work was a burden, she was not, there were often conflicts with colleagues and buyers. She was a veterinarian by profession, and she complained all the time that she liked it, but the veterinarian was paid too little, so she had to work as a salesman. She also often said that animals are much better than people (i.e. buyers) and stuff like that. I helped her get a job in a private clinic, where she earns more than me, as she treats purebred animals. A person is satisfied and happy, because he is doing what he loves.

What is the difference between a leader and a subordinate

So, you still decided that you need career growth, then you should, first of all, understand how a leader differs from his subordinate. I’ll make a reservation right away that I will not consider professional qualities, such as product knowledge, sales experience, work results. Of course, if you do not know how to work and fulfill your duties as a subordinate, no one will raise you. So the main differences are:

Motivation to work

As mentioned above, this is motivation for work. If you need to be “kicked” all the time so that you deign to do your job, then sorry, you should not wait for a promotion. Sometimes I hear from subordinates something like this: "... if I worked as a leader, then I would not be late and would work well ...". No one will promote you with the hope that you will change. Motivation for work always comes from how much you generally like the work and how interesting it is to you. If there is no interest in work, it needs to be changed, and not to look for career growth. You must show by your behavior that the work is interesting and important to you, when your immediate supervisor sees this, he understands that you can rely on you and add more powers.

Look for opportunities, not reasons

There is a saying - "the strong are looking for opportunities, the weak are looking for reasons." This saying can be built into the life credo of any leader. It is from your reaction to life's difficulties that you can understand what kind of person you are. And how can you be trusted. Remember, if you often complain about the fact that you can’t do something or don’t know how, in general, you always come up with excuses why you didn’t do the job, then you can forget about career growth.

Don't be afraid to take responsibility

It often happens that you are offered to do some work that is not included in your terms of reference. You do not need to immediately refuse it, first evaluate what it can bring you. Maybe, within the framework of this work, you will be able to prove yourself and recommend from the best side.

Many do not take responsibility because they are afraid of embarrassing themselves or failing their work. There is always a risk of making a mistake, everyone makes mistakes and there is no need to be afraid of this. Career growth is provided for people with an active lifestyle.

Self-PR

When one of my former leaders was invited to a new position, he said, “In the first months I will do self-PR, I need to be noticed by the new leadership.” It is very important that you be noticed, the problem is especially acute when there are many subordinates and there is a lot of competition for the position. They will always pay attention to someone who is famous, whose name is well known. One self-promotion tool is the initiative mentioned above. But in order to “stimulate” career growth, this may not be enough. The best PR option is to earn some kind of encouragement, for example: to become the best employee, etc. Remember - you should be noticed, and it’s even better to get to know well from the positive side.

Discipline

Say what you like, but disciplined employees, and people in general, inspire much more respect and sympathy. Constant delays, systematic, not fulfilling their duties can cut down the possibility of career growth in the bud. In addition, it is the key to successful personal development.

Know your worth

Develop yourself

Career growth through blat

One of the common opinions of employees is that career growth is possible only through connections and nothing shines for us mere mortals. In fact, this is not the case at all. In the conditions of the market and high competition, a highly qualified employee is a very great value and there is always a demand for him. It is important for you to show that you are such employees, and the employer will definitely give you a chance.

Is education necessary for career advancement?

Another common opinion is that you need to get some kind of special education and you can’t do without it. This philosophy has been propagated to us since childhood, but those who graduated from universities with a degree in management can tell you that this education will not give you serious advantages. In general, personally, in all my practice, I have never seen that a graduate without work experience in this field would be taken to the position of an ordinary manager.

Of course, higher education is one of the requirements for employment, but I know a lot of good managers who do not have a diploma and they are perfectly hired. For me personally, higher education is a good school of life for a person, but it is not a significant factor in deciding whether to take a leader or not.

How to quickly move up the career ladder?

So you got your first managerial position, for salespeople, this is usually a supervisor. Naturally, having worked in this position for some time and gaining experience, the question arises, what's next? I want to take a new step up the career ladder. In fact, in order to successfully develop in a career plan, you need to work a lot on yourself. Managing people is an art and you can hone it all your life, there is no limit to perfection. Therefore, read literature, go to trainings, get a second education. To advance higher, you need not only to demonstrate all the above business skills, but also to have life experience and experience in communicating with people. From experience, I can say that in order to grow from a supervisor to a store director or head of sales, a year of work is enough. It is important, first of all, to show good results of work and demonstrate growth. But if there is a desire, then you will always succeed.

Career growth- this is the movement up the career ladder in the hierarchical systems of organizations. Raising the position and level of responsibility. There are vertical, horizontal and diagonal career growth. Vertical career growth occurs in one company by moving to higher positions. Its advantages: work experience in one place; authority in the workforce, backed up by years of joint work; higher loyalty and efficiency of an employee who has the opportunity to grow and satisfy his ambitions within the same organization. Disadvantages of vertical growth: as a rule, slow promotion; managers are well aware of both the advantages and disadvantages of such an employee and are often not interested in his career; glass ceiling, which does not make it possible to reach the level of top management. Also, vertical career growth does not work in companies with a “flat” management structure. Diagonal career growth- a specialist constantly rises to the top, moving from one company to another, with each transition finding himself in a higher position. Such growth is more dynamic, but also has its drawbacks. By changing jobs too often, an employee risks acquiring a bad reputation as a “flyer”. Or he quickly hits the limit of competence if his career growth is ahead of his professional one. Horizontal career growth usually expressed in salary increase without promotion when moving to another organization. It is believed that, along with professionalism and knowledge of the matter, for successful career growth, a candidate must comply with the following careerism rules:

1. Be able to admit your own mistakes and not dwell on failures.
2. Set yourself short tasks that can be completed quickly, have a clear plan for the next achievements for the week, month, year.
3. Create your own team around you, a group of like-minded people, but be careful and not too gullible.
4. Create an image of a company patriot; work not as an employee, but as if it were your own business.
5. Do not be afraid to take on difficult cases and bring them to the end; work on yourself so that the complex assignments of the leadership do not seem impossible.
6. Do not argue with the leader (not to be confused with rational proposals), in particular, do not prove that flaws in work arise due to his unprofessional orders.
7. Make sure that your facial expression matches the mood of the leadership (others), so as not to spoil the relationship.
8. Accept the ideas and opinions of management as your own, support the initiative from above.
9. To be able to accept criticism of management, to assure that the mistakes made or miscalculations will not be repeated.
10. Be attentive to the personal affairs of the leader (others), do things that are pleasant for them, make sure not to cross the line between ordinary human attention and familiarity.
11. Be easy to communicate, be able to be ironic about your own flaws, but not really joke about those who especially do not like it.
12. Do not forget that career advancement depends on what is considered useful (appropriate, acceptable) by managers (from direct to higher and higher), as well as colleagues and subordinates.