Here are three things that can cause stress on a project:

1.) Tight deadlines
2.) Long hours
3.) A struggling team member

While individually these can all lead to stress on a project team, combined they can be deadly. The first two problems mentioned above are hard to mitigate, especially when they are both occurring at the same time. However, the third one seems like an easy solution on the surface: Cut the team member loose. Unfortunately, this is a tactic that is taken much too quickly in many situations. Instead, I would counsel the following: Take the extra time to try and develop the team member. Here are a few situations in which this especially a good idea:

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Sorry for the delay on the new article, it’s been a rough day.

• Check out the new article on Maximizing Your Next Performance Review for ways to get that next promotion or raise you want.

On the docket for tomorrow should be a Microsoft Office related article, not sure which piece of software I’ll do it on but I have some ideas for some interesting Microsoft Word topics.

Most companies have a set method for providing feedback to their employees. This usually comes in the form of a formal review process maybe twice a year, or whenever they change roles. However, it doesn’t help you very much if somebody tells you what you need to improve after you are done with your role (and have no chance to correct it) or after the raises and promotions have been decided for the year. You need to be proactive in asking for feedback from your supervisors, or even the team you manage, so you can make that formal review a good one.

This can be a very intimidating task for a lot of people. It’s never easy hearing criticism, and this is what many people fear. However, the only way to improve yourself and subsequently your career advancement is to get this kind of feedback and improve upon it. Let’s break this down into two parts: getting feedback from your supervisor and getting feedback from your team.

Supervisor Feedback

Getting feedback from your supervisor: Daunting? Absolutely. Impossible? Absolutely not. While it may seem scary at first, not only is it necessary as they will be writing your review in most cases, but they will actually appreciate the fact that you are looking for ways you can improve your performance.

How do you approach them? This is relatively simple as well. All you really have to do is ask. I would do this in person as opposed to over email, because you can make it more of a fluid question and answer session. Once they agree to provide you with some feedback, set up a meeting time and reserve a private room. This is not something that you should do at your cubicle or theirs, as you want honest, unedited feedback (read: not censored for everybody around you). Send a meeting invite if possible so that it appears on their calendar, mainly because if they are very busy you don’t want it to slip their mind (or yours for that matter).

Now that the meeting is setup, you need to prepare for it. I would brainstorm for any specific questions you have about areas where you think you might not be performing as well as you could be. Conversely, if you think you are performing at a high level in a certain area, you might want to ask their opinion. Write these down as bullet points to bring up during the meeting.

At the meeting, be sure to write down any improvements that they suggest. If you don’t agree with something, discuss it with them as there is no better time to do it. Keep the tone of the meeting professional. It is extremely important to remember that this is constructive criticism, not a personal attack on you. Taking this personally will not only stop you from improving in the suggested areas, but probably drop your performance in other areas as well. Also, make sure to ask how you can improve in some of these areas. It does you no good if you know where you need to improve but have no idea how to do it.

Team Feedback

This might seem even more daunting than getting feedback from your supervisor. With your supervisor, at least they are above you on the food chain so criticism is a little easier to swallow. With those you manage, this can be difficult. However, it is very necessary because how your team performs reflects on you, and if you can improve their performance in any way you want to do it.

It is a good idea to setup team meetings every week or so. This is dependent on what you are working on, but I find that anything more frequent than once or twice a week is unnecessary. A good idea once you setup the frequency of your meetings is to have them on the same day each week, and reserve a room in advance for multiple weeks. This puts your team into a routine so they are ready for the meeting each week, making it more productive.

The goal of the meeting does not have to be strictly feedback for you; conversely I would only make that a part of the meeting, perhaps at the end. You should ask if there is anything that the team feels that could be going better, and what improvements you can make as team lead. Obviously, you probably won’t implement all of their suggestions, but if you just get a few good ones out of it then you will notice a significant improvement in your team’s performance.

Overall, you don’t get any better if you don’t know what you need to work on. If you don’t get any better, you don’t get the promotion or the raise that you wanted. Ultimately, this is why the burden of self-improvement falls on your shoulders. Get that informal feedback, and make your formal review shine.

Recently at my work, an executive hit upon a very good subject: being proactive for your career.  This is probably one of the best things that you can do for your career, but surprisingly enough, a lot of people are what she calls “Tumbleweeds”.  These are people that just roll along from assignment to assignment, never really taking the initiative on anything, never suggesting anything, just like a tumbleweed in the desert.  They might do a decent job, but that is all that they do.  Consequently, when it comes around to promotion time, they usually fall to the wayside.

How do you escape this deadly fate?  Are you DOOMED????  Lucky for you, the answer is no.  There are several things you can do to make sure you are making a positive (”positive” being the key word here) impact at your workplace.  I’ve outlined a few starters below:

• If you are finished with your current assignment, and you don’t have anything else to work on, seek out your supervisor and see if they have anything else they would like you to do.  This shows initiative and that you’re just not sitting around cruising the internet waiting for direction.  Be careful with this though; don’t rush through assignments just to get another one.  Make sure to keep the quality of what you produce high.

• If you see some way to improve what your team is currently working on, suggest it to your supervisor.  The key here is to come up with a plan of improvement first before you talk to them.  Don’t just say “Oh, this isn’t working”.  You want to approach it like this: “This part of the process isn’t working, but here’s how I would improve it.”  For example, say you’re working on a software design and notice that the template you are using could be improved.  First, come up with an example of what the improvement would be (say a modified template), and then present it.  This demonstrates both a deep understanding of what the team is doing and a willingness to help make the project better.

• This next suggestion can be pretty hard for people to do.  Basically, if you see an opportunity for new business for your company, you should approach your supervisor and possibly higher executives with this opportunity.  Now, this may seem daunting to a lot of people because it is a pretty big step.  However, as long as you think that it is a legitimate opportunity, and you have a good set of reasons why it is a good opportunity (this is very important as you don’t want to waste anyone’s time, let alone your superiors), then this can do nothing but good things for your career.  Even if the opportunity isn’t acted upon, this is huge in the eyes of executives, as it shows that you are tying to “grow the business” as it is commonly called, or finding new avenues of revenue for your company.  This is the kind of thing that executives do everyday, and is a great quality to showcase.

• If you are presented with an opportunity to take on more responsibility, you should take it as long as you are comfortable with it and confident that you can accomplish it with a high degree of success.  Taking on more responsibility will show that you are ready for the next level of your career.  However, as stated above, make sure that you are comfortable doing it and that you can do it successfully.  Otherwise, the effect is just the opposite, and there might not be another opportunity for you for a long time.

These are just a few of the ways that you can take charge of your career.  They’re a good start, but you should come up with some of your own that are tailored to your specific work situation to use in conjunction with the suggestions above.