The Office Party. The simple sound of it can breathe life into an otherwise normal, plodding day. Heads pop up from cubicles, emails and instant messages are exchanged, there’s actually something to look FORWARD to that involves work. While a party on the boss can be a fun distraction from an otherwise normal work routine and provide great opportunities for you, it can also throw your career into a tailspin. I ran across the following article by Rob Kingdom on some office party do’s and don’ts, which provides some great pieces of advice that can both help to advance your career and keep you out of trouble.

Take a look at the article below, my thoughts follow in the My Comments section immediately following the end of the article.

How to Survive the Office Party
By Rob Kingdom

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This is a new segment that I’ll be running from time to time which will highlight some the better posts stored in the Workplace Life archives.

Here are three posts that you should check out:

1. How To Fail Successfully - Failing successfully? As crazy as it sounds, there is a right way and a wrong way to fail.

2. Top 5 Resume Mistakes - The top five resume mistakes I’ve come across (and a bonus sixth one), a good read if you are currently polishing up your resume or writing one for the first time.

3. What You Really Say At Work - There are two languages spoken at work: What you actually say, and what you mean to say. Here are a few translations for your reading pleasure.

Time estimation and Pricing - These are two of the most important skills that you can develop if you are looking to advance in almost any industry. It’s been my experience that it’s not until you reach a managers level that you encounter the pricing portion of this combination. Also, while you do learn time estimation earlier in your career, it’s usually only estimating your own time as opposed to co-workers you would be in charge of. With that being said, it’s never too early to try and read up on these skills. It’s a tough transition from being held accountable only for your own results to being responsible for an entire team, but it’s the two skills that I mentioned above that are crucial to mastering this transition.

In the article below, Bill Lee makes some interesting points as far as where the responsibility in pricing lies (between team members or the manger of the team). I think this article can be expanded to include time estimation of your team as well. You can find my comments in the My Comments section immediately following the end of the article before the Author Resource Box.

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Getting promoted is most likely the best thing that can happen to you at your job (assuming it’s accompanied by a raise). If you have a list of goals that you want to accomplish at your company, it is probably not only number one, but bolded, underlined, and highlighted. Taking this one step further, because it’s such an important goal there is always somebody looking for a way to get ahead at any given moment. Obviously, not everybody is looking in the right direction, or we would all be working at the same position for the same pay. The question then becomes: How do I make myself stand out and put myself in a position to get promoted?

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Here’s the situation: Your current project is fantastic. You like the people, the work is interesting, and your commute is a breeze. Did I mention that you only work eight hours a day, five days a week? To top it all off, you’ve been on the project for a good amount of time, making you an SME (subject matter expert) and well respected by your peers and your boss. Things couldn’t get more perfect right? Well, there is one little thing: You’re up for a promotion to manager next year, but you aren’t getting any lead roles. Without this experience, it’s going to be very tough for you to get promoted. What do you do?

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See Below:

• Are you ready for that next step in your career? You should do your promotion homework before you answer.
• Experience the value of second opinions in today’s Tip of the Day.

Getting a promotion is equivalent to taking that next step on the corporate ladder. You may have a lot of rungs to climb, but that’s one less rung you have to worry about. All in all, it’s a great feeling. This is why getting a promotion is the single most important goal for most people in the workplace today.

However, before you look to take that next step, you need to make sure you are ready for it. While I’m sure you’re ready for the money (If they promote you but don’t give you a raise, I’d high tail it out of there as you’re basically doing extra work for free), are you ready for the responsibility?

With that question in mind, here are three things to think about before you take that next step in your career:

• Do you know what this new position entails? - This sounds like common sense, but I’ve definitely come across people who have no idea what to expect in their newly promoted positions. While I’m not saying that you have to know the intimate day to day details (you’ll learn a lot of this on the job), you need to have a general understanding of what responsibilities this position entails and what will be expected of you. If you walk in completely blind, you’re almost guaranteed to have a rough time of it. A good idea is to talk to someone already in that position and get a feel for what they do.

• Are you ready to manage others? - This may not apply to your new position, but if you are going to be managing other people then you need to be ready for it. Most likely, if you are up for a management position, then you have had some experience with it. However, if you haven’t, try to get some experience before you take your new position. An example of this would be volunteering to take charge of an assignment, where other people would be working with you to get it done. It will be a lot easier to manage people in your new position if you have done it in your current position. I know it might not be possible (sometimes you don’t have a say in it), but you should try to get some experience if you can.

• Are you ready to be held accountable? - This is a big one. While you may have some accountability in your current position, most likely this level of accountability will increase when you get promoted. Even more likely, you will be held accountable for the work of others. You need to make sure that you are ready to be held accountable for everything that your new position is responsible for. For example, in your current position, you might be accountable for your software design. However, when you get promoted, you might be accountable for ALL of the software designs. Inline with the above two points, you need to be ready not only to perform the responsibilities of your new role, but also be ready to take the heat if necessary. Don’t fret though, it’s not all bad. If everything goes right, you’re in a position to get great PR for yourself.

I’d like to reiterate that getting a promotion is a very important step in your career. While the above are great points to consider before you start your new role, you also have to factor in that no matter how much prep work you do you will learn A LOT on the job. Don’t be afraid of getting promoted, just make sure that you do as much prep work as possible so that you do a great job right from the start.

I’ve written a couple of articles that in some way relate to managing other people, and there are two reasons for this:

1. Managing other people is seen as the next step in almost all career paths.
2. Managing other people is one of the hardest skills to master.

In other words, you can never read enough about effectively managing other people. It’s in this line of thinking that I’m going to share with you one of the most important pieces of advice I can give: Lead by example.

Sounds simple enough, but you’d be surprised how often we do something that sends a bad message to our team. Here are three ways that you can send a good message to your team, and consequently make yourself a better team leader.

• First to arrive, Last to leave - In general, you should be the first one to arrive out of your team to work and the last one to leave. This sets a great example for the rest of your team as to the level of your commitment not only to your project but to them. It will really help to set a good work pace, as they can see you working right when they get in up until they leave. Now, this does not always have to apply. For example, if one of your team members needs to work overnight on something, you don’t have to stay with them. However, when you can, you should try to follow this tip.

• Don’t take “Sick” time - Now before you light the torches, let me explain. It’s perfectly fine to take a day off if you actually are sick. What I’m referring to is “Sick” days off, where you might be taking it for another reason (don’t even try to tell me you have never taken one). While in itself this is unacceptable, when you begin to be responsible for others it becomes even more so. You don’t have the liberty of not caring for a day, as people’s jobs could depend on you. What if you’re not there to answer a question and work stops? What if you miss a deadline because of that? This domino effect only gets worse, and it is something you need to think about before you call off.

• The “Bad mouthing” ends - This might be the single most important point of the three. When you are in charge, you need to keep morale as high as you can. This means that “Bad mouthing” other co-workers or your project pretty much ends. Think of it this way: If your manager starts talking about how awful your project is, what are you going to think? If they can’t handle it, how should you be able to? This also applies to your co-workers, especially any on your team. You should never rag on them, so to speak. Your team will take their cues from you, and you need to set a good example. They most likely need to work with these people, and you want that to go smoothly without anybody having any preconceived notions.

Your team performing better can only help you out in the long run. It’s a boon not only to your current project’s success, but to the success of your career as well.

Being able to review another persons work is one of those extremely valuable skills that someone shooting for any kind of leadership position needs to master. It can be a very challenging and intimidating task, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Below I’ve outlined some basic tips that will help you to not only be up to the task, but excel at it as well.

To note: The kind of review that I will be referencing for this article is what I call an In-Depth Review. That means that it is for both content as well as your basic grammar and spelling.

• Be familiar with the subject matter - This may seem like a no-brainer if you’re doing a content review, however you might be surprised how often this is not the case. If you’re not familiar enough with the subject to make a good review, let them know. The last thing you want to do is make their work worse after they incorporate your comments. One of the worst outcomes of this is that one of your comments could make their work actually incorrect, which can cascade into a bunch of different issues.

• Have a template for your comments - Many a time I’ve had someone return my work to me with their comments scattered all over the document, making me search through the document to find out what they said. This is a very time consuming process, and it also leaves room to miss a comment, especially if it’s a large document. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok to make inline comments, however you should also mark where these comments are in a predefined template. This template is usually pretty basic, a simple example would contain the name of the reviewer, date of the review, work being reviewed, and then for each comment there would be a reference number, location, and description.

• Be descriptive - If you’re going to make a comment, make sure you explain exactly what you are trying to get at. It doesn’t have to be a thesis, but writing down “Wrong” won’t cut it and only leads to you having to explain each comment. A few short sentences should usually be sufficient to explain yourself. They should contain what you are referencing, and how you think it needs to be changed. If you need more than that, it’s probably just better to note your comment and talk to them about it.

• Be constructive with your criticism - This goes hand-in-hand with the point above. If you think something needs rework, don’t put “This sucks, get rid of all of it then play in traffic”. While it may be true that they need to do a lot of work, instead of pure negative criticism suggest a way in which it can be improved.

• Be objective - This might be the most important piece of advice I can give you. Lot’s of times at work we are asked to review the work of someone who we might not necessarily like or respect. This should NOT be brought into play when you actually do their review. Remember, you are reviewing their work, not them personally. Even though you may not like them, their work could be important to your project. Making it worse or not helping to improve that product will do you no good in the long run.

• Make sure you have the latest version - This is a two way street. While it is the other persons responsibility to make sure you have the latest and greatest copy of their work to review, it will be your time that is wasted if you review the wrong copy. Before you start reviewing, do a final check with them to make sure you have the correct copy.

• Set aside conference time - Make sure that you are prepared to take some time out and answer questions about your review. I’ve never had a review where either I wasn’t asked questions or asked questions myself. Know this is going to happen, and try to plan accordingly. A good idea if you are pressed for time during the day is to schedule a time to go over the review, and make sure that they have all their questions ready for you when you meet.

I can’t stress this enough: Being able to effectively and thoroughly review someone else’s work is one of the most important skills you can develop in today’s workplace. Leading others is one of the major milestones in most people’s careers, and in order to do that you need to be able to review what they produce.

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.