Six Secrets to Success at Work
Apr 29, 2015


By Jack and Suzy Welch

How many people do you know who are truly happy at work? Are you one of them? We recently surveyed American professionals throughout the nation and learned that nearly a third feel trapped in their careers and passed over for promotions.

Don’t count yourself among them. If you’re feeling stuck, here are six operating principles that can put you on the path to a stronger career trajectory — and, we hope, to the kind of success known as happiness.

1. Find Where Your Passion and Skills Intersect

We have a concept called Area of Destiny, which is the very rich territory at the intersection of what you are uniquely good at and what you love to do. That’s where you should be building your profession.

2. Make Your Boss Smarter

No matter where you are in your career, one thing never changes. Every day, it’s your flat-out responsibility to make your boss look good. You have to make him or her smarter — about your industry, your customers, your competitors, your products, and technology — all the time.

3. Know When to Leave a Bad Boss

Great bosses are generous bosses. If you feel your boss doesn’t in some way have your best interest in mind and want you to grow, you’ve got to have the confidence to move out.

4. Give Yourself a Deadline

Don’t let work feel like a grind. If you're unhappy — or you just aren’t all-in — you have to put a time-frame on how much you are going to put up with before making a change.

5. Don’t Fear Failure

The thing about failing — because you will fail if you take risks — is that you realize you don’t die. You just pick yourself up and keep going — and how fast you get back on the horse says a lot about you.

6. Never Stop Reinventing Yourself

Who wants to just “retire”? Banish that word from your vocabulary. You’ve got to constantly reinvent and take a chance on something you’ve always wanted to do — it’s what keeps you alive. You’re never done.