Your Door to Success – you didn’t read this?

It is easy to talk about success, but it is really tough to achieve success in different aspects of life. It is difficult to find what makes a person successful, many researchers and psychologists have tried to infer the formula of success, but no concrete answer has been drawn yet. Still we can say that there are few things that make a person different from rest of the people and this uniqueness make them successful. Let’s decode the secret of success and try to make our life successful in all spheres. We all make big New Year resolutions, set goals and many of us make future plans, set goals, but the problem is we do not continuously strive to achieve the goals. Let’s create a list here and find out how any particular quality can contribute to one’s success.  

You become what you think: Think positive & good and you feel the power of positive vibes. It will fill you with good thoughts and positive energy, on the contrary pessimistic thinking will only dishearten the person and will discourage them from taking initiatives. It is my personal observation that positive thinking enhances willpower and willingness to face the challenges. Always remember positive things happen to positive people.  

Set your dreams & goals: set your goals, chalk out a plan to reach it and work to achieve it. Resolution that is not written is merely a dream. To convert your dream into a reality note it down and draw a concrete plan to achieve it. The reason we often fail to achieve our New Year resolution is because we did not note it down on paper. Track your success and live your dream. 

Action-plan: it is not words but actions that bring success. It doesn’t matter whether you take a big leap or small steps but it is necessary to take regular action towards your goal and work continuously to achieve it. Ask yourself what your plans for your dreams are and how you will achieve it.  

Be a learner: sounds clichéd? But it is true. To be successful in your endeavor it is important to learn new skills, keep yourself updated and apply your knowledge. Be an avid learner and realize how learning can benefit you in different aspects of your life. Be persistent and work hard:Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up. The way to success is full of hurdles and competitions and only persistent players will reach the end. There is no shortcut to success. So work hard and try untiringly to achieve the goal. It is the only way to reach your goal.  

Keen sense of analyzing details: figures and data are useful if they are being inferred in the right manner. A good learner always learns from their past mistakes, analyzes situations carefully, and checks all the pros and cons and only then proceeds towards any decision. Spend time in collecting useful data and analyze it for significant information, but don’t get too involved in data and figures or else you will miss the main objectives.  

Focus: successful people know how to best utilize their time and money. Focus on your task, manage your resources intelligently and get the most from the available resources. Remain focussed on your goal and manage your time smartly so that you can achieve your goal.  

Be innovative: Either be part of the crowd or be the one among the crowd, the choice is yours. Explore your dimensions and break the set pattern of thinking and reach your dream. To reap the fruits of the hard work you have to develop innovative thinking.  

Communicate effectively: learn to express yourself positively and it is equally important to learn what other people are trying to say or what their motives are. Successful people know how to communicate their ideas and how to comprehend other’s views and ideas.  

Be responsible: Take responsibility for your actions and decisions or the above mentioned points won’t matter.

Success is like a tree it will not grow overnight, one has to be persistent and honest in their approach for better results. In addition to the above the individual or employee will be successful provided he has working knowledge about what he is doing in the organization.

Work Attitudes that lead to High Performance

The attitudes of most interest to managers are those related to work, especially attitudes that influence how well employees perform. To lead employees effectively, managers logically seek to cultivate the kinds of attitudes that are associated with high performance. Two attitudes that might relate to high performance are satisfaction with one’s job and commitment to the organization.



Job satisfaction:

A positive attitude towards one’s job is called job satisfaction. In general, people experience this attitude when their work matches their needs and interests, when working conditions and rewards (such as pay) are satisfactory, when they like their co-workers and when they have positive relationships with supervisors.

Many managers believe job satisfaction is important because they think satisfied employees will do better work. In fact, research shows that the link between satisfaction and performance is generally small and is affected by other factors. The importance of satisfaction varies according to the amount of control the employee has; an employee doing routine tasks may produce about the same output no matter how he or she feels about the job. However, an internal study at a big super market recently found a clear link between employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and revenue. In particular employee’s attitude about whether their workloads were manageable and well-organized ranked among the indicators of company performance.

Managers of today’s knowledge workers often rely on job satisfaction to keep motivation and enthusiasm for the organization high. Organizations don’t want to lose talented highly skilled workers. In addition most managers care about their employees and simply want them to feel good about their work – and almost everyone prefers being around people who have positive attitudes. However, a survey by International Survey Research found that Generation X employees, those who are carrying the weight of much of today’s knowledge work, are the least satisfied of all demographic groups. Managers play an important role in whether employees have positive or negative attitudes towards their job.

Organizational Commitment:

Organizational commitment refers to an employee’s loyalty to and engagement with the organization. An employee with a high degree of organizational commitment is likely to speak well when talking about the company. Such a person likes being a part of the organization and tries to contribute to its success.

Most managers want to enjoy the benefits of loyal, committed employees including low turnover and willingness to do more than the job’s basic requirements. In addition, results of a recent survey in Global organizations suggests that companies with committed employees perform better. The study found that companies with highly committed employees outperformed the industry average over a 12 month period by 6 per cent, while those with low levels of commitment underperformed the average by 9 per cent. Alarmingly, the level of commitment in the United States is significantly lower than half of the world’s other large economies. US employees are less committed than those in Brazil, Spain, Germany, Canada and Italy. This low level of organizational commitment puts US firms at a serious disadvantage in the global marketplace.

The high motivation and engagement that comes with organizational commitment is essential to the success of knowledge based organizations that depend on employees’ ideas and creativity. Trust in the management’s decisions and integrity is an important component of organizational commitment. Unfortunately in recent years, many employees have lost that trust, resulting in a decline in commitment.

Managers can take action to promote organizational commitment by keeping employees informed, giving them a say in decisions, providing the necessary training and other resources that enable them to succeed, treating them fairly and offering rewards they value. For example, employee commitment in today’s workplace is strongly correlated with initiatives and benefits that help people balance their work and personal lives.

Sometimes a person may discover that his or her attitudes conflict with one another or are not reflected in behavior. For example, a person’s high level of organizational commitment might conflict with a commitment to family members. If employees routinely work evenings and weekends, their long hours and dedication to the job might conflict with their belief that family ties are important. This can create a state of cognitive dissonance, a psychological discomfort that occurs when individuals recognize inconsistencies in their own attitudes and behaviors.

In the case of working overtime, people who can control their hours might restructure responsibilities so that they have time for both work and family. In contrast, those who are unable to restructure workloads might develop an unfavorable attitude towards the employer, reducing their organizational commitment. They might resolve their dissonance by saying they would like to spend more time with their kids but their unreasonable employer demands that they work many hours.