Managing Your Career

By Fifty Lessons

Wondering how the most accomplished leaders from around the globe have tackled their toughest challenges? Now you can find outwith Lessons Learned. Concise and engaging, each volume in this new series offers 12-14 insightful essays by top leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia on the most pressing issues they’ve faced. The contributors share surprisingly personal anecdotes and offer authoritative and practical advice drawn from their years of hard-earned experience.

The series launches with three volumes, each of which centers on a timely topic:

· Leading by Example
· Managing Your Career
· Managing Change

A crucial resource for today’s busy executive, Lessons Learned gives you instant access to the wisdom and expertise of the world’s most talented leaders.

50 Lessons’ digital library holds more than 500 individual lessons from over 100 high-profile leaders from industry, the public sector, and academia from companies and institutions around the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Release date: Sep 4, 2007
• ISBN: 9781422162163

Book preview

CONTRIBUTORS

LESSON ONE

Choose Your Words Carefully

Paul Anderson

Chairman, Spectra Energy

AS I PROGRESSED in my career and got into increasingly more responsible or powerful roles, I had to be more sensitive to the impact that my words had on individuals and organizations.

It was almost like my words took on the power of the position, and things that were casual before were no longer casual. I had my first example of this when I was a manager. It was fairly early in my career, and a young woman named Sarah had come in. I was running a planning organization, and Sarah came to me and said, "Look, I don’t have any background in planning—I’m from the IT group—but I would love to join your organization. I’ll work hard to learn what I need to learn to do a good job. I will strive to do anything that you need done. Just give me a