March 5, 2003
Karen Wood
Don't Sabotage Your Success!
Make Office Politics Work
Karen Wood graduated in the top of her class from Pennsylvania State University, with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Business Logistics, with distinction (cum laude), and with a perfect 4.0 in the major. The years the author attended, Penn State boasted the number one Logistics program in the country.
She spent almost seven years working for two multi-billion dollar consumer products companies. It was during these years that Mrs. Wood got her stripes and experiences to last a lifetime. She became frustrated as the years passed and felt that she was literally clawing her way to the middle.
After earning a Masters of Science in Corporate Finance, Mrs. Wood began a career in management consulting working for the largest corporations in the world as well as smaller high technology companies. After more than five years of consulting and pain-staking research, Mrs. Wood has been able to prove many of her principles on relationships and communication in the workplace.
Approach
The approach of how I teach is a little bit different from most of the books that have been written on success. When I started reading books on this subject, most had the same format: here are a bunch of very successful people, let’s look at their characteristics and figure out what makes them successful. The idea is, if you know what makes someone successful, then all you have to do is assume those traits and you to can be successful.
While I believe there is merit to that formula, it doesn’t always work. Even if you do nearly everything the successful people do, it doesn’t help you identify habits and behaviors that are sabotaging.
Other books can identify behaviors that could get you in trouble but give you no clue how to correct behavior.
In other words, if I know that certain behaviors actually alienate myself from the people I am trying to connect with, then perhaps I can stop that behavior, but how do I still reach my original goal?
Most of our behavior and actions in the workplace are rooted in some type of objective we are trying to accomplish. Therefore, if we stop certain sabotaging behaviors, then we need to know the correct behaviors to replace them with so we can still be effective in meeting our original objective.
What I was looking for was a way to understand what I was doing wrong, why it was getting me into trouble, and strategies to help me meet my originally intended objective.
SWN members attending our March 5th, 2003 luncheon meeting had the opportunity to meet Karen Wood and learn as she discussed the highlights of her book:
1.What behaviors are sabotaging your career
2.Why those behaviors have negative consequences
3.Strategies for you to meet your originally intended objective
In addition, we learned the dynamics of workplace relationships which will enable us to:
1.Build a strong relationship with your boss
2.Understand what you have a right to expect in the relationship
3.Understand the key signs when a relationship is failing
4.Build strong relationships with your subordinates
5.Understand when it’s time to move on and
6.How to leverage your equity in the relationships you’ve built
The bottom line is that we learned to have the control and the knowledge to manage our career so that we can
have all the happiness and success we endeavor to create.
