Now that you got a job that you love, the next thing is, how do you keep it? At least to keep it as long as you want to keep it. Starts with something really simple. You mean you got to be good at it. I like to think that one of the best things you can do is to become indispensable to your boss. In fact, many people ask me about managing up, which is a big factor. How do you manage up, how do you manage to your boss? How do you get on her or his wavelength and get time with them? The single best way to do it is to become so important to them that they're going to give you the time, they're going to give you the energy, and they're going to give you the support. It's not that complicated idea when you get right down to it, but that's where it all starts. Do what's asked of you, that's for sure, but then also think about, well, what else would be helpful, and do that too. It turns out that in a variety of studies, that little thing that I just said, it turns out to be a big differentiator; doing your job, getting whatever your KPIs or key performance indicators. Whatever is required of you, do your job, but then just do a little bit more that you think is going to be useful, is going to be helpful. Now don't get in anybody's way, and sometimes you're going to end up with some ideas and some work that others are going to appreciate a lot. Feedback. I've talked about feedback earlier in some of the strategic leadership specialization. Seek feedback and look for that feedback to try to get better. Always be asking, what could I have done differently? Say you have a suggestion on how I could have done this or done that. Go out of your way to make it easy for other people to give you feedback, that's really, really important. Find a mentor. Actually even better than a mentor is to find a sponsor. Somebody who is going to be there to support you, not just give you advice but to support you, and to be the person to give you that little push to the next job or the next opportunity. Speaking about opportunities, look for those opportunities to get out of your comfort zone. We'll talk a lot more about that in Module 4, but getting out of your comfort zone is really, really important. Sometimes that means volunteering for things maybe you're not quite ready for, or maybe you're not quite so sure about. Anytime you can do anything that the superboss leaders do, I think that's going to help you as well. Superboss leaders are all about helping other people get better. They are all about being as creative as you possibly can, as we talked about in the last module as well. Of course we did an entire course just unsupervised. So there's a lot there that you can tap into to help you become more effective at your work. I also say when you recognize that keeping the job you have today, it may not necessarily be the right goal into the future. To grow, you do need to move forward and you do need to take on new responsibilities. Sometimes that means you might need to leave. You want to hold on to that great job that you love, I got that, but there is a time there is a place where if that job is not going to continue to create the opportunities for you, maybe it's time to move on. Really, really important, build relationships. Especially when you're new on the job at all the way through. Where for those of you that are working from home, which during the COVID era became a thing and it hasn't gone away for many individuals, you really got to build the relationship. When you're not with people day to day, you don't have the proverbial water cooler type of scenario where you're talking with each other or grabbing a coffee with each other during the day. You have to go out of your way to build those relationships. Those are important, because remember that point about connection. One of the criteria that make people love their jobs is to have that connection where you care about other people and they care about you, and you've got to build that, you've got to work at that. My own story is really in line with some of the things we've been talking about this entire course is about personal leadership, is about change, and creativity, and learning, and impact. Often we think we have to move around from company to company, from job to job, to get what we want, and sometimes we do, I get that. Sometimes we do have to move around, but sometimes you can make it happen right where you are today. I realize my job is different than yours, and it's true that I have probably more autonomy than most people, but I've been a professor at Dartmouth for almost 30 years. I have managed to continue to figure out how to change, to learn, to have impact, to a large extent by being willing to change. Actually, it's not quite right to imply I have to be willing to change, of course I have to be willing, but I love to change it's in my own DNA. But you have to have curiosity, creativity, and the courage to do so. All the types of things that we've talked about. Just in my case, from starting as a real pure academic locked up in my office doing research and publishing in academic journals, to moving towards research for a much wider audience through books, doing media, consulting, speaking, workshops, teaching, podcasts, and of course, this work here, these videos in this series for you as a learner in Coursera. All of those things, there are differences along the way. How do you keep a job that you love? You have to keep changing with it and create the opportunities to keep it as fresh as you possibly can. That's something that you really want to think about doing. If you can't do it in your job today, you want to think about how to do it in the next job. That's why always thinking about what's next, what's next is critical.
