Q: What do you mean by “Career Steroids?”

A: The performance enhancing skills and disciplines that strengthen the Knowledge Professional’s value-creation capabilities are referred to as the “Career Steroids”. These disciplines are focused on intellectual assets and knowledge-based skills, and include things like:

Information Literacy, or the ability to discern patterns, conclusions and opportunities in the non-stop flow of operational information surrounding our business activities. Not to be confused with “computer literacy”, which is simply a familiarity and adeptness with information tools.

Agile Learning, or the ability to acquire and assimilate new knowledge quickly and effectively. Agile learning combines the disciplines of “Just-in-Time” learning and “Just-Enough” learning with a commitment to learning as a lifelong process.

Horizontal Vision, or the ability to create value by “connecting the dots” across a domain, enterprise or value chain to align disparate elements in the solution to critical problems or business needs.

Execution Focus, or the unique ability to turn “what” into “how.” This discipline requires a strong sense of deadline, scheduling, milestone deliverables, resource balancing and personal accountability.

Collaborative Leadership, or the ability to lead through clear vision, mutuality and “walk-the-talk” integrity, without having to rely on positional authority. Collaborative leadership is situational and can come from anywhere in the hierarchy.

Self-Determinant Behavior, or the commitment to take personal accountability for managing the key elements of your career. These elements include personal branding, self-directed learning, reciprocal value contracting, self-directed wealth and wellness, and others.