Seven habits of highly ineffective people

HABIT 1: Lack of focus

Are you a Jack of all trades and master of none? Or do you have a chequered career? Remember, shifting jobs and industries too quickly can cause serious harm to your career. If you want to get quick success, focus on a niche. If you have the patience and you like variety, you can afford to become a generalist. But even if you want to become a generalist, you should still have focus in terms of the industry. Even if you want to quickly become the CEO, be a Jack of all trades and master of one.


Habit 2: Poor prioritisation

If you only work like a donkey, without prioritizing things and you don’t know smart work, you are not going to reach places. Always keep a list of urgent and important tasks. Otherwise, you will be busy painting the house, while fire brigade will be rescuing people and objects. In fact, Pareto’s principle applies everywhere. 10 per cent of our efforts bring 90 per cent of the results. Why waste time on doing low result activities, why not delegate or even dump if possible?


Habit 3: Poor marketing and branding

Very often intelligent people are poor at marketing themselves resulting in wrong perceptions and the right people do not even come to know of their contribution. The bitter truth of life is perception almost plays 50 per cent role in your promotion in the organization and even getting business from customers. We all need basic selling skills to convince the right people and to sell ourselves and our ideas. The larger the organization, the more the possibility of politics and manipulation overpowering competence.



Habit 4: Over-confidence?

Biggest enemies on the road are speed, liquor and overload. Over-confidence is like liquor under whose stupor you lose your sanity. Sometimes, competent people can also give wrong impression of over-confidence or pride because of their introvert nature. If you have a superiority complex or ego problem, remember nothing damages iron more than its own rust and nothing harms a person more than his own ego. Do not work recklessly and overload yourself.



Habit 5: Poor networking skills

A success survey done in the US recently reported that connecting with the right people is the single most important contributing factor to success, even more important than competence. Intellectual people are often introvert and do not connect with people. Understand the root causes of your introversion. Is it because of shyness, lack of confidence or negative attitude towards people? Once you have diagnosed the cause, you need to take the necessary action.



Habit 6: Poor soft skills, especially presentation skills

If you are hardworking and intelligent but you cannot articulate and present yourself properly, you are not going to make a mark. You will end up as an average Tom, Dick and Harry and other people may use your ideas and get ahead. All that glitters may not be gold, but all that glitters is easily sold. Remember first impression is the last impression and human decisions are shaped by many illogical forces like halo effect and spill over effect. For example if the interviewer is impressed by your attire, he may continue the interview with positive bias (halo effect) and if you make a mistake in the very beginning, he may continue the interview with negative bias (spill over effect).



Habit 7: Poor execution and administration skills

Besides poor networking the other major reason which causes failure of competent people is lack of assertiveness. If you are too nice and sweet (gentle soul) you need to learn the art of tough love. If you have a mental barrier that assertiveness cannot be developed, you are wrong. It takes time and effort to learn assertive behaviour but it can definitely be learnt. Remember too much perfectionism can also slow down your growth. Learn to delegate and do not waste time on insignificant activities. If you have failed to develop a critical skill required for a job (for example assertiveness, in sales) after a long period, may be the time has come to charter a new career course. 

Merinews.com
Author – Dr. Amit Nagpal

Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant and specializes in Personal Branding with a holistic touch. He is based in New Delhi, India. His philosophy is, "Take charge of your life and your brand"