Even when you have a great manager, there is no guarantee they will still be with the company when it comes time for promotions, etc. We always need to be prepared to sell ourselves to a new manager, to upper level executives, or if need be, to a new company.

David’s recommendation of “How to Toot Your Own Horn Without Blowing it” is a good one. I highly recommend that book as well. You may also want to check out the new tool we created at http://www.CareerFlair.com to help people capture their success stories over time and share them with their network. I’d love to hear any feedback you have.

I used to hate it when people said yes to work they really couldn’t do on time. I eventually learned who these people were and was very careful with my interactions with them.

On the flip side – I didn’t hesitate to tell my supervisor no when I felt my staff were overworked. Sometimes the results was to drop current work obligations in order to focus on new issues.

Is it possible that the word was meant to have been “perception”, as in “Afterall, perception is reality.”?

If that is what was meant to have been said, it is a miss-quote. The original saying goes: “Perception is 9/10ths of Reality”.

Quoting from the attached web-site, here is what is said about this “rule”:

“Reality is important in business. But as far as your customers and prospects are concerned, perception is 9/10ths of reality and that is how they will make future decisions regarding your business. Everyone in your organization that regularly communicates with your customers should have this principle drilled into their heads until it becomes part of their normal process.”

We have to be careful when we are dealing with our own perceptions, because perception is NOT reality. It is that 1/10 of a percent where we get into trouble of misjudging, being down-right wrong. I think people believe the first quote though, even though it is misquoted, as your post has done. Be careful to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth…or who knows what people will perceive about you?

As for your other question about whether you can get the value out of MBA, no one can answer that for you. You have to decide for yourself. Ask yourself, 1) Why do you want to get an MBA? 2) do you need an MBA to get ahead in your career or start a business? Can you achieve it some other way? An alternative could be work for a start up and learn that way how to run a business. 3) an MBA can cost up to $180K for 2 years + 2 years of not making any money. Is it a good financial investment for you?

Good luck with your decision.

Lei

I went through all professional stages from a computer programmer, Systems Analyst, Business Analyst to Vice President in a Fortune 500 firm without a Bachelors Degree. I became an enterpreneur for two years and that’s when I found out how woefully unprepared I was building a business outside cooperate setting. I closed the business and tried to get a job, but could find any for two years. During this time I registered for a Bachelors to improve my comaptitive strength. I am graduating in about 8 weeks with a GPA of 4.0 and I want to go for an MBA immediately precicely to improve my competitive advantage and prepare myself for the next business venture.

My case is unusual, I realize but would you still think I will not get value out of it?

Well, we meet for lunch once a month. Usually he asks for my feedback on somethings. Well, today he asked me a personnel question which I helped him. And then I mentioned to him that I have downloaded his app but haven’t use it. I asked him if I was in his target segment. He said yes. Then came my mistake. I want him so much to succeed that my approach was to start telling him why the app doesn’t work for me thinking that it may help. He listened at first but then I realized he stopped listening and I even kept pushing in an effort to help him realize the risk he may be taking in trying to educate consumers on a whole new way of thinking.

The point is not so much about who is right or wrong on this topic as there is no one way to do thing. The mistake I made was actually #3 above – speak with encouragement and not finding fault. Although I didn’t mean to find fault and was just trying to help him with marketing, I realized now that it easily came across that way because I basically said his “new baby” (his latest update on the product) is ugly. Ugh… He then tells me in a frustrated tone that he can’t listen to this right now as he has been stressing for the last 3 weeks and launch is today. I realized mentally as what I told him is exactly the WRONG TIME and the WRONG Way to help him. He needs encouragement not criticism at this moment even if I meant it constructively. He also didn’t explicitly ask for my feedback. I was budding in. That doesn’t help him or is not a good use of my time either. It also puts a damper on our relationship. I think we were able to recover from it today, but I thought I share. It just shows that even when I know what to do with interpersonal communication, I still occasionally make mistakes. It’s okay to not be perfect. The key is improving over time. At least I caught myself and understood what happened. That is progress best wishes to your journey in developing this skill