Let’s assume you do want to stay in your current job. You do enjoy what you do and you are happy with your salary (for now). How do you like the idea of being one of the best in the world at what you do?

Here’s a set of simple questions that will form the foundation of your own personal effectiveness. Decide how many of the following 10 statements apply to you:

1. I get on well with people and quickly build rapport.
2. I am flexible in my team role.
3. I know how to ask the right questions to get the knowledge I require.
4. I am able to influence others to gain their support.
5. I am seen as a positive person.
6. I am well organised.
7. I am able to manage my time effectively.
8. I feel able to articulate my point of view to anyone.
9. I have a wide range of problem-solving techniques.
10. I am able to manage myself.

If you have scored eight or more then you have the foundations in place to be personally effective in your career. But what if you have fewer? Here are the five key areas to focus on:

1. Attitude. Your mental attitude, including belief in yourself and positive approach, will have the biggest single bearing on your personal effectiveness. Every other area will be magnified or minimised because of your attitude.
2. Organisational skills. It’s very difficult to be personally effective if you are working in chaos. Having orderly working practices, a brilliant filing system and a well-managed working day are essential to achieving this goal.
3. People skills. You can’t do it all on your own, so your ability to influence other people is one of the most important tools in your effectiveness box.
4. Creativity. Your ability to solve problems and find a better way will add to your value much more than hard work alone. Ideas are a currency, so find ways to create as many high-value ones as you can.
5. Communication skills. You can have the best ideas and be the most organised, effective person in your team, but unless you can communicate those ideas to others successfully you’ll struggle to be all you can be.

With those five keys and scoring eight plus in the personal effectiveness test, you are ready to go to the next step.

Brilliance benchmarking

To be personally effective at the highest level you need to aim for and produce results higher than you ever thought possible. I call the process ‘brilliance benchmarking’.

In my book How to Be Brilliant, I claimed that if you did a ‘good’ job you would end up getting ‘poor’ results. At the time I had people contact me to tell me that they thought this was demotivating. And it can be, if you stop at that point – it’s even demotivating at the next level where you only get ‘good’ results for doing a ‘fantastic’ job. However, there is one more level and it’s attained by pushing beyond fantastic and giving a little more than you ever believed you could. That level is brilliance. And here’s the exciting part – when you do a brilliant job you get . . . brilliant results!

This is the level where your personal effectiveness is working at its highest point.

So, how do you get to brilliance as your benchmark when it comes to personal effectiveness?

• Model others – who already have it. If you work with or know someone who is brilliant in your chosen area then model what they do. Find out as much as you can about the way they operate. Study their thinking processes and beliefs, then model those traits as closely as you can.
• Use CANI. Continuous And Neverending Improvement. Be your best critic. Ask yourself: ‘How could I make this even better?’ Study the Japanese principle of kaizen, which was made famous by the Toyota production system.
• Think transferable. How can you take the best ways of working from other sectors and apply them to your vocation? What can you learn from sports? How can you transfer ideas from the world of entertainment? What is there in the best manufacturing processes that can help you? Can you learn something from the healthcare sector? Look beyond your field and use your brilliant creativity to transfer ideas to make you even better.
• Be in competition – with yourself. Michael Jordan was arguably the world’s greatest basketball player. When he was still on the practice court, long after his team mates had left, his coach asked him: ‘Who do you still have to beat?’ Michael Jordan replied: ‘Me.’
• Take massive action. Remember? Massive action = Massive results. By increasing your pace and taking massive (correct) action, you will get to brilliance faster and enjoy the benefits for longer.