介绍:
Vicky Yang is an elite gold collar worker without overseas education or upbringing. She spent 15 years working in "Big Four" audit firms, which are well-known for the high-pressure working condition, to become one of the youngest partners of Ernst & Young. Plus, she has lived an exciting and interesting life, and has more than 330 thousand followers in Sina Weibo, which is the Twitter-like social platform in China.
The book, "Never Shun Away From Career Challenges" records her philosophy and tips in both her successful career path and happy life. There are 6 parts in the book. Vicky gives advice in every chapter. Insisting, self-examination and communication are the most important qualities in any career path. While efficiency is the best tool. She explains:
"There are many ways to be efficient. We must make a plan before starting a new case, instead of getting down to business right away. If we just start to deal with a case without understanding what the client needs, the work result probably won't satisfy the client. So we have to do it again. The repeated revisions will reduce the efficiency. Thus, we should firstly know what the result should be and when is the deadline isy. Then we start to analyze the course to make a detailed plan. I think this is an efficient way."
Vicky uses a chapter in the book to persuade readers to stop complaining, which is extremely useless and negative, to not only the complainer, but also people around. She gives out a most common example:
"Suppose your boss asks you to do extra work on Saturday and Sunday, but you are not willing. You must hide your unwillingness properly. There should not be a single complaining word, but say okay readily, because the result is decided already. Your complaint will impress your boss. And your extra work doesn't gain you brownie points. Since you have to suffer the pain, why not just do the extra work, happily?"
The truth is: being optimistic makes us feel much better. While complaining too much will make everyone nearby uncomfortable or even unhappy, including ourselves.
Self-promotion is also very important in everyone's career path. We should get some skills in telling the boss what we have done, even though the result is not always posetive.
"If we fail a case, what we should tell our boss and team are the mistakes we have made during the course, and the lessons we have taken from them. No one wants to listen to the efforts we made about a failure, because the more we emphasize on our effort, the more stupid they think we are. If we sum up the mistakes we made and discuss better solutions with them, they would think we have learnt our lessons from the experience."
On the contrary, if we get a case well done, we should not just tell the boss and team members "I did it", which won't impress them much. We should share a series of stories of our labour; including the difficulties, setbacks, sufferings and efforts, instead of a boring items listed as 1, 2, 3 and 4. We should focus on the heart-stopping moments during the procedure. Good stories will not only touch people but also be remembered.
As a good story-teller, Vicky never writes in chicken-soup-for-the-soul style.
"I think all this kind of chicken soup for the soul will mislead readers. It just nit-picks to say what you want to hear. If someone tells you that you cannot quit since you are not rich enough, you probably won't be happy to hear it. Actually, it is often said that no pain, no gain. It's okay to dream of the inn and café, but the inn and cafe are not what you really want. What you really want is delicious food, fancy dress, exquisite stuff and interesting trips. But more specifically, what you want is the security of being financially independent in the future. So you should pay for the harvest in advance."
Never Shun Away From Career Challenges is a collection of stories that truly happened along Vicky's career path. Most of them are examples about failure, but with much self-examination. She hopes the readers can avoid stumbling down at the similar places. Here is another story in the book:
"One of my previous bosses named Paul, who was often angry about the mistakes his staff made regarding expense reimbursement. Most of the mistakes were just because of carelessness. But he considered it was on purpose. I for one was blamed once. After that, I was extremely careful and meticulously double or even triple checked about every piece of invoice. Do not fall down at the same place twice, this is a very simple principle."
Another advice Vicky gives is: we should clearly express what we expect to our bosses. She shares her experience too:
"I suffered loss once. I believed that diligently working was enough. There's no need to tell others that I deserve to become a partner. I thought they would promote me as long as I was qualified. However, when I met the requirement of working experience, I was not in the candidate pool at all. Two out of three partners said Vicky never expressed her will to become a partner. I felt unfair at first: no expression didn't mean no aspiration. Then, I realized that no one had the obligation to guess what I wanted or not. So I communicated with every boss that I wanted to be promoted. I entered the candidate pool the next year."
Vicky comforts the anxiety in the controversial viewpoints between "following your hearts by doing whatever you want when you are young", and "keeping and sticking to your dream, never give up", by telling her own experience and stories, just as an old friend does. And the title of the book, "Never Shun Away From Career Challenges", is, of course, her answer.
For Studio+, I am Chi Huiguang.
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