Rise: 3 Practical Steps for Advancing Your Career, Standing Out as a Leader, and Liking Your Life

This book is useful for anyone who's in a career they care about. If you're just starting out in the workforce, or you're a mid-level manager feeling stuck in your role, "Rise" has some insightful and useful advice to help you move forward. This book shows you how to get ahead without playing politics, stepping on your colleagues, or working your life away.

If you're wondering why your career seems stuck in a rut, this book is for you.

Now, there are a rash of business books out there that focus on the strengths you need for a successful career, like honesty, integrity, expert skills, and good allies. Some of these books leave it up to the reader to build these traits and apply them to their life and career.

"Rise" is not one of these books. It's unusual because it's full of actionable steps, tips, and insights that you can actually use to start getting ahead in your career. There's no guesswork. The author's writing style is very friendly and approachable, and you really get the sense that you're sitting down with a trusted mentor at your kitchen table.

She also makes it clear that this book isn't meant to deliver overnight success. Implementing these strategies throughout your career is how you can best succeed over time. And, you'll have a happy, balanced life along the way.

Patty Azzarello became the youngest general manager at Hewlett-Packard at age thirty-three. She ran a one billion dollar software business at age thirty-five. And, she then became a CEO at age 38.

However, Azzarello's story isn't full of perfect steps. She made plenty of mistakes along the way, and her career stalled more than once. She shares these mistakes with readers at the beginning of the book. Fortunately for us, she also shares what she learned from these mistakes.

So, keep listening to find out why slowing down will help you deliver more high-value work, a useful secret for becoming more relevant to your boss or executive team, and why consistency is so important to building your personal brand.

The author has created a three-step approach to creating a successful career, and she devotes one section of the book to each of these steps.

The first step is Do Better, which offers tips and strategies for making more of an impact in your organization. The second step is Look Better. This is all about standing out without being annoying about it. The last step is Connect Better. Here you learn how to network authentically and build lasting relationships with the people around you.

The author includes one last section at the end that teaches you how to pull all these steps together to succeed. This is paramount because she stresses that all three of these steps are essential. Missing just one is what causes many careers to stall.

Let's look at the first step, which is Do Better.

The author starts this section with a condemnation of our busyness. She says straight off that if you can't make time to follow at least some of her suggestions in the book, you might as well put it down now and go back to work.

You may have to start using your time differently if you really want to succeed. This means unloading some of your busy work so you can focus instead on high-value work. And, this might be an uncomfortable prospect for some people. The author says many people are afraid to slow down because they think their boss or colleagues will question their commitment or drive.

But, delivering a lot of work is not the same as adding value. And this is an important point all of us should take to heart. The work you're doing matters far less than the outcomes you deliver.

If you want to be a leader, especially an effective leader, you have to leave room to think about the big picture. You'll be expected to create systems and processes to get more done with less effort. This is high-value work that gets noticed. And to do this, you need time to think.

Now, all this sounds well and good. But how do you actually do it? The author devotes an entire chapter to this question.

Chances are, you have more work than you can possibly do right now. And, your boss might be piling even more on you and your team.

Although it's tempting to complain about your insane workload, the author offers up a very blunt and honest assessment here. This is your job. Your job is not to deliver work when everything lines up to support you. Your job is to get the most important stuff done despite everything that lines up to swamp you. Doing this successfully is what sets the best workers apart from everyone else.

What you need to do is analyze the work that's been assigned to you, and redefine it. You have to map it out, prioritize, and choose the right work that will achieve the right business outcomes. You do need to deliver results, but that doesn't mean you have to complete every one of the 10 tasks assigned to you.

You might be able to combine three, drop four, do two as directed, and add another task to deliver results. Doing your work this way adds value. Think about it. Often, you're being paid to judge, think, and decide. Not do everything you're told.

Of course, sometimes this isn't the case, and the best way forward is to complete all your assigned tasks in a timely fashion, to a high standard. You'll know which approach is best for your situation.

This first section is full of insights, strategies, and lessons that you'll likely find valuable. We wish we could cover everything here because each page is full of great tips for redefining the way you work, so you start adding more value. You'll learn how to add more time to your schedule, how to create ruthless priorities, how to delegate more effectively, how to work better with less, and much more.

The best part is that many of these strategies and insights are original. They're not the same tired old tips you've read about a dozen times before. It's obvious the author has really made an effort to use her personal life experiences, and the lessons she's learned from her own mistakes, to create new and useful strategies.

Section two covers step two, which is titled Look Better. The point of this section is that even if you work hard and deliver outstanding results, it's not going to matter if no one knows what you're doing. Making yourself visible, and doing it well, takes finesse, authenticity, and credibility.

Let's look at credibility, since the author starts section two by discussing this attribute. If you don't have credibility, your work is harder, slower, and more frustrating. You waste time constantly defending your work, your decisions, or even your honor.

When you do have credibility, you have the advantages of time and trust. People seek out your opinion. You get more support professionally. You attract the best projects, and the most money. You also attract the best teams.

How do you get credibility? Well, you can't have credibility unless you're first doing excellent, relevant work, which is what section one just covered. Once you're producing excellent results, you've got to make those results visible. The author stresses again here that you shouldn't focus on the work itself. You should be focusing on the outcomes you're producing. That's what matters.

You should always be asking, What are the overall business outcomes that matter most right now? How is my work enabling or driving those outcomes?

So, credibility depends in large part on relevancy. But sometimes, the way you communicate your relevancy gets lost on people who aren't on your immediate team.

Here's why. When we talk to our boss or the executive team, we often use words or communicate values that are important to us – not the people we're speaking to. This miscommunication wastes time, and it can annoy the people we're talking to.

We need to be what the author calls a translator. We need to learn about other people's business and concerns, and translate everything we say into their language.

So find out what your bosses think is important. What drivers are they most focused on? What initiatives do they see as most critical to the business? What are they concerned about?

As you ask these questions, you're listening for clues to what they care about most. You also need to listen to the words they use to describe these things.

The idea is that the next time you talk to them, you can structure what you say around what they care about, using some of the exact words they used to describe these things. You can do this in casual conversation, but it's especially important for project pitches, ideas, and budget proposals.

When you do this, these people will associate you and your work with their core issues. And, this is key to being relevant to these decision makers.

We loved this tip because it's such an easy way to make a deeper impact with key decision makers in your organization.

The rest of this section has more great strategies and tips. All of them are relevant and useful.

Another part of step two, Looking Better, focuses on the importance of your personal brand. Your personal brand is built on what you stand for, and how you behave. It's defined by other people's experiences with you. But your brand is also built on consistency, and this is where most people drop the ball. You have to be consistent with these behaviors and beliefs.

Even if you do great work and keep your word, it's nothing, if you don't do these things consistently. When you're inconsistent, it angers people. They see you as unreliable, and they're forever uncertain about the results they'll get from you. This destroys trust and credibility.

The author tells a great story that underscores the importance of consistency.

She knew of a successful professional in a "Fortune" 100 company. This man's personality was really foul. He was arrogant and disrespectful to just about everyone he came into contact with. But, he was also really, really good at his job.

Everyone at this company knew they could trust this man's advice. And because he was always bad-tempered, they knew what to expect going in. They could brace themselves for an unpleasant conversation, but they could also count on getting expert advice every time. He had a lot of respect in the organization.

The author believes his consistently bad behavior actually helped his success, and here's why. If he had tried to be nice occasionally, people would have begun letting their guard down at times. And then, they would have been slammed when he decided to be rude again. But because his personality was consistent, people quickly learned what to expect. Everyone knew that if they wanted his great advice, they had to put up a shield.

Now, the author's certainly not saying it's a good idea to be bad-tempered. She's simply making a point about consistency. Ideally, you'll be the type of professional who's honest, friendly, compassionate, and helpful.

The point here is that whatever you want your personal brand to be, you need to be that way all the time. You need to give people the security of knowing what to expect from you, no matter what.

The last two sections have just as much good advice as the first two. The author covers the last key step in her model, which focuses on connecting better. She also wraps up everything with two chapters at the end on creating a good work and life balance.

So, what's our last word on "Rise"?

We loved this book. It's an enjoyable, engaging read from start to finish. We also like how honest, edgy, and sometimes even blunt the author is. It's clear that she's not here to pad your ego or make you feel great about doing mediocre work. She's passionate about helping you succeed in your work and your life, and she's honest about what you need to do to make this happen. This passion and honesty comes out in her writing, and the way she words many of her tips and personal stories.

You can turn to any page in this book and find something valuable. And the best part is that many of these insights are things you can start doing today to better your career.

All in all, we're excited about the book and have no trouble giving it a hearty recommendation.

"Rise," by Patty Azzarello, is published by Ten Speed Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon. Thanks for listening.