How to Take Your Performance to the Next Level

• Seek out situations where you can stand up for the rights of others. You are in your zone when you do this. No matter what your talents may be in other aspects of your work, when it comes to explaining what people truly deserve, you will instinctively find the words and the arguments to make their case persuasively.

• Establish your precedents. When has this situation happened before? What were the outcomes? Who were the aggrieved parties? People will always look to you for a fair hearing, and your rationales will be better and clearer if you can point to previous experiences and situations.

• Be thorough. As your career progresses people will place more and more weight on your judgments. Always have at your disposal all the facts and, if possible, the data behind these facts. You need, and they need, to have confidence in your judgments. Lacking the facts and the data, you run the risk of being seen as merely judgmental.

• Seek out situations where people need objective mediation. Quite soon people will realize that you are a person who uses objective judgments—rather than your own personal goals or preferences—to determine right from wrong. The trusted advisor, the objective leader, the balanced analyst, these are all rare and valued roles that you are very well equipped to play.

• Develop your skills as a mediator. You have natural talent in this area, but to become a master at it will take time, practice, and, more than likely, education. There are professional mediation qualifications you can acquire, skills that will help you know how to move others off the rock of their opinion and find a place of common ground. Armed with these skills you will find yourself better able to navigate through even the most dug-in positions.