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VIDEO WEEK 14: Star Achievement Philosophy
Joan shares with you the philosophy of her #1 training program, The Star Achievement Series® and how it has helped changed thousands of lives. When you embrace the Star Achievement philosophy you truly do become a star at work.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to week 14, Star Achievement Philosophy. If you’ve been hopping around in this series, I would like to advise you to go back and view the webinars/videos you missed. The reason being, from this point forward we are going to be dealing with the advanced competencies. We’ve finished now, the competencies from Become an Inner Circle Assistant and we’re going to focus on the advanced competencies from my new book, Underneath It All. As we move throughout these series, you will be able if you have the book to follow along as well as do the activities at home.
Just to give you a little history, Star Achievement has been around for a long time. I actually started the Star Achievement Series® in 1990; it was the first comprehensive program that I developed for administrative professionals and office support staff. It was a philosophy based program, which it still is today, that has greatly evolved over the years.
When I designed the programs curriculum, there were four (4) full days of workshops. There was no level one or level two, just four (4) full days of training. This program has blossomed since 1990! Now today, we have 12 full day work shops with three levels of learning; and we have a designation that goes with the program called CEAP which stands for Certified Executive Administrative Professional. Our work books are comprehensive materials that we’ve put a lot of time and effort into. Administrative professionals are now teaching this at their facilities; my trainers and I no longer have to go there to teach it. In addition, we also have a complete facilitator kit where you can purchase the entire kit providing everything you need to host a wonderful training program for administrative professionals.
Star Achievement is near and dear to my heart! I want to explain to you what is so special about Star Achievement; it’s a philosophy based program that says you have the potential to be a star in your job. This process has four (4) main components:
SKILL: Enhancing the skill you already have and building new skills
ATTITUDE: Achieving and maintaining a positive attitude about yourself, your coworkers, your organization, customers, and vendors and so on.
TEAM: Building a variety of team relationships inside and outside of your organization. Seeing you and your executive as the core team, and then seeing how you fit within department team, and inside your organization as a whole.
STRATEGY: You have to have a strategy on how you’re going to actualize yourself in your career and bring out your best. Covering goal setting, professional image, networking skill and some much more.
So it is that combination, Skill, Attitude, Team and Strategy that leads an administrative professional to STAR performance. As I stated, this is a philosophy based program, it’s a way of thinking, being, and performing. Once an administrative person embraces this philosophy, they don’t turn it off when they leave the office; it’s something that they take with them for the rest of their life!
A few other things about STAR is it is a life long journey; a journey of excellence. When you are on a journey of excellence, it doesn’t end, because for the STAR assistant, they know, as good as I am today, I still have so far to go! And that is great! If I thought, this is the best I could do, right out of high school, being a kind of ‘robot’ assistant; I wouldn’t be doing this program in front of you today. To have the opportunity to meet so many wonderful administrative professionals thru out the years all over the world; and I still have so far to go.
The other part about STAR and your journey of excellence is that it’s also about evolution. In other words, we evolve, we never stop! To some of you, that may seem like a lot of work and you say I don’t want to keep going. I just want to do a great job, get my check and go home; well, that’s not a bad thing. You need to have a personal life, but the idea is, when you really work at and bring forth your talents and your innate abilities, you feel good as a person. You’re then able to give more to other people; you’re able to give more to your family and loved ones. You become your best! You can resolve problems better and faster, you improve the quality of your work life and your relationships. We have no guarantee today, which is the reason why you need to evolve, you need to grow and you need to learn more, to be the best that you can be.
What else can I tell you about Star Achievement? This information is very important; it’s about stepping out of what I call the safety/comfort zone. As people go thru this series, starting at module one; they are stretched little by little, from the activities, to the competencies and skills that they are developing. From my eighteen years of experience, I’ve seen admin(s) come in, their a little nervous, and blossom by the end of the training. Why? Because even though they knew they were good, they finally learned how to assertively communicate with their manager, they went from giving 2 minute presentations to standing a podium and giving 15 minute presentations. The list goes on and on, but Star Achievement is about taking a risk! It’s about stepping out and that’s a scary place for some people. But until you learn how to take risks and step you, you will never know just how great you can be.
Another area I would like to share with you is from the book, Underneath it All and it’s a passage from a gentleman who I love to read his material, his name is Price Pritchett and he writes many materials on change for all employees. What he says about stepping out of the safety zone, which can be stressful, is “We have to choose between two risks. First, we can gamble on our old habits and watch our career skills gradually grow obsolete. Or we can accept the risks of the pioneer. The inventor. The explorer. The greater safety lies in choosing this second risk, even though it feels chancier than the first.” STAR performers think differently, they are possibility thinkers! Even when life throws them a curve, even with the current economy, even when work isn’t going the way they want it to go; their always thinking on a possibility level. Another part to the possibility thinker is, they know it’s a direct connection between their thinking and their action(s). In other words, if you are a STAR Assistant, and you understand this whole principle, you know that how you think is how you act. You determine how you’re going to perform, if you’re thinking you’re nervous, you’ll be nervous; if you think, I can do this I can pull this administrative staff together and host my own lunch and learn session and I CAN do a good job. The thing is, you always want to think like a STAR! You always want to see the possibilities!Not to say you won’t be able to or should not see the danger, always see the danger in the risks that you take. But, you DON’T let it over take the possibilities.
Activity for the week: Focus on being the very best that you can be, each and every day, each and every hour. Even with any trials that go on, always be your best! Another task is, don’t turn in work that’s just ‘good enough.’ Make it a point to look over your work and turn in work this is GREAT. Also, make it a point to surround yourself with upbeat positive people; analyze who are your friends, who is around you. And surround yourself with WINNERS and WHINERS! CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT STAR ACHIEVEMENT SERIES® CERTIFICATION COURSE