Play to your strengths
	Set your passions free
	Fit in naturally and comfortably with your work culture

Extraordinary performers lead careers that leverage both their strengths and their passions. Not only is this possible, but success actually requires it. No, it's not that easy to find the perfect workplace where you fit in, love what you do, and were born for a job.

Many people spend a lifetime looking for it. That's all right. In fact, just knowing that this is what makes for career success gives you a leg up on the competition. The problem is that it is easy to know when a job does not provide such leverage but quickly and accurately identifying a better alternative, without sufficient experience to draw from, is like throwing darts blindfolded.

Questions that may help:

	Who specifically have been the most and least successful individuals in your organization in the last year? What has accounted for their success and failure?
	What does it really take to be successful in your organization?
	How are promotion decisions made? What is an example of when something didn't work out despite strong business results?
	What would define success in the first year?
	How will I know if people have bought in, and what are the telltale signs that a new hire is not a strong fit? What do people say behind closed doors?

Questions to assess the pattern of your organization:

	Does the culture tend to foster or stifle the success of each individual employee?
	Does the organization accurately assess, recognize, and reward employees for accomplishing the right things, achieved through desired behaviors?
	Given the organizational competencies required for success in the marketplace, do sufficient resources exist within the enterprise and are they properly aligned to meet the challenges?

In an extraordinary organization the answers are a strong Yes! Very much so.

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Picking the right company is vital to your success. According to our Top Team Survey, 48% of the success of chief executives and other directors is down to personal qualities such as drive, courage, tenacity and the ability to communicate. However, 52% of success was down to choosing the right environment.

Choose the wrong organization and, however clear your vision, sharp your intelligence and brilliant your communication skills, you will either not do very well or may actually be fired. What makes a good workplace for you actually depends very much on your personality. A cut-and-thrust type may not thrive in a cosy, collegiate atmosphere. A team player will not enjoy a highly individualistic firm.

Choosing the right context for yourself is highly important. While to outsiders there may be little to choose between one telecoms company and another, or one law firm or another, the culture can be hugely different and that can make the difference as to whether you fit and thrive or don’t – and wilt. 

For instance, in on culture it may be fine to talk openly about company difficulties to the press or staff. This might be seen as open management. In another culture such openness could be seen as making a bad situation worse, being a blabbermouth or even out and out disloyalty. One organization may encourage team spirit, another may place emphasis on individual contributions.

So how do you find out which company is for you? To some extent, it is largely a matter of trial and error and very few successful people have managed to avoid at least one company they didn't feel comfortable with. However, as is often the case, research can help you avoid some mistakes. Find out as much as you can about any company you might want to work for. Ask people who work for the organization too.

Ideally, you want to work for a company where you respect and can learn from your boss, where you can advance your career on merit, rather than on marrying the boss's daughter, and where there is scope for training. All things being equal it is better to work for a company where the employees take pride in their place of employment and enjoy working at it, rather than one where they do not. However, it has to be said that at the outset of your career, you may not be inundated with offers and it could be very much a question of who picks you.

Nevertheless, as you progress to more senior levels, picking the right environment matters more and more. When you do make a move you need to quickly assess whether you believe in the organization and like the way it is run, and whether you will be able to move up the ladder within it. A good analogy is that of family life. In a well-run family each member knows the others' strengths and weaknesses and can work with that. In one torn apart by squabbles, members are either intolerant of each other's weaknesses or jealous of the others' strengths. What may be highly acceptable in one family may be unacceptable in another - but both may be equally happy.

If you realise you don't fit, or your values don't chime with the organization, you need to start looking for another job. However, do remember that, while it may be wise to move once, moving repeatedly within a short period can be damaging. 

Are You and the Organization Well-Matched?

 Ask yourself the following questions. Working ou the answer to these will help you in many ways. It will help to see how best to obtain answers that will suit the company and address its needs when you are presented with problems. It will help you work out how you fit in and also the best way to approach office politics: 

1 Do I recognise the critical issues in this company and my department? Do I believe I can play a role in solving them?

2 How is this company differentiated both externally and internally from its competitors? (To outsiders Pepsi and Coca-Cola may seem similar - but they may feel very different to their employees.)

3 How do I as an individual add value to this company?

4 How do I get on with my colleagues, my bosses? Is it a strain or do I understand where they are coming from?

5 How well do I understand my own character, motivation, drive? Do my character, motivation and drive find echoes in the commercial objectives of this organisation?