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

Copyright 2010, 2012 by Patty Azzarello
Foreword copyright 2012 by Keith Ferrazzi

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in the United States in somewhat different form as
Rise: How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life by Newton
Park Publishing, Palo Alto, California, in 2010.

Author photo on copyright 2010 by Pacific Media.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Azzarello, Patty.
Rise : 3 practical steps for advancing your career, standing out as a leader, and liking your life / by Patty Azzarello; foreword by Keith Ferrazzi. 1st Ten Speed ed.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Rise : how to be really successful at work and like your life. Newtown Park Pub., c2011.
Summary: A successful Silicon Valley executive and consultant shares straight-shooting advice for succeeding at work without losing your sanity in three steps: do better, look better, and connect betterProvided by publisher.
1. Success in business. 2. Career development. I. Title.
HF5386.A99 2012
650.1dc23

2011051574

eISBN: 978-1-60774-261-6

v3.1_r1

Thank You.

To the people who genuinely helped me learn the most important lessons in work and life, in order of appearance: Mom, Dad, Kerry, Al, Jim, Jacek, and Nick.

To the many people who personally went out of their way to help me succeed: You are too numerous to list.

I tasted corporate success early. Two of my first major career achievements (partner at Deloitte and Fortune 500 CMO) won me the right to call myself the youngest x in my early professional bio. And so I smiled as I read Pattys bio for this book: Patty Azzarello became the youngest general manager at Hewlett-Packard at age thirty-three, ran a $1 billion software business at thirty-five, and became a CEO at thirty-eight (without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk).

See also Rises subtitle, which addresses both career advancement and liking your life. Patty is starting everyone who is reading this book off on the right foot by admitting that yes, there is a tension between radical success and personal happiness, and yes, it is reconcilableprovided that your success strategy is designed with that in mind. By showing you how to plot your own course for success, by engineering the right combination of what your company values and what best leverages your natural strengths, Rise gives you the tools and insights you need to make it happen.

Man, is this book ever needed. Corporate America has by and large done a poor job helping workers be both ambitious and collaborative, successful and happy. One need only look at the October 2011 Gallup report showing that more than 70 percent of American workers are disengaged or even actively disengaged for evidence.

Ive often said that I wish I had written my second book, Whos Got Your Back, before my first book, Never Eat Aloneor at least that people would read them in that order. Whos Got Your Back was the manual I wished Id had to help me navigate the incredible success sparked by my fast corporate climb and the spark (explosion, really) of Never Eat Alone. It was the book I wrote after learning how to create an inner circle of relationships that would allow me to best discover, as Bill George would say, my true North, and really leverage every opportunity my success created. And in some regards, it was the book I wrote to make sure I (and others) didnt turn into self-centered, miserable jerks.

Readers of Rise wont have to worry about that. Patty never forgets that success is about more than incremental or even stratospheric gains in your career; its about enjoying your work and nurturing the relationships you make along the way. She recognizes that the most efficacious corporate power grabs arent those that pit you against the people around you but those that draw them into a shared collaborative vision. To be a leader is not just to find solutions but specifically to find those that help build, strengthen, and expand your team.

To give just one example, I love Pattys recognition that diligently creating a strong network of relationships means that anyone is a potential project resource, not just your direct reports. When you make a conscious decision to connect better (step 3 in Pattys strategic map) you have access to intelligent resources that your counterparts do not. People are happy to help you outit doesnt have to be in their job description. Theyre hungry to be on your team, and stuff gets done.

I always say that you need to start every day, every event, every meeting with the same two goals: Find a way to help and find a way to care. Care about what youre doing and care about the people youre doing it with. This book serves up a powerful course of action that will keep you true to both those intentions so that both extraordinary success and life satisfaction can be yours.

Keith Ferrazzi, founder and CEO, Ferrazzi Greenlight, Inc., and author of Never Eat Alone and Whos Got Your Back

I have always been fascinated with really successful people. What actually got them to the top? Was it being really good at what they do that set them apart? Or was there more to it?

It struck me that big success did not just happen unexpectedly to talented, fortunate people. And it didnt happen to the people who tirelessly worked really hard at their jobs.

Highly successful people seemed to get there by breaking through limitations of how their jobs were definedby conceiving and doing extra things above and around their job descriptions.

The most successful people have some other things in common:

Yes, they are really good at what they do, but what they are doing seems to suit them personally. They are truly being themselves.

They stand out as being different from their peers. They are not doing their job as writtenand they always get bigger results with a wider impact than everyone around them.

They have amazing networks of people they can go to for information and help. In fact, getting help is something they do regularly.