Patrick Barr - The Successful Career Toolkit: Your Quick Fire Guide to Mastering Business Skills

This is a really a handy resource, full of bite-sized titbits, and useful to people at every stage of their career or lives.

Todd Dunlap, Managing Director, Booking.com Americas

Patrick Barr has put together a comprehensive guide for business success. Whether you are new to the workforce or a seasoned business veteran, this book is a tool that everyone can use to help achieve success.

Kevin Blair, Western Washington Regional President, Washington Trust Bank, USA

This is a superb book. It is crammed with clear and practical help for every stage of a career. One to own and dip into over and over again.

Marcella Flood, Head of Digital Transformation, Allianz Care

The Successful Career Toolkit is very comprehensive and written in a very accessible and clear manner.

Orla OConnor, Director, National Womens Council of Ireland

This wonderful book successfully shows us the importance and benefits of strategizing and planning. It is a fantastic tool for career and personal development. Whilst it presents itself as a career toolkit, it offers so much more. It reminds us that personal and professional relationships are paramount to how we drive our success and enjoy our working life. This will become your go-to book, to reference time and time again.

Una Tynan, Founder and Managing Director, Blank Canvas Cosmetics

Very concise and to the point, with great reference points throughout the book. Its very much a handbook guide to a successful career path. It contains all the right building blocks from managing yourself to managing others to finally managing your role at hand.

Andre Severi, Managing Director, Crex Group

This is an immensely practical and useful book, full of eminently sensible advice. It is refreshingly jargon-free and clearly benefits from the authors extensive experience as a practicing executive. The structure of the book, which breaks down the topics into bite-sized insights, coupled with practical tips, tricks and takeaways, makes it an ideal playbook that should be in the top drawer of every managers desk.

Dr Colm Foster, Director of Executive Education, Irish Management Institute

Managing a career in todays environment is always tough. Patrick Barr has a genuinely thoughtful approach which encompasses proven practices that he employed through his own career with fantastic success. The tips and tricks section in each chapter is invaluable as a reference and the reflective exercises included really help ensure the lessons land and are instantly practical. For anyone wanting to take control of their career and understand how to climb the career ladder this is a must-read.

Dave Warrick, General Manager, Global Supply Chain, Microsoft

To Sheila, Niall and James, family and friends who have inspired and supported me always!

Patrick Barr has over 20 years international leadership experience in operations, supply chain and strategic management. He has held senior roles in Ireland, the UK and the USA in the airline, FMCG and IT industry sectors. He is currently the owner and Managing Partner of Barr Performance Coaching. His clients are predominantly senior leaders in both domestic and international enterprises ranging in scale from micro SMEs to major multinationals. Prior to taking on his current role, Patrick was a senior director at Microsoft with responsibility for leading a major operating model change programme. Previously at Microsoft he had responsibility for leading the global OEM physical and digital supply chain team. Prior to joining Microsoft Patrick attained an MBA from University College Dublin and held senior supply chain and procurement management positions at Diageo and British Airways. He is passionate about leadership development and performance management and has attained postgraduate qualifications in business mentoring and leadership coaching. He is a member of the Enterprise Ireland Mentor Panel, a faculty member of the Irish Management Institute, a member of the European Mentoring & Coaching Council and the International Coach Federation, and joined the board of the ISPCC in July 2016. He is a qualified Hogan Psychometric Assessment practitioner. Patrick is married with two sons and lives in Dublin.

I would like to thank the team in Kogan Page for having the confidence to pursue the project through to publication and in particular Rebecca Bush for her thoughtful, patient guidance through the editing process. During the course of writing this book many people were very generous in giving of their time and expertise in providing insightful, practical and inspiring feedback. I would especially like to thank the following for their encouragement, support and sharing of their invaluable perspectives.

• Robert Barr

• Kevin Blair

• Ciaran Boyle

• Colette Cahalane

• Hannah Carney

• Paul Delahunty

• June Duffy

• Todd Dunlap

• Marcella Flood

• Dr. Colm Foster

• Brian Gilsenan

• Tom Jordan

• David Lane

• Emily Manning

• Dermot McMahon

• Eamonn OCasarlaigh

• Orla OConnor

• Michael ODonovan

• Ray ONeill

• Stephanie Peterson

• Mike Quinn

• Julie Ralston

• Mark Saunders

• Andre Severi

• Una Tynan

• David Warrick

In order to equip yourself with the essential skills you will need throughout your career I suggest you keep this compendium of quick-fire practical solutions close and use it as a reference guide, prior to taking action. There are topics to support you throughout your career from learning how to manage yourself, to thinking about managing tasks and processes, and on to managing and leading others and whether you want to learn the essentials of each situation, or refresh the knowledge you already have, this toolkit is designed to provide you with quick and easy-to-apply guidance.

You can certainly read it from cover to cover if you are so inclined, but what I would suggest for best results is to read the chapter relevant to the particular work situation youre facing, reflect upon the content and then do the exercise at the end so that you can practise putting it into action. If you have a trusted confidant, mentor or coach, each chapter should provide you with food for thought, so that you can make the most of your engagement with those individuals. Leadership and business decision-making are rarely solo runs: the more people you can engage in the discussion, the better the likelihood of a more rewarding outcome.

Ultimately, I would like you to be inspired to be your best self and reach whatever level of fulfilment you desire this book is intended to provide you with the tools that you need to do so.

Good, well-structured communication should inspire an audience to actively support you in your endeavours. High-quality communication can help inspire trust in you, it can defuse potentially stressful situations and reduce anxiety in your audience by removing ambiguity. The opposite is also true: a badly written or presented topic can provoke a reaction in the audience that can result in loss of faith. Honing your communication skills is a critical aspect of continuous professional development.