Own Your Tech Career

6 Show up as a professional

In addition to the razor-sharp technology skills you’ve built up to this point in your career, you need to bring something else to work every day: professionalism. We all work in a business environment, or in a businesslike environment. In this environment, certain behaviors help move your career forward; others hold you back.

6.1 Be your word

I’ve long followed three simple rules that I believe have contributed greatly to my success in business and in life. These rules may, in fact, be the Big Three that tell you everything you need to know to be successful.

First, a prediction: you might read these rules and think, “Well, duh.” But they’re not common-sense, “of course” rules. They’re demonstrably not common sense ...