There are many things to look out for to have a successful and gratifying business career. If we compare a business career to a game then your education (and relationships!) is the key to let you play the game and to start the game at a certain level (which in turn will decide, in most cases, where you will end up in your career).
Once you have the education and you're in a job you are ready to play the game but now it's a different game. It is different because now you don't want to get in now you want to get up or you want to have more freedom to make decisions or you want to be noticed or you want to be liked etc.
If you focus too much on what others do, how they do it and why they get what they get instead of focusing on your team and/or work tasks you have a good chance that you won't achieve anything. It is good and smart to learn what your leaders want and how they want to get things done but you don't let that interfere with the tasks you're working on. How do you work with your teams if you are a leader yourself?
When you have a task (e.g. improve the sales order turn-around-time from x hours to y hours) then you don't need to worry about Team ABC that works on Sales Compensation. If you question why that team has more budget, why some of their team members get promoted while you can't promote anyone or you don't get promoted yourself you focus on the wrong things! You have to focus on your task (improve the sales order turn around time). Learn how you can do it. Who can help you to do it? Communicate and network with the key players in that area and make sure that they understand what your team/you are doing to achieve that goal. An attitude that shows you want to reach that goal (with your team) without putting your team/yourself in the middle of the stage will help. Put all your effort into this and get the task done!
Notice that in every sport (e.g. basketball, soccer) the players are focused on the game! Yes, there are interesting things happening all around them. There may be thousand distractions but they are there to play their sport! Take the current NBA Playoffs, most players are pretty young and they manage NOT to be distracted. This is what makes them successful! They focus on what counts when it counts. Do the same thing for yourself in your job and focus on your tasks!
