Careers

easy or great?

It’s been said that you become like the five people you spend the most time with. Is that good news?

Did the last person you hire make you think, “Man, I’m going to have to raise my game! I love being around people who inspire my best!” OR did you think, “I’m glad that slot’s filled. Next.”

The people you’re filling the company with – the people you’re surrounding yourself with – are pulling you up or dragging you down. There is no neutral, there is no holding steady – they are forcing you to be better or letting you slack. Do you go for easy and comfortable or do you go for greatness?

committed? are you sure?

How committed are you? To your job? To your personal mission? To the things you must accomplish in this life? How committed are you really?

We’re told we should choose a career that we love so much we’d do it even if we didn’t get paid. That’s a pretty high level of commitment and passion right there. We all want to do something we love, something that has meaning for us. But what if what you loved required you to risk incarceration? Death? That necessitated carrying firearms just to get to the job? That still paid almost nothing, if anything at all? That was so outside the norm that you were the only one in the entire country doing it and you were blazing the trail with almost every action?

That’s pretty rough. Let’s up it a little: would you go into exile for your passion? Would you leave friends, family, and everything you knew behind to go be a second-class citizen in another country just so you could “follow your bliss”?

This weekend I watched the 2007 documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad about Iraq’s first (only?) metal band Acrassicauda and saw a glimpse into what relentless obsession looks like. The movie is a fascinating look at Baghdad in 2005/06. It’s not about soldiers, politicians, ideologies, right, or wrong. It’s not even really about heavy metal. It’s about the struggle of a group of 20-somethings just trying to have a band and make some music against the backdrop of daily life in Baghdad. What would be a normal – mundane, even – activity for college-aged youth in the US becomes a hero’s quest where hopes and dreams wrestle against the hopelessness of daily violence and chaos.

They suffer more for their dreams than I could ever go through here. I highly recommend the DVD to see the level of commitment they demonstrate.

After watching, I came away wondering how I could up my passion to that level. How can I tap into the human need that’s fueling them to carry on? How can I bring the noise like they do? How can I play that big with the things that are important in my life? How much would I, could I, truly risk?

playing it safe is too risky

Beige sells. Average sells. Vanilla sells. The comfort of conformity sells. Meeting most of the needs of most people builds big businesses.

All the marketing books tell us we need to differentiate our products and stand out. Build that brand image. And then 95% of businesses try to stand out by fitting in. The word “innovation” is thrown around these days as the holy grail of business success, yet from the customers’ point of view it often just means: we’re as leading edge as all our competitors.

Similarly, there’s a lot of talk of authenticity lately. We’re told we need to be authentic leaders keepin’ it real while we bring out the authentic best in our teams so we can sell authentic products to our authentic customers. A nice thought, but a hard sell. There are very real social and business costs to being authentic. The biggest is that some people will not like you, some people will reject you. So we try to be “authentic” in a way that everyone likes. (hint: that doesn’t work)

Being all things to all people is the fastest, most direct route to mediocrity. Vanilla products sell because they fit the needs of the most people, but no one is passionate about vanilla. It becomes a commodity. They buy your vanilla product today, but there’s nothing to keep them from replacing it with a competitor’s vanilla product. When you have a commodity you are only competing on price.

Being all things to all people creates a bigger customer pool. But we forget that it also attracts more competitors. I recall an interview with an actress years ago. She had had some acting success as a teenager, but her appearance was non-Hollywood so she was only considered for a few parts. Wanting more parts, she had plastic surgery done, bleached her hair, and voila! She now looked just like every other wannabe actress. She blended in and faded away.

Here’s my test for authenticity: Are you willing to turn down business because what’s being asked is not what you’re best at? Are you willing to turn down 1,000 potential customers who are kind of interested in your product or service so that you can focus on the 100 customers that are deeply interested?

As an individual are you willing to turn down or leave a job that doesn’t fit who you are and how you want to affect the world? Are you willing to be known for your uniqueness? Are you willing to be known for who you are? Are you willing to define yourself and bring every ounce of greatness, passion, and soul to your work?

You don’t have to, you know. And I don’t fault anyone who doesn’t. Authentic has risks. Different has risks. Standing out has risks.

But so does blending in. So does being average, beige, mediocre. No person or business will ever attain greatness by being one of a million. It’s only done by being one in a million.

no more surprises

Nobody likes to be surprised by bad news. Surprises can be a career limiting event. From this day forward, do all in your humanly power to make sure that two types of people are never, ever surprised:

1. Your boss. Your job is to make your manager’s life easier. The #1 way to make their life (and your life) more difficult is for them to be surprised or blindsided by what you have done or not done. We will all make mistakes and drop the ball from time to time and the first step to retribution is making sure your boss isn’t surprised.

2. Your customers. Your job is to make your customer’s life easier. Nobody buys from someone who makes their life more difficult. Surprises make things difficult. Changes happen, there are things outside our control. Customers are far, far more forgiving if they know about potential issues in advance. Delivering bad news in advance is difficult, but letting them call to complain after being surprised by bad news is a far more challenging situation.

minor legacies

My dad sent me a picture of a tree we planted in our new front yard when we first moved into my hometown. That was way back in the mid-70s when I was about six. We moved on to another house when I was eight, and then another and another, and the tree continued on without us.

I left my home town for college and then moved across the country, returning for a few years in my early 30s. In between, my parents also moved far away, returned a few years later and have been in the town since. And the tree continued on regardless.

In the coming years none of us will be in the same job. We’ll be promoted, transferred, our duties will change, the job will evolve, we’ll be working at another company, or maybe we’ll retire and move on. When we think of legacies we tend to think big, we think of legends and dynasties, but legacies can be minor.

The fact is, whether we realize it or not, we are always creating legacies. Some are good, some are bad, some are indifferent. But our actions live on past us. The cool thing is we can get real conscious and intentional about it. When we do, we start to think different. We approach our relationships in a more meaningful way. We move from tasks and duties to outcomes and impacts.

What are you creating today that you hope will live on beyond you?

What can you do to interact with others in a way that is building them up, championing them, helping them be their best?

Five years from now, how will today’s work have impacted others?

You will move on from today’s role. How do you want to be remembered?

If you were to return to a previous employer to visit, how would you be greeted?

If you were to quit your job today would people be upset, relieved, or thrilled?

If you returned to a previous job, what signs of your efforts would still exist? What things would you hope are still living on?

That tree is still there and thriving some 36 years later. It’s now one of the big old trees on the street. For at least two of us it serves as a common landmark to a very different point in our lives, a guidepost through the passage of time, and a reminder that we can create things that carry on long past us.

the best career advice you will ever receive

Want a great career? Looking to get ahead? It’s actually pretty simple. Understand that everyone gets paid to solve problems, not to complete tasks and approach your job accordingly.

People stall out when they think they get paid for a certain number of hours or to check off to-do’s. Their careers tend to accelerate when they connect the minor tasks to the big picture, understand the outcomes all the tasks are creating, and focus on making that outcome happen.

The value you create for the company – the value you get paid for – is based on the level of problems you are able to solve. Bigger problems have bigger potential consequences and those who can effectively solve them bring more value to the company and get paid more. My boss is paid more than me because she solves tougher problems with bigger consequences than I do. Her boss gets paid more than her for the same reason.

If your boss has to solve problems that you should be able to handle, you aren’t very useful and are probably easily replaceable. If you’re taking on and solving things above your boss’ expectations you are probably difficult to replace and will soon be moving ahead.

Want more money? Want a promotion? Learn to love solving problems and moving solutions forward. Problem spotting doesn’t pay very well (anyone can do it), ignoring problems pays even less. All the money, responsibility, and glory is in solving problems.

career rejuvenation

“Today is a new day. Time to put the plan to work. Generate the new way. Whoa, I hope it works!” ~ from the Crumbsuckers’ song ‘Rejuvenate’

 

A simple question: Is your career exactly where you want it to be? Are you consistently getting the results and outcomes you want?

If you can confidently answer ‘yes’, then carry on doing what you’re doing. If you gave any other answer, it’s probably time to change something. If you keep doing what you’re doing you will always keep getting what you’re getting.

It’s been said that there are three types of people:

1. Those who make things happen.

2. Those who watch things happen.

3. Those who ask, “Wh-wh-what happened?”

I used to think that those in the third category were just lazy, but lately I’ve come to realize that they are just not paying attention. They have hopes and dreams, can be hard working, well liked people, but continually get blindsided by life. They lack introspection and don’t understand why they never get promoted, why they get stuck in one bad relationship after another, why they just can’t seem to create the results they want despite all their good intentions. A quick example:

A friend was telling me about an employee at his company. This employee has been with the company for several years, is friendly and well-liked by customers and co-workers, and does a decent job. My friend was at an all-day training with him and he expressed a strong desire to get promoted into a front-line leadership role. He was also consistently late. He was ten minutes late to the training, late coming back from breaks, late and disruptive coming back from lunch. He had an apology and an excuse every time. My friend later found out that tardiness is a very consistent pattern for him. This person apparently sees no connection between his behavior and lack of career advancement. He’s asking, “What happened?”

I once had a co-worker who worked hard and did pretty good work, but never took the time to think ahead. He relied on his boss to do all the thinking. Work stopped whenever he encountered a roadblock and would not move forward until his boss solved the problem. He was really good at spotting problems and miserable poor at solving them. He enjoyed watching things happen. And his career stalled out accordingly.

Those in the first category are simplifiers. They look for solutions to make processes easier, they resolve issues, they fix stuff. They look for ways to move forward rather than finding reasons to stay stuck. When they are not sure of the best path, they bring several possible solutions to their boss with an understanding of the pros and cons of each. When they screw up (we all do) they fix it, learn from it, and keep moving forward. They don’t spend much time worrying about what they can do because they’re too focused on thinking about what they can do. These folks get stuff done and make the rest of us look stuck in slow motion by comparison. I love these people because they inspire me to raise my game.

So what category are you consistently in? Actually, forget I asked that. The real question is what category do you want to be in? If you’re happy with your results, stay where you are. If you want more, aim hard at being in the first category. The good news is that we’re not trapped in any category. As the song said, “Rejuvenation can still be found.” All it takes is you.

never as good as i think i am

I have tried to train myself to view feeling comfortable in my job as a big warning sign. The flashing red lights start going off when I catch myself thinking, “You know, I’m actually pretty good at this.” Hubris is a dangerous thing that leaves us blinded to reality. It feels great, but it’s a dangerous place to be.

It was bicycling that tipped me off to the dangers and often re-reminds me of it:

A couple of times a year, I’ll be out on my road bike pedaling along and just be flying. Beautiful day, landscape rolling past, feeling great, and thinking I’m in much better shape than I thought. Then I’ll turn around to head home and realize that I had a strong tailwind. I wasn’t in great shape, I just didn’t notice how much I was being helped along.

I regularly mountain bike on a pretty challenging set of trails and it’s easy to start thinking I’m pretty good. Well, no. I just know my trails really well and that’s very different from being good. I recently rode a different set of trails and got my hiney kicked. Turns out I’m not quite as good, fast, or strong as I fooled myself into thinking. A painful lesson, but necessary.

Success is the product of good thinking and hard working. It’s important to celebrate our accomplishments, but it’s easy to over-congratulate ourselves for our successes. Yes, we have quite a bit to do with our triumphs, but sometimes they are helped by additional factors that we don’t notice and can’t control. The tailwind, familiarity, being a big fish in a small pond, a lack of real competition, staying within our comfort zones all help us think we’re doing better than we actually are.

Consider some of the key places we see this show up:

People often have a hard time making the jump to the next level of whatever they’re good at. For example, athletes who are superstars at the regional level, are just another decent player at the national level. Another example is MBA programs, where people who were the standouts as undergrads are just another face in the crowd, surrounded by lots of equally smart, aggressive, and talented people. That’s a humbling experience. Some relish the challenge and love being surrounded by people who push them to bring out their best. Others struggle to come to terms with the idea that they are just average in their new peer group.

When hiring, how do you determine that an applicant’s previous successes will translate to your company? We’ve probably all seen people with impressive resumes not do well because the new environment was too different and didn’t mesh.

Or what about the rising star employees who flame out when they are promoted too soon. They show some promise, have some early successes, and then get pushed to a level they are not yet ready for. Something unexpected happens that they don’t have the experience or luck to deal with and it all caves in. Worse, they start believing their own hype and because of their past successes they are given a lot of rope to hang themselves. When it all catches up with them it catches up hard.

This is also an issue with employee development: how do you develop people fast enough to keep them engaged, but slow enough that they can really,  truly learn what they need to know? How do you acknowledge and applaud them without instilling a false sense of confidence?

In our own jobs, we want continuous and never-ending improvement, but how do we push ourselves beyond our comfort levels when it’s so, well, uncomfortable? We want success, but easy success fool us into thinking we’re better than we are. If we don’t consciously try new things, experiment, and sometimes feel like we’re failing, it can prevent the growth that leads to bigger, long-term success.

Where are you feeling confident in your job? What would you need to do to make your job feel challenging? Where is the edge of your skills and what can you attempt that is slightly beyond the boundary? What new settings, projects, or tasks can you take on that might push you just a bit?

what the workplace needs now

Some days I’d love to just tweak the workplace a bit. Do less of some things and more of others. Little stuff to improve things. Below is a wish list of what the workplace really needs right now. Wouldn’t it be great if we could each do our part and contribute to creating a workplace where there’s:

Less doing, more talking.

Fewer problem solvers, more problem spotters.

Less direct feedback, more gossip.

Less honesty, more passive-aggressiveness.

More “I tried” and less “I did”.

Less personal responsibility, more entitlement.

Less guidance, more rigid rules.

Fewer innovators, more bureaucrats.

More doom, gloom, and threats and less optimism and celebration.

More blame, less accountability.

More talk about generational differences, less consideration for individual differences.

Less reward for merit, more reward for gut-it-out longevity.

Less team, more hierarchy.

More time spent figuring out what we can sell to customers, less time spent figuring out what our customers want and value.

More subjectivity, less objectivity.

Fewer facts, more rumors.

Less communication, more silos.

More personal fiefdoms, less big picture integration.

Less time spent studying how the world and consumers are changing, more time spent copying the competition.

Less concern about authenticity, more focus on branding.

More using social media for one-way information dumps, less two-way conversations.

Less asking customers, employees, etc. what they want, more guessing.

More jargon and buzzwords, less communication.

Less unity, more schisms.

Less focus on long-term issues, more focus on management fads.

Far less emphasis on helping people be their authentic best and far more emphasis on helping people create a plastic façade.

More yelling, less development.

More micromanaging (please!) and less leading.

More tantrums, fewer attempts to work out issues.

More learned helplessness, less empowerment.

Less training, more sink or swim learning.

Less planning, more last minute emergencies.

More talking at each other, less talking to each other.

More surprises, less strategy.

Less focus on getting things done, more focus on why we can’t.

More emphasis on personal glory, less concern for the team’s success.

Oh sure, we could do it the other way and reverse all of these, but it’s much easier to continue down the current paths. Reversing things would take vision, persistence, and continuous effort.

And that’s what the workplace really needs now.