Some people over manage their careers
They treat it like a classical piano recital piece where you can’t make a mistake. Massive FOMO.
Yes, they think too much about the role they play, how they will position themselves for promotion, and what they deserve to be doing on the team. My wife rightly says I don’t think about this enough, but honestly, some people think about it way too much.
If you’re new, check yourself
If you are new to your firm, your group, your school, your church, your team, check yourself. Have you done good work consistently? Have you earned the right to demand ? What are you entitled to? Be a little bit more patient. Be the kind of new hire that – well – you’d be likely to hire.
Sadly, we are raised to be selfish
We’ve all be raised in a bit of an individualistic society. There is rating and ranking in school. Our performance reviews are individual, not in teams. We tend to switch jobs frequently. So, it’s no surprise that people talk a lot about themselves. I am just as guilty as anyone else:
- This is my resume; this is how impressive I am
- This is the kind of work I like to do
- This is what I deserve
Let’s not forget, this is client service
Just when we start to get a bit too self-centered, bring it back to basics. What is the project you are on, and what is the client paying you to get done? Comparing yourself to your peers and thinking about year-end reviews, and promotions is fairly futile. As my friend and mentor says, you have control of the short-term and long-term. Your promotion is less in your control than you think; 3 bad managers in a row and you are ruined.
1) Do good work
Let’s start with this. Be so good they can’t ignore you. Get a ton of relational equity by being helpful, doing the hard work, being positive, and fun.
2) Find a company that is growing
One of the biggest pieces of career advice is to find organizations that are growing, where the future is bigger and brighter than the past. Unfortunately, in my experience, I worked for many companies and clients which were going sideway. When that happens, it’s a fixed-pie mentality. There is only so much “food” to go around.
Organizations built on fear are insular and weak. If you have team mates who are jockeying for position, comparing themselves to their peers, saving emails as “evidence”, the culture is dying or dead.
3) Get onboard
When staffing a project, listen to the partner and principal. Yes, you can give you opinion, but don’t be high-maintenance. Great HBS speech by Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) in 2012 here. She tells a great story about some advice Eric Schmidt gave her when she was applying for a job at Google. See excerpt:
So I sat down with Eric Schmidt, who had just become the CEO, and I showed him the spread sheet and I said, this job meets none of my criteria. He put his hand on my spreadsheet and he looked at me and said, Don’t be an idiot. Excellent career advice. And then he said, Get on a rocket ship. When companies are growing quickly and they are having a lot of impact, careers take care of themselves. And when companies aren’t growing quickly or their missions don’t matter as much, that’s when stagnation and politics come in. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.
“Don’t be an idiot”
So this is pretty brutal advice, but I kinda like it. When you are offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask which seat. Just get on, do great work, and enjoy the ride (and success)
