Tag Archives: Career

Your job is not about doing your tasks.

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construction vehicles

We all know smart, hard-working people who have been individual contributors for years.  And we also all know smart, hard-working people who have quickly jumped from entry-level to management, seemingly overnight.  So, what is it that sets these fast-trackers apart?  They have figured out one of the fundamentals of career momentum:

Your job is not about doing your tasks.

Your job, no matter what level you’re at, is about helping the organization achieve its goals, realize its vision and fulfill its mission.  The tasks on your job description are only important to the extent to which they enhance organizational performance.  Fast-trackers get this.

Now, one of my favorite Secrets of Adulthood is that the opposite of a great truth is also true.  So, yes, your job is about doing your tasks.  The foundation of any career is doing the work and doing it well.  You have to start there.

Then it’s time to explore how your work fits into the bigger picture.  Look for ways to streamline and optimize.  Find synergies between your tasks and the tasks of other team members, work groups or departments.  Share your ideas.

Look up from your task list, shift your thinking from how to why, and prove you have the big-picture vision of a leader.

 

 

Telling our stories in the digital age.

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olympia 2 by glasseyes view

When I was little, I remember my dad pacing the living room floor, dictating, as my mom typed his words on our old electric typewriter.  It was a big, humming machine and the keys made a satisfying chunk sound.  The manuscripts were typed, edited, typed again and then mailed off to magazine editors.  After my dad passed, my mom sent me the 30-year-old copies of Ranger Rick and Owl that held the evidence of their hard work.

Way back in 1994, I started a newsletter about local music in my hometown – The Perimeter: McMinnville’s Premier Music Publication.  I typed the articles on our high-tech word processor, then carefully cut them into columns and pasted them onto graph paper.  I hand-lettered the masthead and had a local print shop make 50 copies.  A few issues in, my family got a PC, outfitted with Microsoft Publisher and a dial-up internet connection, and my production value went up considerably.

Last week, I helped a single mom, with not much work history but lots of life experience, draft her resume.  We emailed back and forth, discussing different ways to describe her skills and tell her story.  We changed fonts, reworked the design, and uploaded to her LinkedIn profile, all with a few clicks of a button.

Kitty Ireland remembers typing her first resume on a rented typewriter at the public library.  Reading her post, I was reminded how hard getting our ideas out into the world used to be. Crafting a good story, one that deftly explains who we are and what we can offer, is still hard work.  But the mechanics of story-telling have definitely gotten easier.

 

(Photo by glasseyes view via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

How to stand-out on a cross-functional team (and leverage that experience to grow your career).

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Odd duck by Don Graham

Most of us build our careers as specialists.  We get really good in one area and then we get promoted to managing other people in that area.  But at some point, growing as a manager requires a shift from being a functional specialist to a organizational generalist – from being a subject-matter expert to a leader who can understand how the business functions as a whole.

Early in your career, being assigned to a cross-functional project team can put you on the fast-track to management.  It introduces you to new people, sets you up as the go-to person in your department and increases your visibility within the organization.  It is also a great way to start making the shift from specialist to generalist.

Here’s how to make the most of the experience:

Do good work.  This should be the foundation of all career advice and directly applies here as well.  Make sure you’re contributing to the success of the project.  Meet deadlines.  Do more than required.  You’re representing your functional area and will be the go-to person, so always deliver.

Learn from other team members.  Respect that the other people on your project team are the experts in their own areas.  Defer to their knowledge.  Ask questions.  Dig into what their jobs are really like and how they impact the company.  Use the opportunity to learn their metrics, process flows and problem areas.

Don’t complain (but be sympathetic when others do).  You’re using this project to build your career capital, so you should see extra work as an investment.  But others on your project team may not feel the same way.  Show them that you understand how busy they are.  Commiserate, and then use your new cross-functional knowledge to alleviate their pain points.

Be a meeting rock star.  Knowing how to manage a meeting is key to a successful project outcome.  Be attentive, take notes and ask smart questions.  Most importantly, don’t get bogged down in the details of your specific task.  Understand the higher level problem the team is trying to solve and stay focused on the company-wide impact.

Project confidence but stay humble.  You want to be seen as smart, capable and well-rounded.  But no one likes a know-it-all.  And no matter how good you are at your job, being liked is important.  You’re building relationships that you will draw on as you move up in the organization, so build them wisely.

 

How about you?  Has working on a project team helped you grow as a manager?

 

(Photo by Don Graham via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

Finding meaning… wherever you are.

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Seedling by Ray_from_LA

Graduating with a degree in Anthropology, I never pictured myself working in the private sector, and definitely not in manufacturing.

But life happens, and I found myself in the business world.  And for a long time I struggled with finding meaning in my work.

What’s the point, I thought?

Why am I working so hard at something so mundane?  How is this benefiting the world?

What saved me was realizing that my work as a manager made an impact every day.  Maybe I wasn’t going to change the world by making digital projectors or truck parts, but I could change how the people in my charge felt about their work.  I could change how they spent their time, how they engaged with each other, and how successful they were in their careers.

I realized my job was about helping people.

Yes, I had operational goals as well, but the beauty of well-rounded, motivated employees is that they have a practical value: they perform better.  A positive work experience that helps individuals achieve their personal goals benefits the whole organization.

So when you’re looking for meaning, struggling with the “why am I here?” question, try this:

Refocus on your team.

How can you help them grow their skills, or meet their personal or professional goals?  Is there an outside project someone is meaning to pursue?  Perhaps you can help them through networking, planning, or encouragement.

Think about how you can better meet their needs and maybe you’ll meet more of yours in the process.

 

How about you?  Have you struggled with finding meaning in your work?

 

Revised from original post – August 21, 2013

 

(Photo by Ray_from_LA via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

Management Quick Tip: Care about doing it right.

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No no. Thank you! by Aaron Stidwell

“Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better.”  ~ John Updike

I love this quote.  If you’re anything like me, at some point in your career you’ve had a job that didn’t exactly feed your creative soul.  And even in the best of jobs, there are always tasks that feel tiresome and draining.

So what do we do?  Do we struggle against it?  Always looking for a better gig or a quicker shortcut, essentially living in a state of permanent dissatisfaction?

Or do we embrace it?  Shift our focus to the beauty in the details and see the opportunity for presence and mindfulness?

Not to get all new-agey or anything, but I do think there’s something to this idea.

Let me know what you think.

P.S. I haven’t read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance since high school, but thinking about this post has made me want to dig out my old copy.


 

(Photo by Aaron Stidwell via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

(This post contains affiliate links to Powell’s Books.)

 

What is your management philosophy?

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Week 1 of 52 2010 by F Delventhal

“How many pennies would it take to fill this room?“

Have you ever had an interview question like this?  Did it stop you in your tracks?

Employers use these seemingly crazy questions to see how well you can think on your feet and whether you can reason through a tough problem.  Here’s a more common, but equally tough, question that can stump both new and seasoned managers alike:

“What is your management philosophy?“

This one can be difficult if 1) you’re not sure what the interviewer is looking for or 2) you’re not used to articulating your core beliefs as a manager.

First, as with the penny question, the employer wants to know you can provide an organized and reasoned response.  They also want to know if your management style will fit with their organizational culture and whether you understand how your leadership impacts overall performance.

Second, it’s important to distinguish between management actions (what you do) and management philosophy (what you believe and why).  Rather than listing tasks, think about how your management style creates a more effective and efficient organization, and focus on the results of your approach.

Stuck on where to start?

Consider working around the 4 basic management functions: planning, organizing, leading and controlling. (Remember those from business class??)

Planning
• How do individual and team goals correlate to organizational goals?
• What’s your decision making style?

Organizing
• Do you have a preferred team structure?  Why?
• What’s your foundation for distributing authority?

Leading
• What do you believe drives individual motivation?
• What are major sources of conflict within a team and how do you address them?

Controlling
• How does evaluation relate to performance?
• What are your options when individual or team results are not in line with expectations?

 

How about you?  Have you ever been asked about your management philosophy in an interview?  How did you respond?

 

For more thoughts on the interview process, try these posts:

To Hire, or Not To Hire: Evaluating Sales Skills

To Hire, or Not To Hire: Evaluating Cultural Fit

To Hire, or Not To Hire: Evaluating Locus of Control

 

(Photo by F Delventhal via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

Revised from original post – July 4, 2013

Management Quick Tip: Work yourself out of a job.

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No no. Thank you! by Aaron Stidwell

Improve systems.  Streamline processes.  Eliminate unnecessary tasks.

No matter where you are in your career, don’t fall into the “if I’m busy, I must be important” trap.

Figure out how to do your job better, in less time, and people will notice.  And you’ll have the bandwidth to take on more challenging work (i.e. get promoted).

And here’s a bonus tip for those who are already managers:  Hire your replacement.

Look for smart people who want to move up and groom them for your role.

Don’t be afraid to teach them everything you know.  Their drive to succeed will increase your team’s overall productivity.  And having a successor queued up will give you the freedom to move on when new opportunities arrive.

 

(Photo by Aaron Stidwell via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

 

5 Ways for Students to Gain Management Experience

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First Student #281 (cropped) by ThoseGuys119
You don’t need to be a business major to benefit from gaining management experience.  With a BA in Anthropology, I speak from experience when I say most of us don’t end up using our specific degrees in our careers…at least, not directly.

It’s hard to know what you want to do with your life while you’re still in school.  And who knows what the job market will look like in 10, 20 or 30 years anyway?  So the smart money is on building skills that will open up the widest range of options for yourself in the future.

Whatever industry you eventually choose, the ability to effectively manage a team will put you a step ahead of other entry-level professionals.

Here’s how to get that management experience before entering the workforce:

Mentoring and Tutoring
Being a mentor is a great way to build interpersonal and coaching skills.  Tutoring will teach you to train, motivate and evaluate individual performance.  Take it a step further and start your own mentoring or tutoring program to gain experience building and managing a team.

Event Planning
Putting together a conference, lecture series or movie night allows you to demonstrate your ability to effectively coordinate people and resources.  Events are perfect for learning how to delegate, resolve conflict and work with service providers.

Volunteering
Volunteering for a good cause is rewarding work experience and many organizations are looking for someone willing to take on a specific project.  Create your own management training by putting together a project team and motivating them to succeed.

Industry organizations are also a great opportunity to volunteer for outreach or other service projects.  They also often have elected leadership positions that require management skills (meeting facilitation, financial management, etc.).

Entrepreneurship
Starting your own business is a great way to learn any number of management related skills.  Solopreneurs won’t gain much people-management experience, so create a business plan that requires you to bring on team members.

Student Government
Student government can offer many leadership opportunities beyond just running for class president.  Start a club or organize a service project.  Coordinate campus tours or create a mentoring program for incoming students.  Student government is also a great way to hone your public speaking skills.

 

And remember…employers are always thinking about how to manage and motivate the next generation of employees.  Experience managing your peers has put you a step ahead, so highlight that in your resume, portfolio and online profile.

 

(Photo by ThoseGuys119 via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

Management Quick Tip: Work on your writing skills.

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No no. Thank you! by Aaron Stidwell

Email and social media have made us all writers, no matter what our job title.

And we can all stand to get better at conveying our messages clearly, succinctly and in a way that engages our readers.

Here are a few resources to help you hone your writing chops:

 

               

                

 

How about you?  Do you have a favorite book on writing?  Please share in the comments.

 

(Photo by Aaron Stidwell via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

 

(This post contains affiliate links to Powell’s Books.)

 

Adjusting your mirrors.

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Rearview mirror by Massimiliano Calamelli

“I have to adjust my rear view mirror when I leave the office at the end of the day.  When I drive to work, I’m upright and full of energy, but when I leave, I’m so tired, it’s like I’m a few inches shorter.”

A woman I worked with years ago told me this and I remember it because, at the time, I had the opposite experience.  I arrived at work slouched in the driver’s seat, dreading the day ahead of me.  But I left with a spring in my step, standing tall and looking forward to 15 hours of freedom before I had to return.

My coworker was seemingly content and quite successful, while I hated my job and was ready to move on.  But when I consider how our work was impacting our bodies, I think both scenarios are equally grim.

Even if you love your job, should you be so drained at the end of the day that your whole bearing is affected?  Sure, hard work can be satisfying.  Leaving tired isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  If the work is good, you leave tired but fulfilled.  Or tired but energized.

But just plain tired?  That tells me something is out of whack.

What do you think?

Can we judge our job satisfaction by our posture at the end of the day?

 

(Photo by Massimiliano Calamelli via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)