Advancing Up The Ladder
/A lot of people used to ask me “How did you move so fast? How did you get to where you are?”. This was back in my corporate days and it was a fair question since, depending on the year, I was only 4-7 years removed from college. I was usually working on projects that VPs were overseeing and eventually worked directly for a C-Suite member. Everyone wanted to know, what’s the secret sauce.
First, I don’t think there’s a true secret sauce but I think there were 3 things I’ve always tried to do throughout my career that have served me well and kept me advancing. Feel free to try them out for yourself
Deliver results and maximize the impact. Results are table stakes. No one wants to hear about your new idea, or how something can be done better in another area when you aren’t getting your job done. So the number one thing you have to do, is get your job done! If you need to ask questions to get it done, ask questions. If you need to work long hours for a bit, well do it. Deliver what you’re supposed to deliver then ask yourself well what is the 20% more impact of this? How can the result you deliver help your peer? Help your team? Help the overall organization? How can you share knowledge with others to level them up. Don’t seek the recognition, seek to maximize the impact.
Find a leader you respect and learn from them. I always pictured myself as a leader even without the scope or the authority. So to become a “recognized” leader, I figured I’d better learn from the leaders at my company. I paid attention to who was driving the big strategies, big projects, opening keynotes and in general, had followers. Then, I stuck my neck out and asked for the informational interview. I picked their brain on how they got to where they are, observed what some of their signature behaviors were and tried to incorporate that into my work. Sometimes, I even ended up working for these people and I used those opportunities to ask questions and LEARN. I’ve always felt there’s way more I don’t know how to do so i’d better learn from the people that mastered something!
Seek out and give feedback. I would not know what I do well and what I don’t do well if I didn’t ask about it. I frequently ask for what I could be doing better. I get the whole “focus on your strengths” argument but one of my strengths is learning so if I want to learn how to do something better, I need to know what that something is. And I work at it. I’m also a firm believer that giving feedback is important to learn how to communicate effectively and to be seen as a team player that raises the performance of others. Think of how they describe Lebron, players get better when they play with him! I always want to be the Lebron to a team and a key component of that is helping others. You help others by being honest and giving feedback. You raise the performance of the whole team.
I’ve been pretty true to these three things since I started working. I’m not sure how I started doing these three things but I do. Part of it is I love working, I love learning and I love helping others. Those three components played out in my behaviors and got me to where I wanted to be.
