Where Do I Go?

I am often asked, in career discussions, “where do I go?”   

My thoughts are that life is full of hard choices, you will not make all the right decisions, all you can do is choose the best path and never look back.  

We are often very focused on moving up.  Sometimes without thought of, “am I ready?”  It is like building a house - if we do not spend enough time building a great foundation, eventually the house will crumble.  

So, where do I go?

I feel that our careers are sometimes like a poker game.  What cards do you hold to get ahead (win the game)?  Think of your five cards as: education, experience, performance, potential, and relationships.  How do you measure up against your peers in each of those five areas?  If you do not have aces in each area, it will be harder to win the game (get promoted).  

In today’s world, education is not just the degrees you hold, it is accreditations, certificates, executive MBAs, technical certifications, AND all the current online content and coursework.  The definition expands daily.  And the key here is continuous improvement and development in this area.  Self-check question, if you feel under educated compared to your peers, you may want to amp up your learning plans.  

Experience in the world today is more about expansion and diversity.  Are you well-rounded?  Have you been a technical specialist and managed a team and managed a P&L and worked in different industries or roles?  If so, you become more valuable to any company you work for.  What can I do?  Ask for new experiences, volunteer for projects outside your area, find mentors NOT in your functional area.  

Performance would seem self-explanatory - but you would be surprised at how many people overlook this.  How do you perform against your goals?  Your manager’s expectations?  Your peers?  Your perceived potential?  If you are not at the top in each of these areas, time to step up.  

Potential.  Often discussed and often hard to quantify. This is where EQ and IQ intersect.  Do your supervisors see you in a larger or more complex role?  Do your peers respect and admire how you work with others?  Do you have the ability to learn more, do more, and be more?  Does the senior team “see you” with the ability to have a role two levels above where you are?  These are discussions we have about our talent and potential.  Every company may have a variation on this definition.  How do you know?  Ask.  Take some folks to lunch, individually and ask them each this question, “if you could pick two areas for me to focus my development on, what would they be and why?”  Please do not be defensive and view this feedback as gold.  If you ask ten people this, you will start to see how the world views you.  

Relationships.  The world is built on relationships.  Corporate America is built on relationships.  Your company is built on relationships.  Your success is built on relationships.  I am seeing a trend here.  The point is to not undervalue your time and effort spent working on your relationships.  A quick exercise: look at the top 20 people that are important to your success and list them.  Now give each person an A, B or C based on solely the strength of your relationship.  If they are not all As - you have some work to do. 

So, where do I go?

The answer is self-discovery. Take inventory of your five cards and look to improve in areas you can.  Challenge yourself.  Use others to gain feedback.  Build your foundation.  

Together.  We.  Win.  

PS: For any folks early in your career, I wish someone told me this when I was just starting out.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Look for us on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse, Glassdoor and Gannett Careers

“Disrupt Yourself”

"Disrupt Yourself" were the words of Whitney Johnson today as we spent an afternoon discussing, “if you want to be successful in unexpected ways, follow your own disruptive path. Dare to innovate. Dream big dreams. Do something astonishing. Disrupt yourself.”  I was intrigued and challenged.  She has seven pieces to her framework (and my editorial in parenthesis):

Take the right risks (as we say at Gannett, “Take on the big and bold” with some homework to help make sure it is the right bet)

Play to your distinctive strengths (basically if you are an outfielder, do not waste your time practicing ground balls)

Embrace constraints (you actually need constraints to get good at creating something remarkable. You need the limitations to inspire better thinking -- challenge the status quo. Your brain is constantly in efficient mode, looking for ways to use less energy. And often, unless forced, you don't think much at all.  Constraints force you to think.  "The imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles," says Jonah Lehrer. According to psychologists, when you have less to work with, you actually begin to see the world differently. With constraints, you dedicate your mental energy to acting more resourcefully. When challenged, you figure out new ways to be better.)

Battle entitlement (are you complacent and think you have achieved success?)

Step back and grow (take that challenge of learning a new role, craft, function, technology that may set you back short term but allow you to grow long term)

Give failure its due (think of an 18 month old learning to walk – they walk, they fall, they get up, they walk, they fall, they get up.)

Be discovery driven (learn how to operate in the unknown, and learn to ask the right questions to learn about the unknown.)

Years ago (when I worked for Time-Warner) I had the luxury of attending a discussion from Clayton Christensen (as an aside, he is a wonderfully warm human being who is fascinating in all that he has achieved) about companies (vs us as individuals) regarding the Innovator’s Dilemma and he stated that “firms seeking growth via new markets are 6x more likely to succeed than firms seeking growth by entering established markets, and the revenue opportunity is 20x greater.”

My take – branch out into new territory.  Take chances.  Take the path less traveled.  Rethink how you approach your role after all these years in your career.  Question how you operate.  Question how you lead.  Is your approach based on what you like or what your customers demand from you?  When is the last time you asked your customers?  I lead a global HR function and I left our meeting today hell bent on spending significant time better understanding what my customers want from the People function here at Gannett.  My ways are pretty good (to me anyway) but maybe, just maybe, they are not what my customers want or need.  So let’s ask them.  I need to change, my function needs to change…but I do not have the answers yet – only questions.

By definition, personal innovation picks up where personal development left off.  How does Dave change his own operating system ( so yes, I am talking in the third person about me – hey, it is my blog)?  It is about rethinking the ways I accomplish things on a daily basis and to improve on those systems with each passing day.  Maybe you have applied some personal development into your life, but as the times changes, what made you successful before might not work for the future.  We live in different times and by making a commitment to our own personal innovation is to strategically recreate ourselves and make ourselves better people than we were yesterday, a week ago, or even a year ago, will allow us to achieve more success and take our own personal development to the next level.

As we look inward and ask ourselves if we really want to change, the reality is that if we change or not, we still risk “downward mobility”.  As Dr. Darin Eich stated so clearly, “What is the ultimate for a person’s professional life is this thing called innovation. Innovation is changing. Innovation has a goal, a goal to get better. Innovation can happen in a lot of different contexts. You can innovate new or existing products. You can innovate your marketing. You can innovate your services. You can innovate your business processes. You can innovate your organization as a whole. Most compelling, motivating, and inspiring is that you can also innovate yourself as a person. Yes, all of these things have the capacity to change, to grow, to develop, and to improve in slight ways and in ways that you can’t even tell the difference. I get to work with people all the time that I would consider to lead boring lives, people who work in large bureaucratic organizations … some of these people who work at the large established bureaucratic organizations are full of great life. This is because they work in innovation. They are concerned with innovating products, services, and everything else. They look to innovate everything they see and realize that they with others have the capacity to actually do it. They have that challenge, that goal, that purpose, and that vision in their professional lives and I can see the difference in these people. My conclusion, innovation is good for a person.” 

Personal Innovation is about innovating ourselves (think of yourself as a business) and making ourselves better at whatever it is we do.  Blockbuster to Netflix, Horse & Buggy to Ford, Atari to Xbox – you get the idea.  If we have clients, and they are currently happy, take it to the next level and just “wow” them with more, if we think we have reached a comfortable level of success, push ourselves to grow even further.  Just like rapidly changing technology and new products, without innovation we may risk being left behind as others realize the importance of innovation and they do something about it.  Look at things with a fresh set of eyes and be aware of the changes in our world, our profession and our craft -  and innovate to prepare ourselves for our own next level of development on a personal level.  What will you commit to?  When will you do it?  Who will you enlist to make sure you follow through?

Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Look for us on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse, Glassdoor and Gannett Careers

 

Finding Your "Eff"ing Mojo

Efficiency.

Peter Drucker said, “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

An effective employee produces at a high level, while an efficient employee produces quickly and intelligently. By combining effectiveness and efficiency, we can produce better products faster and with fewer resources.  We can find our “eff”ing mojo.  How do we become more effective and efficient in our work day?  This is not a scientific study by any means, but it is a compilation of tips I have been given over the years by great bosses, efficient peers, educational articles and stories, effective team mates, OCD friends, and my parents (and probably something from my college buddies, but that is probably not suitable for this article).

Manage our "to do" list.  Less is more.  What are the 3-5 things we need to get accomplished today, this week, this month.  Where do we keep this list?  How do we prioritize?  How often do I edit?  Some additional tips: these are not usually the easiest or the tasks we WANT to do, these are not usually short tasks, these are not always easy conversations.  They may also include something to DO for our significant other (that is important too).  Lastly, focus on what needs to be accomplished TODAY.  Stay focused.

Manage your attitude.  Take initiative.  Successful people have a “can do” attitude.  We help others, we pick up the slack for the team, we set high standards.  This behavior means we are taking responsibility for ourselves.  A trait that will make us stand out among our peers.  And most likely will open a few unexpected doors for us in our future.  Stay positive. (Or as Ron Burgundy says, “stay classy”).

Manage our idea of success.  Is our success measured by hours spent at work, or measured by THE work?  Just this simple change will alter our mindset, and probably free up more time to do other things.  “Digestible chunks” is a term I like to use.  Do you break down large projects into “digestible chunks”?  Do you measure success by completing these mini milestones?  Do you appreciate these smaller wins as you make daily progress toward a larger goal?  Do you list out all you accomplish each day?  Do you review this list and compare it to what really matters?  Do you leave work when your work for the day is successful or when the clock strikes 7pm?  Stay balanced.

Manage our efficiency skills.  Add a second to save a minute.  For example, email.  Email was created to save time and money. You can quickly type up an email, send it, and receive a response back in minutes. However, if you are receiving hundreds of emails daily, you know all too well that reading and replying to emails is actually very time consuming. Some tricks I have put in place: taking the time to add ACTION REQUESTED, FYI ONLY, APPROVAL NEEDED, etc. to subject lines in the email; where applicable using bullets versus paragraphs; ensuring the “ask” is clear and early in any written communication; handling emails once (read, handle, file, decide, move to read later); learn to use “rules and colors” (yes, this color blind guy uses colors – not that the colors are important but the differentiation is) to separate emails from the ”boss”, the “spouse” or your CFO; create a schedule to check email to allow you to focus on other tasks – schedule time on your calendar for “me time” to check email a few times a day; UNSUBSCRIBE and BLOCK; set up folders to save important emails to; and finally learn how to send a “bridge” email – an email that says “I got this” and will get back with an answer in XX hours or days. Remember a typical business user sends and receives over 900 emails per week (Ferris Research).  247 billion messages are sent per day. This means more than 2.8 million emails are sent every second. Around 80% of these messages are spam or viruses (The Radicati Group, Inc.).  Stay disciplined.

Manage our habits.  Create routines.  As I wrote about a few weeks back, managing habits and systems is vital to your success.  What is our daily routine and where are there time wasters that are specific to you and your work style?  How do we place a time limit on these time wasters?  Do we tie it to a song, tie it to a certain time (eg: I will be looking at the news today until I finish my Mt Dew or until 8am or until “Paradise by the dashboard lights” is over {old rock geek joke there}).  Also, what are our habits to NOT work?  I have “date night”, basketball nights, and dinner nights.  These all force me to leave the office by a certain time.  Also, do we leave our projects when something is going well – when we feel good and we will want to get right back at it the next day?

Manage our management skills.  Be focused.  Learn how to delegate by building trust and communicating effectively.  “Check yourself” to ensure YOU are being productive.  We can always IMPROVE our productivity.  Most people cannot multi-task so focus on one task then another.  If you truly are blessed to multi-task, then get after it!  Take care of simple, minor, and unimportant tasks early – as long as they are not consuming valuable time.  Utilize agendas and breaks.  Do not forget Parkinson’s Law - “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do,” notes Cyril Northcote Parkinson. We’ve all experienced this law in action, struggling for a month to finish a project, then magically getting it done in the final week. Or the house is a mess for weeks, then spotless within a few hours of the in-laws showing up.  This law provides great leverage for efficiency: imposing shorter deadlines for a task, or scheduling an earlier meeting.  Also, there is the “Two-Minute Rule” from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, he explains that the “most productive people capitalize on the little windows of time opening up during the day. Having an inventory of two-minute tasks on hand whenever windows appear will increase productivity; cleaning out the inbox, checking voicemail, approving a request, builds our efficiency muscles and gets the ball rolling for bigger tasks.”   A major cause of procrastination lies in overthinking the next step, Allen says it takes less time to do the action than the time spent thinking about it.  Find the sweet spot for productive hustle — rushed work can also be a recipe for reckless work.  Finally, find your performance cycles, are you a – morning master, afternoon productive, or late night optimizer?  Find your performance balance – the amount of challenge versus the amount of skill which directly ties to your amount of anxiety or boredom if not balanced.

Manage strategically how we disconnect, sleep and eat.  All vital to being more productive.  I am not a nutritionist or a sleep scientist, so I will leave the food and diet recommendations to them (although I could use some help with my Mt Dew addiction).   How to disconnect though… The presence of social media is an easy distraction and major time vacuum. Even small breaks to check our iPhone can add up in a day’s worth of time. Don’t fall down that slippery slope. Get off your devices. Shut it off, get off grid, and stay focused. Do we only check our devices a few times per day?  Minimize our interruptions and ruthlessly edit which meetings you choose to attend.  The application “DeskTime” played big brother, monitoring employees’ computer use — they found the most productive 10 percent worked hard for 52 minutes, then took a break for 17. Indeed our brain’s natural rhythms of attention means we can focus for up to 90 minutes, then need roughly 20 minutes rest. Strategic breaks equals efficient work.

These tips have helped me along the way, maybe some will resonate with you.  Remember, as a leader you must consistently drive effectiveness and efficiency – and it is a combination of the little things that add up.   As Chris Fussell wrote, “Meetings must be deliberate and intentional - your organizational rhythm should value purpose over habit and effectiveness over efficiency.”

Together.  We.  Win.

Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

Look for us on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram,  Facebook, The Muse, Glassdoor and Gannett Careers