part0039

All these years, you have been building your knowledge, your skills, and your ability to learn with an organization or industry. You now can get out your play book and call the plays you’ve wanted to call for years. You may be the boss, the senior member of your team, or the go-to technical resource in the organization. Your position gives you a lot of freedom. Also, there are a lot of eyes on you as you move the organization forward.

I remember as I was developing my career, a hiring manager told me, “Paul, we are not hiring you for your resume, we are paying you for your judgment.” This became one of the best pieces of advice I’d ever received. I had spent a lifetime, or so it seemed, developing my skills and knowledge, and now I was being told it’s just my judgment that counts. I learned very quickly that it is impossible to “learn” everything; you will never have all the information needed to make every decision. You will rely on your judgment more and more as you advance your career. Your judgment integrates the complicating and competing factors so you can reach the best decision for your team and your organization.

To help develop confidence in your judgment, work on projecting the likely out-comes from your decisions and actions. Over time, as these prove correct, you will gain more confidence in your judgment.

One of the greatest differentiators of leadership is how a leader behaves. It is not enough in today’s world to achieve the desired results; it is equally important to understand and articulate how you achieved the results you did. Behaviors also create and reinforce trust and an effective organizational culture.

As you develop your career, you will occasionally see behaviors among your subordinates that seem to run counter to the culture of the organization. Resist a knee-jerk reaction, though. Instead, move the conversation forward.

Every day you will have challenges that require your attention and your calculated response. Remember, the words you use, the attitude you exhibit, are as important as that tough decision you need to make. As with your personal and professional brand, find the leadership behaviors that you can comfortably and consistently demonstrate to the organization.

Take a look at your organization. It’s quite likely that the key leaders and producers have been in their roles for less than three years. Your “role longevity” can be very short. An organization needs to evolve and develop a bench strength to move the business forward.

In addition, successful people are asked to do many things in a short period of time. If you are good at leading people, you may also need to be good at creating a research and development organization. If you are good at sales, you may also need to be good at shareholder relations.

Reaching your career aspirations will likely involve several successful roles within an organization or across several organizations. As you would expect, staying at the top of your career is as difficult as getting there. It requires you to perform consistently over a period of time ... years, in fact. Look at this as the ultimate career challenge:

Whether you are CEO or a senior person in your organization, you must set a clear vision, desired outcomes, and your expected behaviors. There are many books written on mission- and vision- setting, but suffice it to say, keep yours short, understandable, and achievable. Why are we here, what do we want to achieve, and how do we behave?

Another way to express your intentions is to define your workplace DNA; what is it that defines you and what do you expect from others? Be sure you express what behavior you expect and what people can expect from you. This helps set the stage for trust and commitment. Every day, reflect on your behaviors and be sure they align with your stated expectations. If your behaviors are aligned, trust will happen; if not, it won’t.

Making your mark is characterized by your accomplishments but also how you are perceived by your colleagues and your organization. It’s critical to have trusted advisors in the organization who can inform you on how you are perceived. Take the praise and the criticism seriously, and use the information to enhance the mark you make.

It’s easy to see that the best athletes make a team better. Same with successful organizations. What do sports organizations do? They identify key roles and fill them with the best people, compatible with the organization’s culture. You need to do the same as you build a team, an organization, or a business. It is not easy to lead a team of high performers, but it is critical to your success. Be prepared to be challenged and accept that such challenges help you to improve yourself and the organization. You want your team to push you.

It can be hard to know if you have the right team. If you have the wrong team, it’s a bit easier to identify. How do you know you have a high-performing team? You consistently meet or exceed your targets, are always challenging each other to do better, and the manner in which you achieve your results is consistent with the organizational culture. When you are operating at your peak performance, you are not only proud of your accomplishments, but also how you achieved your goals.

As you elevate in your career, you will be asked to take on more complicated assignments. Such assignments can have longer durations, ambiguous outcomes, and numerous conflicting pressures. You are given these assignments because you’re known for seeing the big picture, being highly motivated, and being very dependable at achieving results. It just gets harder, that’s all.

The complexity of the role is your problem, not your team’s. Take on the complexity and support your team by keeping the most complex issues to yourself; transfer less-complex assignments to your team. Strong leaders can communicate the required actions necessary to reach more aspirational goals, and what it means to the individual. Your team must be able to connect the organization’s aspirations with their own goals. Remember, your success is dependent more than ever on your team. That starts by keeping it simple.

Of course, the measurements should be aligned with the organization’s desired outcomes and should be achievable. Make your metrics as meaningful as possible—those that truly contribute to the success of the organization. Metrics provide you and your team with guideposts that focus and direct your resources and actions. Occasional “organizational noise” can distract you; use clear metrics to refocus and eliminate the noise.

Every organization expects more every year. Raising the bar is an expectation, but be careful about how you do it. Establish an understanding of the long-term ambitions of the organization, and create a road map showing how you will get there year after year. If you show your success in the context of your long-term goals, it will not seem so unrealistic. Test yourself and your team’s ability to raise the bar incrementally before you commit to the organization.

Set yourself up for success. Develop goals you and your team can achieve. Meeting your goals can create the necessary momentum and confidence to generate even better results. But setting unrealistic goals—through unrealistic metrics—can only assure failure and destroy the confidence of your team.

It is not in everyone’s character to celebrate the successes, but also don’t dwell on the failures. As you move through your Produce years, take time to celebrate the successes. As you push yourself to do more and achieve more, give yourself and the team the occasional pat on the back.

A younger mentee of mine was so excited one day to let me know that her manager had made it a point to say “thank you” after she had completed a draft client report. I asked her what it meant to her. She said, “I worked hard on the report and his thank you helped me feel what I had done was important and my efforts were appreciated. I guess putting in the extra effort is worth it!”

Besides having fun and giving thanks, celebrating the successes also reinforces your expectations and your commitment to the organization. The most powerful words from you can be “thank you for a job well done.” Never take these moments for granted, and be sure you recognize the primary contributors. This is the easiest thing you can do to advance your career and others.

You are the best judge of your effectiveness and your overall contribution. Assure yourself that you are earning your role, title, and compensation. If you feel you can do more, speak up and take on more assignments. If you’re not contributing enough, make the changes necessary to fix that.

I made it a habit of doing this self-assessment at the end of each workday. After I parked my car and walked to the house, I would ask, “Did I earn my keep today?” My walk was only about 30 seconds, but I could always answer yes or no. If I had gotten sidetracked or failed to focus on the important things at work, I would likely answer no. If I had achieved my daily tasks and actions, I would decide on yes. Use your own measurements and your own judgment. Regardless, your answer will help you become more effective.

Understanding that every organization has its own values, behaviors, and expected norms, you need to develop an easy way to analyze and balance them for maximum effect.

Generally, organizational norms fall within four categories: best for the client or customer, best for the employees, best for the shareholders, and best for the community. Think of it as juggling four balls in the air and you can’t let any hit the ground.

For example, one day you may have to decide between a termination and satisfying an unhappy client. I once had such a case. A client had awarded us a substantial contract but wasn’t satisfied with our assigned account manager and wanted him removed. While we could obviously satisfy our client’s expectations by reassigning the manager, how could we also satisfy the manager’s expectation of our organization?

After extensive conversation with the employee, I realized he did not value the account manager assignment. We were able to create a role for him as a technical advisor, which was better aligned with the client’s and employee’s expectations.

Assuming your career has allowed you to take on several different assignments, and you have numerous colleagues that you have worked with or for, these people are likely to be critical stakeholders in your ongoing success. Your network of colleagues, particularly in your current organization and in subordinate roles, can help you with your blind spots, provide valuable information, and help you effectively implement decisions.

One of your greatest challenges will be to gain alignment of the organization or your team to effect change. Of course, you may be good at strategy development, organizational diagnosis, and delivering desired outcomes. However, are you good at translating organizational needs to the individual level? Answering the question, “Why does this matter to me?” That will be key to your success in driving the desired change.

Your colleagues, friends, and team members can help you understand the impacts of your decisions and how to most effectively communicate them.

What is it that you get energy from? Is it a hobby, exercise, yoga, spending time with family and friends? Or is it reflecting on life on a sunny beach somewhere?

The Produce stage of your career will take a lot of time and energy from you. It may seem that you are living for work, not working to live. The last-minute deadlines, the uber-demanding client, or the difficult personnel decisions may all be building up. Whatever the pressure of work, you need a way to stay fresh and approach each day with enthusiasm and commitment.

How you recharge your batteries is obviously your decision. Working harder and working longer hours is likely not the best choice. You may seem like you are “getting things done,” but if you were to step back and inspect, you can probably achieve the same results with a little ingenuity and be more effective.

Recharging will help you focus on the important things and eliminate organizational noise. If everything is important, then nothing is important.

This is a great time to reflect on your long-term life plan. What will come after you are done working? Will you escape to an uncharted desert island or reinvent yourself into another long-lasting career? The possibilities of life after work are endless, but starting to narrow the list can help keep your current career path in perspective and make your expectations clearer.

Of course, your life plan will evolve over time. You can and certainly will refine your plans as you get close to the Transition stage of your career, but having a rough framework of your after-career goals is a great place to start.

Your plan could be as simple as deciding how long you want your career to last, what hobbies you have or want to develop, and maybe where you’d like to live once you are free from an office or other work location. Put the plan in your top left-hand drawer or on your hard drive in a file called “Life Plan.” Look at it a couple of times a year and remind yourself why you are working so hard.

Having a successful career can be very rewarding, but it does come with challenges. Your life outside work and your relationships with others and your family can all be victims of a successful career. It’s important that you pause and ask yourself, are you satisfied with your career and your life? Answer honestly and you will be able to move forward with confidence and commitment. You may be satisfied generally with life outside work but you still haven’t reached your career aspiration. Adversely, you may have reached your career ambition but aren’t satisfied with the life you lead.

It’s a balancing act, and it’s natural to have your ups and downs as you judge. The answers to your questions also can change day-to-day, year-to-year. It’s a bit like dressing for the weather; sometimes you’re hot and sometimes you’re cold. Regardless, these are personal questions that only you can answer.

This balance is important. Consider again, that you have about 40 years in your career. Spend them wisely, with no regrets ... no “should haves.” On either side of the ledger.

I’m hopeful that during your Produce phase, you are not only producing for your organization but for yourself as well. You will have a life to live after work, and it’s important you prepare for it. Your expectations of compensation, benefits, and future savings needs are unique and will require a plan. Of course, personal issues can disrupt your plans, but take time throughout your career to secure your financial future.

How much can you earn, how much should you spend, and how much can you invest for the future? Your earnings potential is a combination of your career aspiration and your ability to create value. It is up to you to maximize that potential. So, continuously assess your value and ask to be fairly compensated. You’re also in control of your spending, and you can accumulate both wealth and stuff. Buying stuff is fun, but will you need that same stuff at age 65?