Tag: success

I get by with a little help from my friends

Do you have a safety net?   Do you have a network of friends who can help you through tough times?  Do you have a group of folks who can talk straight to you and tell you when you’re being an idiot?

If you don’t, you need one.

Leaders have a tendency to try and do everything on their own.  As a result, they often suck at delegating, struggle to communicate their vision compellingly…and aren’t too good about reaching out for help when they need it. And of all people, leaders (especially CEOs) need to avoid isolation – it can negatively impact the business.

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Regardless of your level of leadership, you can benefit from having your own personal support team.  I know this from personal experience:

  • Venting: Life is not always cupcakes and unicorns, which means you’re going to need to be able to complain and rage from time to time.  Your support group will listen and not judge…well, not much.
  • Accountability: A good support group calls you on your crap. They can also help you clarify and achieve your goals.  It’s good to have people around who can keep you on track.  They can also suggest actions to take to help get you to the finish line.
  • Sanity Check: This is similar to “accountability” but it’s a little more focused than that.  Your support team is there to throw out the red flag when they see you about to do something incredibly stupid.  It’s great to have that voice of reason when things go crazy.
  • Wisdom: As much as you think you know everything, you don’t.  Your support team can use their collective knowledge to help you break through your issues and move forward. So find some smart people for your posse!
  • Laughter: When you pick your support team, make sure you pick ones who have the same sense of humor as you.  And aren’t afraid to say inappropriate things.  And who know REALLY good jokes.

Just remember: you don’t have to go through this alone. Find your team and conquer the world!

PS – Shout out to #TeamFaulkner!  You know who you are.  And you are awesome.

Do you have a support network? What do you use it for?  Share in the comments!

To Burn or Not to Burn? (a question of bridges)

Early on in my career, I had one of those proud/not-so-proud moments (depending on how you look at it) while working for a small company as an “office manager” – you know, that all-inclusive title that pretty much means you have no authority but all the blame.  I dropped an F-bomb on the owner’s wife.  [It’s a long story, but basically she accused me of not caring enough about the job. Because I didn’t respond to her request in 3 seconds.  But I digress.]

I believe the exact phrase I used was, “F*** you and f*** this job.”  I grabbed my phone and my purse and made my dramatic exit.

After walking away from the building, the reality of what happened hit me and I called my husband and said, “I think I just quit my job.”  The thing was, I couldn’t afford to quit my job.  So…I turned around and went back to the office to figure it out.   So much for leaving in a blaze of glory.

Luckily, the owner’s wife apologized first, then I apologized, and we made it work until I moved on to complete my student teaching.  Despite the time that has past, I’ve never forgotten that moment, thinking back to it with a certain wistfulness every time I’ve moved on from a company.  But I have never reenacted that moment because I know there would be consequences.

man lighting fuse

Before you decide to lay waste to the past and leave in a dramatic fashion (like these extreme quitters), decide if it’s worth it by answering these questions:

  • Will I need a reference from anyone at this company?
     Obviously you would only select “friendly” references.  But any recruiter worth their salt will do what they can to find backdoor references – folks NOT on your friendly list – because they want the real scoop.  Those are the people you need to be thinking about.
  • Did I gain a significant amount of experience at this company that I will need to be able to refer to in the future?
    A job you had for a month or two might be okay to leave off the ol’ resume.  But what if you were there for 2 years?  Or 5 years? Or 15?  You’re going to need to be able to use that experience to sell your skills to a future employer.
  • Is it possible I may want to return to this company?
    Sean Connery claimed he would NEVER play James Bond again…and then came back to make, you guessed it, Never Say Never Again.  I get tough work environments, burn out, impossible bosses, etc.  The reality is that people move on, circumstances change, and time lends perspective.  Don’t risk future opportunity to for short-term satisfaction.
  • How small is my industry’s world?
    This is particularly important if you have a niche skill set – IT, legal, and yes, even instructional design, can fall into this arena.  Word of your behavior will get out.  And with social media, the range will be even further than you think.  If there’s a chance your exit may reflect poorly on you if told to a potential future employer, it’s a BAD idea to burn that bridge.
  • Am I an adult?
    Seriously, are you?  A true professional tries to address the issues at hand, and if that doesn’t work, he or she leaves like an adult human being rather than a 2-year-old or viral video wannabe.  Yes, it’s really entertaining to watch the videos of extreme quitters, and we all live vicariously through their efforts.  But what did it really change in those companies?  And where are those people today?  A few people did turn their moment of fame into a career, but most probably traded a moment of triumph for a professional lifetime of explaining away that YouTube clip.

There are times when burning bridges might make sense (companies engaging in illegal activities come to mind).  The point is, only you can make that choice – so make it a good one.

If you decide it’s totally worth it – go for it!  And please, film it so we can enjoy it, too.

Do you have story of a burned bridge to share?  Are there times when it DOES make sense to burn a bridge?  Let me know in the comments!

NASA is freakin’ awesome (why science geeks are leading the way for engagement)

The other night, after being woken up by a particularly loud dog turning over in her crate, the TV was turned on and I ended up watching an hour long program on NASA’s Curiosity mission to Mars.  It was awesome, and if you are not in awe of the things that human beings can do when focused on a common cause, shame on you.  I’ve been a space nerd from a very early age.  The Right Stuff is still one of my favorite movies. I really wanted to be an astrophysicist (then I hit ‘Intro to Complex Variables’.  Oof.) and I watch documentaries all the time (hence the Science Channel on at 3:00am).  I love that stuff.

As I lay there, not sleeping like I should have been, I was struck by how geeked (shout out to Steve Browne!) everyone was about the work they were doing.  And I couldn’t help think that any corporation would be lucky to have such an engaged workforce, and how any workforce would love to be that excited about going to work every day.  The NASA geeks obviously love that stuff, too.

I know NASA has come under fire in the past for their culture of cover up that resulted in deaths (Challenger, Columbia) and other leadership blunders.  I’ll address that side of the culture in the future. But for those people working on the Curiosity mission, the culture gave them exactly what they needed in order to love their jobs AND be successful.curiosity

What is it that got these NASA people so jazzed (other than the obvious fact that they are working on AWESOME SPACE STUFF)?  Here are a few things that I think contribute to the high level of NASA employee engagement that corporations can learn from:

  • People get to apply their skills and interests towards really cool work: Engagement surveys keep telling us that people want to be able to put their strengths to work on interesting projects.  You’ve probably said once or twice in your career, “I just want to make a difference.”  Well, these people are doing that – they get to use all their training and years of gazing up at the stars to help explore a distant planet.
  • Everyone is working toward the same massively difficult, but inspiring, goal: NASA is all about throwing down the gauntlet.  It started with Kennedy’s assertion that we would get to the moon by the end of the decade in the ’60s, to Apollo 13’s shifted mission to bring the astronauts home, to landing the most ambitious rover safely on Mars to conduct science experiments.  This singular focus drives all decisions and actions, keeping the teams focused on the common target.
  • Everyone’s role is well-defined: As you can imagine, a project like Curiosity has a LOT of different teams working on specific aspects of the mission.  There’s the experiment team, the landing team, the communications team, the power team, the SAM (sample analysis) team, etc.  Each person knows what their specific goals are, what the expectations are, the timeline required, and the potential impact of failure.
  • Everyone understands how their role contributes to the overall mission: I didn’t hear anyone say, “I don’t know why I do what I do – I just take orders.”  These are people who are driven to succeed because they know the rest of the mission is relying on their success.  They are given the big picture to provide context and truly believe they are a part of something greater than themselves.
  • They prepared…and prepared…and prepared…and were ready for anything: The level of testing and simulations the teams underwent before launch, during the journey to Mars, and right before landing meant the team felt they were able to handle any contingency.  Leadership understood the importance of gelling as a team, practicing skills until mastery, and throwing in trouble scenarios so the team could learn how to handle them in a low risk environment.  This level of practice lent skills and cohesion that resulted in a successful rover landing…even though the method used to land the rover had never been used before.
  • The work captures the hearts as well as the minds: One of the project’s scientists told the story of when he was a kid and the first Voyager photos from Mars were published in the ’70s.  He said, “That’s the day I became a planetary scientist.”  He basically is working on the project he dreamed about when he was little. The ability to emotionally connect with one’s  work is powerful. Simon Sinek’s excellent TED talk and book Start With Why discusses the need to understand who you are as a company and then let all things flowing from there.  The scientists working on Curiosity knew why they were there, and the long hours and stress were truly a labor of love.
  • They celebrate their wins: Just watch the reaction of the team once Curiosity safely touched down on the surface of Mars.

True, most of us will never get a chance to work on a project like landing a rover on another planet so far away that it takes 14 minutes for radio signals to reach it.  But when you think about it, none of the things that make those NASA geeks so excited are really out of reach for companies.  It’s about letting your people use their strengths to move the company forward on ambitious goals that everyone understands and connects to.  Each person knows what their role is and why it’s important.  They can be emotionally committed to the work.  And everyone can celebrate their wins and learn from their mistakes.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.