Reflection - A Career Panel Retrospective
Nearly two years ago I served as a panelist on a career panel for the first time. I was recently reminded of this when I was having career discussions with my team…and it caused me to look up my old notes - and I wanted to share those in this week’s post.
Beyond the normal “tell us who you are, what you do, and what you used to do” sorts of things, there was a really interesting question that I know influenced one attendee pretty significantly. The question was this:
“What idea has most impacted how you think about your career?”
I remember this being one of the questions they prepped us with, and it rattled around in my head for several days before I managed to materially put my thoughts on paper. I could give a traditional “do your best” or “be courageous” sort of answer, or I could dig deep and share something real and candid.
The two ideas I came up with were this:
Speak up, but don’t raise your voice.
Be curious. Be passionate. Kick ass.
Unpacking the first idea, I think of this as a succinct way of saying that you have to share what’s on your mind, but do it in a way that’s not speaking over someone or putting anyone else down. In other words don’t be a doormat or a jerk. Ultimately, getting things done is only part of how you show up at work. How you get things done can drastically influence whether or not someone’s willing to go to bat for you. If you’re always putting others down to make your point heard, you’re likely going to be heard but not supported.
Using a real world example:
I was a part of a team several years ago that had an opening - and my manager had chosen to include me on the interview. We struggled for a few months to find an appropriate candidate who would complement the skills we had on the team…and our manager was getting impatient. It almost felt like we would make an offer to the next person that didn’t totally bomb their interview. We found a candidate that was okay, but he rubbed me the wrong way. He spoke down to me and had what I would call “rough” communication skills. Mind you, he was going to be supporting our grumpiest customers and needed to be able to talk them down while providing technical support.
After the interviews were finished, we discussed the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and I raised my concerns about his communication style and him talking down to me in a situation where I literally had the job he was interviewing for. At the end of the day, it wasn’t my team and he wouldn’t be my problem to handle…and if I was the only person with an issue, I would let it go. The candidate was made an offer, and it turns out I was right about him. He struggled with communication style when an escalation came his way. Not just once, but consistently.
After a few months, my manager came to me and said, “Hey, you were right and I should have listened to you. Can you help him get to where he needs to be?”
I obliged, and ultimately my credibility was boosted because I’d identified a challenge that nobody else saw. Being willing to make your voice known but letting the decision maker make the decision can be a really powerful way to build your brand at work.
In this story, I made a point to provide my input but didn’t need to get my way since it wasn’t my decision to make. If you know the role you’re playing in a given situation, you can influence and build your credibility without becoming the person that doesn’t know how to compromise. It’s a really strong position to be in because people can come to you for your input while knowing that you’ll ultimately be able to provide it openly and without having to have things “go your way”.
There’s the first idea. It’s pretty easy. It requires following some of the ideas we discuss in greater depth in my book, but on the surface that’s really all it takes.
The second idea is also pretty easy on the surface. You have to explore and be open to new ideas to find things that you’re passionate about, and once you’ve found those things you can really accelerate your life and career. If you don’t have an open mind, you might not find things that excite you. If you don’t find things that excite you, you may find yourself struggling to do more than simply stay the course.
There’s a fine line here between having your profession be your passion, and having your profession enable your passion. Your passion can be something external from work that you use to refuel yourself…or if you’re really lucky, it might be your profession. I wouldn’t count on it though.
In my book, Earning What You Deserve: The Guide for Building Long-term Success Starting From Graduation Day (Amazon), we spend a few chapters unpacking the ideas underlying this concept…but I’ll cover a little more depth here with another story from a former colleague who found his calling elsewhere right as I was taking over the team we were both on.
He was a colleague at the time of the career panel, and the idea resonated with him so clearly that he’d recognized his lack of passion in his current pursuits. He took to the job market, and right before my taking over the team several months later, he thanked me for the inspiration and told me that he was leaving the company.
In that conversation, he went on to explain that he’d found an opportunity to not only advance his career but also move to a company that was serving the industry he was most passionate about. He and I had bonded over discussions about personal finance, and he had found a job in the industry that would allow him to be one of the lucky ones that could pursue his passion as his profession.
For all intents and purposes, he was skipping a level and was able to focus on his passion at work. There was no way I would consider intervening in a case like that, and he’s still doing well with that new company at the time of this writing.
As I approach two years removed from this career panel discussion, these two ideas continue to ring true with my pursuits at work and in my personal life. I don’t believe that passion and profession have to be aligned to achieve success either at work or in your personal life, though it’s important to pursue something you’re passionate about to keep the batteries charged and prevent yourself from burning out…whether it’s travel, woodworking, yoga, dog training, photography, or something else entirely.
You have to do something that rings true to your passion if you’re going to be able to really push forward and kick ass. For most of us, work isn’t going to be the thing that fulfills our passion, but it’s important to be curious and find that passion if we’re going to really find long-term success.
