On Career Progression.

A few months ago I was giving a career talk at a business school.

During Q&A, one of the MBA students asked me about my career trajectory.

She said "I see on your LinkedIn you have changed jobs every six to twelve months in your career. You've been in your current role about six months, do you plan to make a switch again any time soon?"

You've been in your current role about six months, are you planning to make a switch again any time soon?

I thought this question was so fascinating as it revealed a lot about what my career progression might look like from the outside, so let me share some perspective from my side of that experience.

Some perspective on my career progression

There were two big things I shared with the group that day.

1) Resumes can be deceiving.

Lots of times when you see a job change on my resume, my day-to-day actually changed minimally, often because I was getting a retroactive promotion to account for the level/scope of work I was already doing.

Other times it might look like I had the same job for 12 months but my portfolio of work was evolving rapidly and I was being stretched in many different directions.

So, be careful to take resume lines at face value when you are looking at words on a page. Just because you see (or have) less lines on the resume, it doesn't mean that the growth hasn't been exponential.

Conversely, lots of resume lines doesn't necessarily equal progression in every sense of the word.

2) New lines on my resume were almost exclusively opportunities that found me

In an interview, a candidate once remarked that I was clearly a "title chaser" because of the rapid title progression on my resume (yes, that happened, but that is a story for another time).

So, I can only presume some of you reading this may have the misconception that I am somehow going out there with the sole purpose of getting a new job/title as fast as possible.

Personally, this is not at all how I would categorize my motivations. Yes, I am ambitious, and I won't deny that. I enjoy being challenged and taking on new responsibilities.

But, if you peeked into my day-to-day it would look pretty unexciting to you. Most days, I'm just putting my head down and getting the work in front of me done to the best of my ability.

Ironically this likely positions me better to be on the receiving end of new job opportunities than constantly striving for/chasing after the next thing. And, usually, that's what has happened - someone approached me with an opportunity even when I wasn't looking for one at all.

Very few of my job moves were "planned" by me.

In sum, when this person asked, I told them I was not "planning" to make a change. Yet, in an almost too perfect turn of events, my boss promoted me again the week after I gave this talk, adding another new job change to my resume :)

Advice for advancing your own career

So, what is my best advice if you, too, want rapid career progression? If you want to position yourself to have new opportunities flowing your way?

Here's what I have learned, and here's what I share with everyone I coach.

1) Act like an owner.

This is the best piece of advice I could ever give you. If ever you are in doubt, ask yourself what you would do if this were your business? Do that. It will take you far, and people will notice.

By the way, often this means doing work that is outside your formal "job description." Because that is what an owner would do.

2) Be curious.

Someone I mentored shared the ABC acronym with me - always be curious!

• Ask questions.
• Read books.
• Try and figure out how things work -- including (especially!) if they are not "your job."

Being curious about everything and anything works will give you an infinite pile of mental models.

Think of mental models as patterns you can apply to solve a problem -- and, the more of them you have in your memory bank, the more patterns you have to try out on any problem in front of you.

For example, at Top Hat I learned about the RICE scoring methodology from my peers in engineering, and I now use it as my primary prioritization framework in my work in customer success.

This is a direct result of being curious, asking questions, and thinking critically about other applications of this framework -- where else could this "pattern" apply?

3) Think critically

Don't be a passive participant in your career.

Imagine you are sitting in a meeting in which you are not a primary participant (I know, this rarely ever happens...).

But if you picture it, what are you thinking? Most people will just see themselves as there to absorb the information being communicated to the group. Maybe you are even thinking you just want this meeting to end as quickly as you can so you can get back to your work.

Even if you say nothing in the meeting, stop seeing yourself as somehow a passive observer.

If you try to use your critical thinking and curiosity in any meeting this is what it might look like, instead:

• Learning something from the meeting owner about running great meetings - either something not to do, or something they are doing really well you can do next time. Make sure you think critically about what specifically is/is not working.
• Gathering new mental models when others speak instead of zoning out when another team/department is talking or when things don't apply directly to your work.
• Analyzing the narrative that is being put in front of you. Don't take anything they are telling you at face value. For example, let's take data. Sure, they may have data or a chart up there, but what data are they not showing you? What other data or information would invalidate what they are presenting to you? Why do you think they are showing that data instead of others -- is it because it's the data best positioned to tell the story they want to tell? What are they not showing you? Or maybe it's actually a less than perfect data story, but it's all they have because they aren't measuring the thing that would really tell the best story? If they are not measuring something, why not? What would it take to start measuring that thing? Is the source of this data reliable? This same line of thinking can apply to anything else they are telling you. Eventually when you are comfortable you can start asking some of these questions out loud -- that's hard, I get it. So start by asking them to yourself. It's a great place to start.

This attitude of insatiable curiosity applies everywhere you go - you might even find yourself learning from the Netflix show you are bingeing once you start paying attention like this.

4) Raise up those around you

If you can figure out how to help everyone around you operate at their best when they are with you, people will take notice.

If you learn something or find a resource, share it.

If you design a new system to do something, don't hoard it for yourself.

If you notice someone was shut down during a meeting, stand up for them and ask others to make space to hear them out.

If you notice something someone is doing really well, tell them. Be specific.

I'm scraping the surface here - I could write many articles about just this topic. If you are interested in exactly how you become the kind of person that superpowers others, I highly recommend picking up the book Multipliers by Liz Wiseman.

5) Focus on being a little better every day

Forget massive, swinging changes. Focus on being 1% better every day.

Forget competing against others. Compete against yourself.

Forget doing what other people think you should. Do what you know inside yourself is the right thing to do.

This is my #1 mantra: The only person worth competing against is the person you were yesterday.

Summary

When you look at someone else's resume, remember:

• Resumes can be deceiving
• Not every job change you see is something the person chased after

And, if career progression is important to you (and, for the record, it's okay if it's not an important goal for you!), consider embodying the following behaviours:

1. Act like an owner
2. Be curious
3. Think critically
4. Raise up those around you
5. Focus on being a little better every day

A lot of this can probably be summed up as having a true growth mindset, but I find that term is a bit overused and not that helpful, though I do highly recommend picking up Mindset by Carol Dweck if you have never read it.

I think some people would also point out that I'm missing "find an advocate" from this list. I think that having advocates in your career is extremely important, but I also think that if you embrace the above you will find advocates wherever you go. At least, that has been my experience.

How about you? What has worked in your career?

People managers, what kind of people are you proactively giving opportunities to?