Dream Big But Be Humble: Lessons That Led Me from the Factory Floor to the Executive Floor

With summer jobs on the horizon, professionals recall the first jobs that launched their careers. Read more, then write your own #CareerLaunch post.

As many immigrants know, starting out in a new country can be a humbling experience. I started working in a factory while still in high school to help my family, first sweeping floors and eventually progressing to shipping and sales. There were many other jobs to put myself through college while continuing to help my parents.

So, when I finally graduated from engineering school with honors and landed a job in telecommunications, I felt that I'd finally “arrived.” I had achieved my dream of becoming an engineer. I came to the job equipped with a state-of-the-art technical education, and was confident I could make an immediate impact in my new job. 

But telecommunications, as I quickly realized, is a very specialized field that requires industry-specific training.

One day my boss asked me to figure out whether it made economic sense to replace a piece of network equipment. Coincidentally, I had just completed my first training course in telecommunications engineering economics, and I was very adept at running studies to determine a project’s economic feasibility.

I did my calculations for the project that Fred handed me and concluded that it required a significant investment, had a long pay-back period, and did not fit with our plans. In other words, I believed it did not make economic sense.

Still, Fred thought it might be a good developmental experience for me to present my recommendation directly to the senior manager in charge of Network Operations.

I went in well-prepared with a complete set of economic studies, the assumptions I used, and the final results.

I made what I thought was a great presentation.

And the guy chewed me out.

In no uncertain terms he told me I didn’t know what I was doing. He pointed out that I had failed to factor in the importance of improving customer service and maintaining the company’s reputation as a high-quality provider.

Looking back, he was right.

A humbling experience

This was a humbling, eye-opening experience that I never forgot.

It taught me that even though I had learned plenty of empirical knowledge in school, I didn’t have the experience and wisdom that were needed to do the job effectively.

It taught me that you need to be humble, learn from others, and use their experience to enhance your own capabilities.

Learning from the experts

Fortunately for me, Joe, an experienced, crusty engineer and fellow employee, took me under his wing. Joe knew exactly how to design and build telecommunication networks. He taught me the ropes and the things about the job that one does not learn in school.

One of Joe’s most helpful bits of advice was that I spend time with our construction supervisors to understand the mistakes that new engineers typically made. That helped me avoid making the same rookie mistakes, ensuring that my projects could be built on time and within budget.

I owe much to those experienced engineers and construction managers for the knowledge they shared with me. And, painful as it was at the time, I appreciate the senior manager on my first engineering job who so honestly told me I did not know what I was talking about.

A turning point

That humbling experience was a turning point for me. I learned that no matter how much I thought I’d knew about an area, I should never walk into a new job assuming that I knew everything. The wise approach is to consult first with those who understand how the system actually works, especially before attempting to change things.

It’s valuable advice I like to share with others. I realize it may not work for everyone, but it has worked for me and I know it worked for at least one of my young leaders.

They slashed his tires

I once placed a young and up-and-coming leader in a developmental role managing a call center. He was very bright and articulate, but he had never led a large group of employees.

When I checked with him 60 days later to see how he was doing he said, “They don’t like me.” 

I asked him what made him think that and he said, “They slashed my tires.” Now, that feedback is more direct than a 360o-survey. He got the message loud and clear. 

He had made the same mistake I had made. He had failed to recognize that, despite his smarts and education, the people on that job knew more about how that job was run than he did.

To his credit, after our conversation he began to listen to the people. Two years later when we moved him to another assignment, his people loved him, and they hated to see him go.

Be humble

The moral of the story? Be humble and listen to the input of the people who are doing the job today. You can learn from them even if your job is to transform, innovate, or change the process. 

And what’s most important: By listening to your team, you get their respect, and that goes a long way toward building trust in the workplace.

More posts on this topic:

• “Here’s the Scoop: Why My First Job Mattered” — President Barack Obama
• “How Winning This Contest Changed My Life” — Oprah Winfrey
• “My First Job Lasted One Summer — But It Changed the Way I See the World” — Katie Couric, Yahoo Global News Anchor  
• “Before I Became a Stylist, I Sold Shoes at the Mall. Here's What I Learned.” — Rachel Zoe, CEO, Rachel Zoe, Inc.; Editor-in-Chief, The Zoe Report
• “What Designing a Shampoo Bottle Taught Me About Business” — Meg Whitman, CEO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
• “Just Starting Out: The Life-Shaping Potential of Our First Jobs” — Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief at The Huffington Post Media Group
• “What I Lacked in Qualifications I Learned to Make Up with Courage” — Suze Orman, television host and motivational speaker
• “Practice Makes a Career” — Bernard Tyson, Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente
• “What I Gained from Choosing the Rocky Road” — Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations
• “Summer Jobs Are Your First Shot at the ‘Grown-Up World.’ Soak Up as Much as You Can.” — Adena Friedman, President and COO at Nasdaq
• “Everyone Should Have Access to That First Job” — Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama
• “Remember Your First Job?” — Tom Perez, Secretary of Labor at U.S. Department of Labor
• “Employers: Young Workers Are Your Diamonds in the Rough” — Maria Contreras-Sweet, Administrator at US Small Business Administration