A Few Words On Work

Work isn't just your paid job, it is any form of time and energy put into motion including raising children, community service, home improvement, and even your hobbies. For me, after naturally meeting my basic needs of having food, clothing, shelter, and securing my posterity, work is the force of purpose behind my life.

My professional work (paid job) has always seemed to be my natural passion in life. When it isn't that way, I notice many of the other things I work at seem to get harder. In this blog I wanted to share some of the things I've learned and value in my working journey. I also encourage others to reflect and share their experiences, priorities, and definitions of work in the comments section of this article.

It's never just business: You'll likely spend more time with your colleagues than your family and friends in your adult life. Many times you will have beers (or wine, or coffee), go bowling, watch sports, and share life experiences with those colleagues. Your successes and failures are also theirs. Being able to have trust, teamwork, and strength depends on not just sitting in an office together for 8+ hours or making dollars and cents add up, it depends on empathy, communication, self awareness, and balance of you vs. the team.

This gets even harder and more important when you own the company and have employees on your payroll. You have to make decisions about growth, profitability, new hires, and even staff changes or reductions. You are at the helm of people's lives, and I think it's important for both employers, but also employees to have a respect for the very personal balance involved in this situation.

Become indispensable: We live in a world of competition, limited resources, and different scales of job and opportunity availability. Not every one can be a professional sports, music, or movie star, but the value and scarcity of producing that value is why they get paid the big bucks. But there is a lot of opportunity for us average people too.

I have had a variety of roles in my career starting as a blue print clerk in a drafting office when I was 16, to being a vice president, and even owning my own consulting firm. In each of these roles, I learned it was important to become indispensable to not only move up in salary and responsibility, but to also stay competitive in the workforce. My number one guiding statement on this was:

Directly contribute to the money coming in the door or reduce how much goes out the door.

Me Me Me. Now when I first started, it was all about how can I be faster, smarter, and more accurate than the person next to me so my production numbers look great. I was actually really great at this, and it served me well in my first 5 years in the workforce. I used computer programming, practice after work on my time, took calculated risks on new processes, along with self education through books, videos, and conferences to learn new skills that would make me more productive and get paid more.

I see a lot of talented individuals reach this level, and some come with rough edges, inflated egos, or become defensive in sharing their secret sauce with other teammates. What may surprise people is I am going to say that in many cases this is OK. We need experts that do certain roles on the team well, and a little bit of internal competition. Talented productive people should get compensated based on the direct value they bring to the company and team for that contribution. U.S. work culture often glorifies the only way to earn more money and move up is become a manager. Not everybody can or should do that, and often times talented experts get moved to people managerial positions to the detriment of themselves and the company.

Increasing others' production is greater than the increase I can make alone. Then it happened. I was asked to manage projects, people, and processes. This is where I saw that not only do you have to learn how to bring people together into a team to deliver results, it pays to do so. By interviewing and identifying people and processes in the group, I learned that sharing my knowledge and training others to be more productive brought better value, innovation, and individual satisfaction than me always being the best. I got more frequent and bigger pay raises when my boss constantly told me in reviews, "People keep telling me how much you have helped them get better and that you are an important member of the team."

The key, like with everything is to have balance in this process. There will be colleagues and bosses in your workplace along with competitors who are hunting to get your ideas and unique know how for their pure benefit and potentially displacing you. Doesn't mean completely shut those people off, but be wise to whom, how much, and when you share information, and find those who will reciprocate back. There isn't a magic book on this. It takes practice in succeeding and failing with different types of people and in different types of situations however the majority of the time I win with sharing.

One of the best techniques I found in becoming a key part of a new team, and testing the waters of who will reciprocate is by winning big with little victories. People are looking for others that identify with their good ideas and challenges, supporters of those ideas, and people who help them execute those ideas. Finding small things you can take on top of your main daily duties that will help another team member in their work creates trust, confidence, and visibility for yourself in a win-win way. You will then see with little effort and risk of affecting the results of your personal responsibilities who is friend, foe, or lazy while increasing your value in a company.

Know when it's time to be the coach instead of the player. Then there comes the time when you aren't necessarily the production expert on the latest technologies and tools. You aren't "the dude" with all the new innovative ideas that will increase sales and reduce costs. You become the person with years of experience through success and failures that can lead the next generation of players to take the team, product, and company to another level. You are cautious, but know how to put the right players together. The people you surround yourself with may or have already surpassed your productivity skills, but that's OK. Coaches help players grow individually and bring strengths together to win championships. Coaches also pay attention to their players by pepping them up with feedback when needed, and rewarding great individual and team contributions. Coaches get rewarded well through both monetary compensation and personal satisfaction. To quote Hannibal Smith from the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together."

Don't get promoted to something that you aren't. Hey look, not everyone is going to be the coach, team captain, quarterback, or star forward. You might find if you had that other person's job, you'd be missing what you loved to do, or find you really aren't good at or like that other job. "Successful" managers, leaders, and coaches are trained to help individuals grow and not hold them back to protect their territory. If you are trying to get a promotion, or change roles, and you get some feedback along the lines of "being ready" or "is this what you see yourself doing", I'd suggest spending some time reflecting before feeling let down, angry, or giving up. Even if that boss could be selfishly holding you back from something you are able to do, the opportunity for extra reflection and putting effort into presenting a factual case with evidence is priceless. I've made the mistake of giving up on a promotion and leaving in haste before fully evaluating below:

"Is that what I want to be, am I that today and why, and if I really want it, what can I do to get there?"

I have also learned through a variety of positions with different companies who I am, what I like to do, what I am good at, and the type of company culture I fit best in, but best yet where I need to improve and grow.

Love it, or leave it: This is the one I have had to grow the most as an individual. I have a classic case of "Millennial Syndrome" of needing to be challenged, excited, showing growth, having fun, and moving, or what's the point? I am very proud, competitive, and passionate. Even if my role is to be in the details in a specific spot, I have to know and believe in the big picture on the team or at a company. I have to trust my leaders and teammates that we can win, or I can't and shouldn't be there. I'm eager to get out of bed, drive to work, open the laptop, and bring my 'A' game. I'd almost do this if I wasn't getting paid. If I don't, not only will I be unhappy, but I would bring the team down too.

What I have had to learn the hard way is you can't always win, and you won't always win the championship the first season. It takes steps, time, and growth with your team to get the system up and running. I can say each time I have blown or been on a team that royally screwed up a project, the lessons and passion I had afterwards defined some of the most successful periods in my career.

On the opposite hand, you need to know when it's time to move on whether because of new opportunities, irreconcilable work culture mismatch, or personally not being in the right place in time. The important thing to take away here is be all in or don't be in at all, and even if you fail, don't necessarily give up too early.

Balance vs. burn out: As a passionate person, who often puts it all in and more, the last important advice I constantly have to give myself is to take breaks and create balance. I love music, movies, biking, traveling, surfing, dining, hiking, and doing those things with my family and friends. Every time I include these important other parts of life on a daily / weekly basis, I find stamina, inspiration, and increased success at the J.O.B.

What Does Work Mean To You? Please feel free to share your comments and experiences on work in any form below.