How to Succeed in a Large Organization: Four Simple Rules

Many times as a manager I am approached by junior employees noting they are frustrated that they are not advancing as fast as they'd like in their careers. They feel that the requirement to succeed means putting in long hours, joining many committees, and working "harder then the next person" will eventually work out for them. While I'm not here to tell you those aren't good ideas, I have my own ideas about how to succeed in a large organization myself.

When I was a young Field Engineer at PCL Construction I became frustrated that I wasn't growing as quickly as I wanted to. About three or four years into my career, I had been working in the Residential division in the Toronto district, and had not received the type of career opportunities or growth that I had naively thought I "deserved" - but I work sixty hours a week! I do everything my manager tells me to do! So what were my next steps? I know, I said to myself, I can display to the managers and leaders across the organization that I really know my stuff! So I wound up joining as many committees across the district - social committees, mentoring committees, safety committees, whatever I could get my hands on. This was a pretty misguided attempt at "look at me"-style exposure though. Looking back, was what I was doing helping the business, or was it simply helping me?

However, I was given some good mentorship along the way at how to succeed. The overall concept was simply executing the company's core business. But, in my opinion, this rule can be distilled into actions you can complete yourself. So, without further ado, please read my four simple rules on how to succeed in a large organization:

#1: Be Proven at Making Profits and Expanding the Business

This took me a few years being at a large organization to figure out. I thought at first it was simply exposure that would make me valuable (“wow, this guy is sitting in every meeting!”), but honestly exposure doesn’t mean anything unless you can be a proven money-maker.

Don’t be naive: making money is the bottom line at every large organization (and 99% of small ones as well). Unless your mission is a civil or non-profit one, a corporation is beholden to return to shareholders and investors, and this means profits are key. So what does this mean for you specifically? It means not only making profits for the company, but finding ways to quantify those profits to upper management. How did your contributions explicitly contribute to the profits of the company? What did you do to increase revenue, or decrease expenses, what is the total dollar figure, and can it be easily explained to others?

I also want to extrapolate what it means to be proven. Did you just make profits off of one large project? If so, others may think it’s a fluke. However, if you can prove that your profits were consistent year after year, project after project, it becomes difficult for others to just write your success off as a fluke. If all your projects are profitable and successful, any management will look at you and think success follows you and eventually trust you to manage larger and riskier projects - which then in turn means success for you personally.

Another portion of this rule relates to expanding the business. Again, this needs to be quantifiable. What percentage increase of the revenue streams relates to your contributions? How many new clients were either new ones you brought in, or returning clients that were coming back due to your success? It is so extremely important to be able to put all these in quantifiable terms so you can communicate this success upwards.

#2: Find and Grow Talent

Another means in which you can find success in a large organization is by finding and growing talent. Similar to above, it’s about making profits, but instead it’s other people’s profits that were directly as a result of your actions. This includes answering the following questions to the management of your company:

• Did you hire a new talent that is bursting at the seams with potential?
• Did you turn around a “middle-of-the-road” employee into a superstar?
• Why is it that anyone that comes off of your projects have unbridled enthusiasm for the company’s goals and are fully equipped and trained for future projects?
• Are your direct reports getting the attention they need with respect to career development?

Finding and growing talent, is an exceptionally underrated skill set at large organizations. The better you can do this, and the better at communicating what your results are with respect to this, means you will find how to succeed in a large organization.

#3: Define What Success Means to You and Communicate Upwards

I think it’s important that success is defined differently by almost everyone. Success may mean money for one person, additional share offerings by another, flexibility in working hours by some, and simply thankful recognition by others. It’s important to understand what success actually means to you, and furthermore communicate this upwards to those that have the power to make the decision to give you what you want.

For instance, if you don’t want to move across the country, and are happy to simply get a share of one geographical area’s profits, you need to make sure you communicate this to your manager, or else it will be a very awkward conversation (and a difficult decision to make) when you reject their proposal, even if you’re a proven money-maker and talent-maker. I also recommend creating your own value set, or your own "rules to live by", in order to define success for yourself.

#4: Stay Focused on Rules 1-3 (Unless Passion Drives You to Do Something Else)

I want to be clear while writing this that making money and growing people isn’t the be-all-end-all, if it’s not something you’re interested in. If your strengths lie elsewhere within the organization, perhaps in a support role, then it’s okay to triple down on those strengths and find success in that area instead! Are you a born party planner and would rather do that instead? Well, then be the best damn party planner a company can have, and then focus on creating value for yourself within that space.

However, if the job you have requires you to execute on #1-#3, what I recommend to others is to simply execute the hell out of those rules, while skipping tasks you don’t see contributing to those. Trust me, it’s OK in the long run to say no for value-less tasks in order to find how to succeed in a large organization.

Conclusion

The purpose of this post is to give some clarity to employees that don’t understand why they are working so hard without seeing any benefit. Perhaps their focus is simply on the wrong tasks? Find the tasks that execute the company’s mission, triple down on it, build others to execute, communicate your success, and I guarantee that you will be satisfied in the long run with the position that you will build for yourself.

Where do you find success in your company? Do you have any other additional rules you think should be added in "how to succeed in a large organization"? Please feel free to contact me on Twitter or LinkedIn to discuss. Thanks for reading.