More Impact on Job & Career: 7 Moves

A book caught my eye at the library recently. It is titled "Choose Possibility: Take Risks and Thrive (Even When You Fail) by Sukhinder Singh Cassidy.

I had a bit of hesitation at first. Cassidy has built a successful career in Silicon Valley, where "lessons learned" about success, when written about, are often out-sized to the success that might be found in other industries or locations.

What pulled me in, though, is the author is a woman, a minority, was raised in Canada and moved to Silicon Valley on her own so, at least at face value, she was not automatically skewed to success based on her sex, background or collegiate pedigree.

Yes, she openly admits that once she moved to Silicon Valley (with confidence but no job lined up), she fortunately found herself in a few years at Google when it had only 1200 staff.

Still, she is open about crossroads of failure, including later becoming CEO of a start up, a desired goal, but resigned after six months when she could not get into a working groove with the founder, even though they had spent considerable time in advance discussing their roles and styles.

She did bounce back later and has been CEO of StubHub.

One area she stresses is the importance of having impact in the roles you play, highlighted in 7 rules. Her points, shown below, are certainly valid inside or outside of Silicon Valley.

Let me note them from the book, edited to be briefer, plus some comments from her summarizing her approach now.

_____

"Focusing on impact means continously directing and redirecting our daily and weekly efforts, taking actions that are more likely to deliver tangible results in the short and, of course, long term.

This isn't some self-possessed pursuit. Almost any milestone we pursue hinges not just on your own best efforts but on those of collegues and teammates with whom we share work goals.

Indeed, much of the joy and satisfaction we achieve from striving toward goals comes from the feeling we are contributing to something larger than ourselves.

Today I frame my career choices in line with two equaland enduring passions: helping build services that delight or enpower milllions of users (as a digital leader), and helping others accelerate their own career success."

Seven Moves for More Impact

1) Put passion in your work, even when the work is not passion-inducing

Be committed and maximize whatever opportunity you are working with. You will only learn more and it may become of greater value in the future in a way you can't anticipate today.

2) Put progress over perfection

Don't paralyze yourself waiting for something perfect. Move forward and learn from success and feedback.

3) Become an author

She defines the term as having an original idea about how to accomplish a task or goal or solve a problem.

She notes the answers do not have to come from default sources, like top management. Her point is very analogous to author Seth Godin and his definition of a Linchpin.

4) Be a Truth Teller or Truth Seeker

Even when you lack a full answer to a problem, you might still have important observations or insights to contribute.

If you can speak frankly about a situation, you can increase odds of getting to a productive answer.

Same for asking thoughtful questions to better help frame what needs to be addressed.

5) Step into the White Space to Deliver

Look for an opportunity and contribute results outside of your defined role.

Especially as a leader, engage others to help them understand that there are gaps in the space between the defined individual roles and what needs to be done to execute as a whole. Be willing to help fill the gaps and bring others into the commitment.

6) Go High and Low

Related, you can increase your impact by occupying both thoughts and actions to both the small details and the "big picture" of what you are trying to accomplish organizationally.

Increase your "operating range" beyond only willing to "be strategic" but let others then execute, or staying in your role acting on only personal responsibilities as defined.

"Get dirt under your fingernails" is quoted in another part of the book.

7) Go Deep and Diverse

Don't just stick with applying your innate strengths as a reflection of your personality (what Gallup calls your natural talents), but also tap deep skills you have learned through your experiences.

Keep adding by getting yourself into more experiences and, as you mature in your career, distinguish yourself with deep knowledge in one or two key areas.

She highlights it in a career as progressing broad-narrow-broad.

You have broad skills early in your career. Narrow or specialize in some as you deepen your career, then go broad again as a leader who has to be in touch with more elements of a business.

When applied well, the approaches can lead to a virtuous cycle in career progression.

There is more to the book including emphasis on two key areas of success.

One being the core network you establish, what she calls her "professional priests" (page 127) who overlap your personal tribe and professional tribe as those with the most established intimacy and full trust in support of personal and career goals.

Second, she is open a big part of career success and opportunity is out of our hands based on when you enter the employment market, the state of the general economy over your career, shrinking economic segments and new opportunities in the economy, like the rise of the internet market, being well-timed to her age and stage of career when she went to Silicon Valley.

She emphasized it is important to find opportunities that have "wind in the sails" to provide you the widest latitude for success.

About me

I have been a career sales professional in B2B sales with the emphasis on advertising, marketing and media. This has included managing my own territories, selling jointly with others and managing sales teams.

My media sales career started in Seattle with the Puget Sound Business Journal, but a significant portion of my professional time was in California split between Los Angeles and Orange County, before I returned to Seattle.

You can reach me via InMail or [email protected]

714-876-7062, cell

Also

I am owner and community manager for the LinkedIn group?Seattle Sales, Marketing and Advertising Professionals, which has 4900+ members, and one of the first million members of LinkedIn (2004).

I am a volunteer and served as a board member (2013-2019) for the?Friends of the Seattle Public Library. I continue to manage the company page on LinkedIn.

When I lived in Orange County, I was a volunteer for the Friends of the City of Orange Library.

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