Where do I even start?

Ready for some brutal statistics?

• 63% of employees say "My company cares more about productivity than employee career development"
• 59% of employees say "My company rarely or never helps me explore opportunities for growth outside their current department."
• 54% of employees say "I feel on my own when it comes to career development at my company"
• 46% of employees say "My manager doesn't know how to help me with career development"
• 44% of employees say "My company doesn't value my career development"

and the most brutal one....

• 47% of Gen Z say "I get better career advice from ChatGPT than my manager."

Source Here

OUCH.

These statistics are hard for me to hear.

Unfortunately, based on my observation and experience of speaking with thousands of businesses and training 10s of thousands of employees.... these statistics seem very close to reality.

I get it. Career Growth can be hard. I've studied every best practice I could find for the last 2 years. I've networked with the best of the best in the talent development industry, and earned my Certified Professional in Talent Development credential. I've written 86 articles about it now just here on LinkedIn, and dozens more in magazines. Interviewed on dozens of podcasts. I've helped 100s of businesses design and develop their talent development program.

And quite honestly.... before I wrote this article today... I think if an individual asked me "Where do I even start" on my career development?" My answer would be long and complicated. Same if a business owner asked me "Where do I even start with my talent "development program?"

Because.... as the statistics above prove out.... most companies don't even know where to start.

And I truly think a big reason why is because it is going to take ALOT of digging to uncover all of the factors, influences, trends, data points, skill sets, etc to really build a best in class career development solution for a single individual... and for a entire company.

But we have to start somewhere right?

Because if we don't.... we just stay stuck in our career. A few weeks ago I wrote about 17 additional reasons why we stay stuck. And also why we Fear Starting Something New.

And about 18 months ago, I wrote an article called What skills should we actually train on? Start with this. My core message in this article is to ask yourself "What skill sets relative to my job description would I like to improve on or strengthen?". Not a bad place to start.

But current me thinks there is even a better way.

Alright.... that's enough back story. Lets get into the best answer now and today's Lesson!

IDENTIFY WHAT IS CRITICAL TO SUCCESSFUL PERFORMANCE, AND MASTER THAT.

I think in today's economy.... most businesses are asking us to be experts at everything.

Don't believe me? Look at any job description.

There are typically at least 10-20 "Job Responsibilities", "Duties", and/or "skills required".

So what do most people do?

They either don't develop any of their skills, or they develop skills that don't really have a big impact to their successful performance. Maybe we try to be a "jack of all trades, and master of none?"

The pareto principle comes into play here. I can almost guarantee there is one job responsibility or task that any employee does that takes around 20% of their time, but delivers 80% of their impact to the business.

If you have a TOP TIER job description writer at your organization, this typically would be the VERY first bullet of the job description. The brutal truth is many job descriptions are not completely accurate to what the actual job tasks are.

So how do we identify that ONE job responsibility?

We have to understand which task has the biggest impact to our organization.

A question you could ask yourself is:

When i do (insert job responsibility here) effectively, it has this (impact to our organization)

I think what this fun and maybe painful exercise will uncover is many of your job duties are kind of fillers. They may have a little bit of impact. But today, we need to find the biggest impact tasks.

Because guess what.... if we become an ABSOLUTE MASTER at the highest impact task, that makes us more valuable to the organization. That makes our self-confidence skyrocket. That makes us feel good. That puts us in a better position for taking on additional responsibility that is high impact. All of the rewards are in mastery.... aka "THE TOP 10 PERCENT" of people in your field.

So you might be saying, well Dan.... I'm already pretty good at the most impactful task. Or if you have a team, you might tell me that they are already pretty good at that task.

And that's where I like to bring in perspective.

Sure, you might be good at sales. You might be one of the best salespeople at your company. But if I invited 10,000 salespeople from across the country to a skills competition, where would you rank?

I know.... its a tough question.

Don't beat yourself up. As I say with all self-assessment type questions.... this isn't meant to be pass or fail. Just meant to understand the gaps and where to improve.

Sales is a pretty good example now that I'm writing this. Maybe salespeople work at crafting better emails... or their "pitch"... or a 100 other "skills" that have some impact. But that's why most salespeople stay in the bottom 90%. They are not focused on developing their highest impact skillset. And maybe, just maybe, their employers aren't helping them focus either. They might tell their salespeople to get better at data entry or reporting or something. Which is important.... but not the highest impact.

When I was in sales, I made it my personal goal to be in the Top 10% of salespeople in whatever company I worked for. I figured out that the biggest impact on the business was to convert prospects who are using the competition to using our product instead. I quickly identified that the skill I was not great at was being a trusted advisor to prospects. I immediately studied everything possible I could from the TOP SALES GURU's in the country on that one specific skill. I studied the books. I went to seminars. I was relentless in developing that one specific skill because I knew it had the biggest impact. I eventually became the go-to expert in my field. Prospects would call me and ask for my advice. I still sucked at reporting and data entry.... but i was converting business left and right. And the rewards were pretty awesome. My co-workers who were great at data entry weren't selling anything.

Alright.... enough of story time- lets get into action!

ACTION TIME:

1. List out all of your current Task/Duties/Functions that you do in a given week. Next to each one, write the impact it has on the organization. Rank them from HIGHEST IMPACT to LOWEST IMPACT.
2. Then it's self assessment time. If you were in a room with 10,000 people that do that same task, and a skill competition took place.... where would you likely end up bottom 50%? Top 50%? Top 10%? Honesty is key.
3. What impact COULD you have if you optimized your skillset on that highest impact Task/Duty/Function and become one of the best at it in the country? What impact would that have for you personally?
4. If you have a team of people, start thinking about their tasks. Are you spreading out their focus too thin? How can you help them be an ABSOLUTE EXPERT at one specific Task/Duty/Function? Start thinking of their full Career Journey. Help them achieve mastery in the most important skill over the next 6-12 months, then move on to the next most important skill. Soon you will be surrounded by all A+ players and your team will be having a MASSIVE IMPACT.

Whoa.... I'm excited after writing this one, and I know a high impact skill myself I need to go work on right now. As always.... I am SO THANKFUL that you've taken a moment of your time today to read through todays article. I value your time, and promise to provide fresh, actionable content week after week. We as leaders need to inspire growth and learning in the workplace now more than ever.... as well as make sure we continue to develop ourselves to stay on top of our game. (and be in the top 10% of the 10,000 people I invited in your field lol). Thanks again for subscribing!!

Your Friend,

Dan