Achieve Success from Setbacks: The Secret is being "At Cause"

“I got screwed!”

"…but it wasn't my fault!" Bruce was really upset and voiced his displeasure with the topic at a two-day offsite management training. Bruce was rejecting the premise of an exercise that, in hindsight, taught me the most valuable leadership lesson I have ever learned.

Like many heavily-technical organizations, Oracle Customer Support had a lot of first-time managers who came up from the technical ranks, some of whom were promoted into management based upon their technical "chops" instead of people leadership skills. During the Ray Lane era, Oracle was growing rapidly and saw the value in investing their people in order to drive continued business success by providing training for all managers.

The exercise was simple enough. The facilitators paired us up and asked us to take turns explaining in 5 minutes to our partner about a recent time when we got "screwed" i.e. when we were treated unfairly in the workplace.

Suddenly, things got a lot more interesting. After we told our “story,” the facilitator then instructed us to "Explain the same situation but describe what you did to cause or contribute to the situation." Some people immediately "got it" - they described how they didn't manage up effectively, ignored early warning signs, didn't make sure there was a clear definition of success, or made other mistakes. Other people, like Bruce, rejected the idea that they had any responsibility for what happened to them because they simply could not re-orient their own thinking. They were trapped in a world where everyone had wronged them so they were doomed to spend their time just waiting for the next “unfair” situation to unfold - when the people, the process, or the company would "screw" them again.

"At Cause" or "At Effect"

The facilitators described these two ways of analyzing situations as the difference between being "at cause" or "at effect." If you were "at cause", you looked at historical situations with a focus on your actions - what you did, didn't do, so you could learn from them and do things differently next time to get a more positive outcome. If you approached setback in "at effect" mode, you looked at situations as the unfolding of events and circumstances that were out of your control. When in "at effect" mode, the personal conclusions were to "not work for jerks" or to "not deal with people who play politics" or other defensive rationalizations. Essentially, they missed an invaluable learning lesson.  

When looking at a situation that didn't turn out the way you had hoped, here are the questions to ask to get in "at cause" mode so that you can learn from mistakes, improve future outcomes, and advance your career.

• "What did I do?" - if you calmly think through a situation after some time has passed, you may very well realize that you did things without intending to that contributed to the problem. For example, early on in my career, I approached some professional conflict situations with a “winner take all” attitude. Instead of looking for compromises or creating “win-win” situations, I acted like a student on the Debate team where the desired outcome was for me to “win” and for someone else to lose. But after reflecting back on those situations and asking myself the question, I recognized the pattern, changed my approach, and was more effective in the workplace.
• "What didn't I do?" - Often inaction will cause failure. I had lunch with a former colleague recently who was let go from a project management role after only a few months. "Karen" took over a high-visibility project that was already behind schedule. The date had been moved, and she was brought in to make sure things stayed on track this time. But Karen quickly realized that even the new date was unrealistic and that the team couldn't hit the deadline without a significant change to the resource plan. As a newbie, she was afraid to bring bad news to her boss and make others look bad. So she stayed quiet, hoped for the best, and was let go once the news was finally out that another deadline would be missed. The "at effect" view of the situation is that the delay wasn't her fault and she "took the fall" for other people's poor planning and poorer execution. The "at cause" view of the situation is that she hurt herself by not having the courage to raise the issue early. If she had done so, it's possible that the executives could have given her more resources, reset the date, or done other things to help get it back on track. But she didn't give the organization that chance, because she was more comfortable "hoping for a miracle" and avoid delivering bad news than calling out the issue.
• "What would I do differently next time?" If the first two questions don't yield obvious answers, it's time to take a broader and deeper view of the issue. Sometimes, the answer actually is "I should avoid working in that kind of culture again" or "I should recognize when my manager is a weak sponsor and find a way to move into another team." In other words, sometimes the changes necessary to avoid a repeat situation are not just small tactical adjustments, but fundamental realizations about the environments and teams where you’re most likely to succeed. Coming to understand this made a huge difference in my career choices and progression.

It's easy to spot people who commit to an "at effect" approach and suffer the consequences throughout their careers. They either stay in the same role for years and years because they can't get more opportunity, or they bounce from job to job and have only bad things to say about their prior managers, teams, and companies. Inevitably, they set themselves up for more failure because no one rallies around a finger-pointing complainer who seems to have more than their share of disappointments. In teams and projects, we gravitate towards people who take ownership and focus more on how to achieve team success instead of "blamestorming" or making excuses.

If you can practice taking an “at cause” approach to challenges and setbacks, you’ll find that it becomes very natural over time and it will dramatically improve your ability to learn from prior setbacks and significantly improve your judgment. It’s also a trait that I’ve looked for when I’ve chosen the next wave of leaders in my teams.

If you have experiences or advice on how to learn from mistakes effectively, please share your comments below. If you liked any of the ideas in this post, please use the social media icons to share on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere.

Take Your "Self" out of "Self-Promotion"

No Way Out

The look on Sam’s face really caught my attention. I wasn’t sure if he was coming down with something, or if he had eaten something bad at lunch. He did not look well. “I have to do it. I know I have to do it. I hate the thought of it, but I know I’ll never get what I deserve if I don’t do it,” said Sam. He wasn’t talking about some brutal new workout program or cleaning the muck out of his rain gutters. He was talking about self-promotion.

I asked what was making him so uncomfortable. He responded, “Well, on one hand, I’ve made a lot of key contributions to the department that seem to go unnoticed. They won’t be visible unless I make them visible. On the other hand, I hate the thought of becoming the new ‘Mark.’” Mark was a notorious self-promoter in Sam’s department. Mark made a big deal out of even small achievements. It had gotten to the point that everyone dreaded his updates in team meetings because it became a predictable laundry list of the “great” things Mark had done that week. And Mark was oblivious to the fact that he was hurting his own credibility, and annoying his coworkers.

A Better Approach

Many high-tech professionals rising up the ranks struggle with this. We’ve all seen our share of “Marks.” In the best case, they’re boring. In the worst case, they’re distracting, obnoxious, and even malicious. But high-tech companies are full of smart, competitive, hard-working people who sometimes go unnoticed. Hoping that your accomplishments “speak for themselves” is a recipe for slow progression, and possibly even a pink-slip.

Here are five suggestions that will increase your visibility without suffering from “Mark-itis":

1. Don’t mistake “Necessary” for “Important” – If you’re working on something that your boss or her boss don’t care about, they also won’t care whether you’re doing it well or not. “Jack” was the Product Marketing Director on my team  who maintained the pricing guidelines for our enterprise software company. He worked hard but was frustrated that the CMO never paid any attention to him or recognized the results of his work. Without question, the price list was necessary – Sales couldn’t quote deals without it. But what was most important to the CMO was positioning, competition, and lead volume. The CMO never woke up in the middle of the night worrying about pricing, and he never ran around the office high-fiving people because of a great change to the pricing guidelines. Jack moved to another Marketing function where his hard work and talent would be “on the radar” with the CMO and his professional “stock” began to rise quickly.

2. Align with your manager on your career development plan (CDP) – Most managers like to promote the achievements of people on their team, which is another good reason to make sure you and your manager are aligned on your CDP. If you and your manager agree that your next step is to become a Senior QA Engineer, and that one of the key components is for you to demonstrate process improvements, it’s highly likely that she’ll  “advertise it” when you deliver. She wants her boss, your peers, and her peers to be aware of your achievements so that when she recommends you for promotion, those same people will think “Of course he’s being promoted. Look at all of the process improvements he’s delivered!”

3. Shift from “Me” to “We” – Good news tends to spread virally in high-tech companies. The best way to make it easy for people to advertise your accomplishments is to make it about their accomplishments. Consider these two emails:

Version 1:

From: Mark

To: Sales Team

My social media tactics are paying off! We passed 5,000 views on our blog last month! I've been watching our competition, and I think they're starting to copy my moves. Oh well, I guess it's the "sincerest form of flattery," right? ;-)

-Mark

Version 2:

From: Sam

To: Sales Team

CC: VP of Engineering, VP of Public Relations

Good news. We passed 5,000 views on our blog last month. Blog traffic is now contributing more than 10% of our Sales leads.

Kudos to the PR and Engineering teams. Our product innovations and steady stream of interesting news are really getting people to “tune in” to our blog. Let’s keep it up!

-Sam

The second email celebrates a team accomplishment, puts the accomplishment in terms that the audience cares about (Sales cares about leads, not  blog views), and explicitly recognizes the contributions of others. Note the CC: to the heads of PR and Engineering, who will probably forward this good news to their teams (or maybe even to the CEO). “Sam” will be associated with a big success on something he owns (the corporate blog), lots of people will hear about it, and Sam hasn’t annoyed his co-workers with clumsy self-promotion. Score!

4. Focus on results, not your “hard work” – You led the project team through dozens of meetings over 6 months. You worked over the weekend to prepare the project summary. You even canceled a planned vacation when the project started to slip early on. Nobody cares. The right people will know what you did behind the scenes – calling it out just makes you a self-promoter. Quantify the results in the context of your department or company KPIs.

5. Take a long-term view – If you’re worried that celebrating a “team” win will mean that you don’t get enough “credit” for the critical role that you played, you’re missing the point. Career advancement, raises, bonuses, equity grants and other rewards rarely come from one single, heroic achievement. They come from continuous achievement, being a team player, and delivering bigger and bigger wins for the business over time. Being associated with a big win is enough, whether your efforts drove 80% or 20% of the results.  You’ll get the recognition and rewards that your contributions deserve without having to “apportion credit” across the team.

What strategies have you used to make your contributions more visible? Please share your experience. If you found this interesting, please use the toolbar below to share it with your network.

Get Comfortable with Corporate Politics

The Proverbial “Love-Hate” Relationship

Very early in my career, I was a technical support engineer and was pretty good at it. In fact, many colleagues asked me “You’re great with customers. Why aren’t you in Sales?” I would quip “Well, I have to sleep with myself at night.” You see, in my profession, I was dealing with all the problems that bad sales people created e.g. wrong expectations about what the products they sold could actually do. Also, I had a problem with money being the primary driver of my decision making and thereby clouding my vision for what’s best for customers. On the other hand, I also understood that salespeople are “royalty” in the company. They are the ones that take on a lot of risk and deliver the revenues that feed product innovation and ultimately my paycheck. Thus, I had another saying “I love sales people twice a year… when I get my 6-month bonus!” It’s apparent why some salespeople get away with questionable actions.

In the latter part of my high-tech career, I transitioned into Marketing. I was catching up with Larry, a CMO colleague of mine when he described his “love-hate” relationship with Sales. “When they hit their number, it’s because they are great salespeople. But when they miss their number, it’s because Marketing didn’t deliver the support they needed - air cover, leads, tools and training, competitive intelligence, and more.” Larry also shared a memorable exchange he had when his VP of Sales asked “Why don’t you drop everything and get your whole team to help me make my Q1 number?” Larry responded “Because I have to help you make your 2011 number!”

CEOs create their leadership team to execute the corporate strategy for the company. Every line of business ("LOB") function has clear goals to ensure the company hits the quarterly and annual plan. But misalignments in priorities frequently manifest in functional and even departmental goals. Although Marketing, Sales, and other departments have a shared commitment to the “corporate plan,” they frequently diverge in how to get there. 

Typical Line-of-Business Tensions

Every company has natural tensions between business functions. Here are some examples:

• Marketing-Sales: Marketing is responsible for both near-term (qualified leads) and long-term (market positioning, thought leadership) initiatives that support Sales, but Sales mostly cares about the immediate-term e.g. “how are you going to help me make my number this quarter?”

• Sales-Engineering: Sales needs more product features to sell, but Engineering is constrained by resources. They also disagree about which features are most important for customers. And Sales doesn’t primarily care about product quality, unless customers start complaining – causing Sales to waste valuable “selling time” reviewing product issues.

• Engineering-Services: Engineering frequently wants to release more products faster, and often defines “done” as code-complete, QA-passed.  But Services is very concerned about “whole product” – end-to-end product quality, documentation, installation, usability, supportability, support readiness, etc. Low ratings in any of these categories will eat into Services margins and create customer satisfaction headaches.
• The list goes on with Finance, IT, HR, etc.

Corporate Politics – “Love it or Leave it” is Not an Option

In the same way that the US constitution is designed with the 3 branches (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial), each corporate function along with their natural business tensions are like a built-in “checks and balances.” Getting alignment between business functions is not difficult to achieve provided the right leadership team and process is in place. In this economy, high-tech companies are demanding higher productivity and greater results to catch up to or out-pace their competitors. This puts you and your colleagues under a lot of pressure to perform. When you depend on another business function to get your job done, you don’t have a lot of time or patience for bureaucracy or politics. However, you need to find ways to embrace these tensions or you will spend all your time “fighting the system” vs. getting it to “work for you”.

1. Build Strong Relationships – Once you get to know someone at a personal level (and vice versa), it’s much easier to work through professional difficulties and disagreements. Developing mutual respect and personal connections among colleagues lays the foundation for constructive business relationships. As a former CMO, I’ve had some of my greatest breakthroughs when I’ve vehemently disagreed with my CTO on our Go-to-Market strategy. But since we were good friends, we were able to respect each other’s position amidst our heated debates and got to a common point of execution. This would not have been possible if we had an antagonistic relationship. 
2.  Play Psychologist – “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” is one of Steven Covey’s famous quotes from “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” If you’re able to understand other people’s incentives and objectives then you will have a valuable perspective and greater ability to communicate with them effectively – and only then should you advocate your position. We work extensively with high-tech executives on how to successfully navigate through “Line of Business Tensions” so they’re able to influence decision-makers.
3. Embrace Conflict – One of our earliest blog posts talked about why avoiding conflict is a bad for your career. It’s certainly easier said than done, but when you are in the heat of conflict, don’t take it personally. Business is business so you should expect that each LOB has their own business interest in mind. A good person with the best intentions may disagree with you and that doesn’t make them a bad person. Get on the same page so you can agree to what can and cannot be done. For example, Marketing execs should work closely with their Sales VPs to map out quarterly programs. You only have a limited Marketing budget and resources so get your Sales VP to agree on what’s most important to her and then lock-in the plan with her. That way when her priorities change (and they will), you can both come back to the mutually agreed upon plan. 
4.  Stay Focused on the BIG PICTURE – You lose credibility when you’re viewed as a person who acts out of self-interest. The more you demonstrate that you are thinking outside and beyond your own personal interests and LOB function, the more you’ll be viewed as a team player and leader. Earning the trust and respect from other executives will give you more influence on big decisions and will swing those decisions in your favor.

Distractions and disruptions from corporate politics will sap away your valuable time and energy. Your ability to focus solely on what you have control over is a necessary survival skill. Thriving in a corporate culture where people play fair and by the rules is ideal so that you don’t have to waste time an energy looking “behind your back.” On the other hand, if you are able to master the ability to mitigate and filter out the toxic effects from people who are overtly trying to undermine you, you’ll be able to rise up to the next level… where the political dynamics are most certainly even more intense! More on that in a future blog post….

What strategies have you used to work through corporate politics? Please share your experience. If you found this interesting, please use the toolbar below to share it with your network.

A 2012 Resolution: Keep Your Enemies Close

“All’s Fair in Love and War”

“Good news!” is what she said to me on the phone. She timed it while I was traveling, so it would be harder for me to react to what I saw as yet another attempt at professional sabotage. Over the years, I had become very suspicious of her because of “honest mistakes” that either hurt me politically, helped her, or both. This one made it crystal clear. There was no chance this one was a "mistake."

We’ll call her “Nicole.” Roughly 3 months before, our department had reorganized and our GM decided that Nicole’s favorite direct report (who we’ll call “Martin”) was going to be moved onto my team. Nicole had hired Martin originally, and groomed him for over a year. They had the highest level of respect and loyalty for each other.

Meanwhile, I had just extended an offer to a very promising young candidate. The “good news,” according to Nicole, was that she had suggested to Martin that the new employee joining my team should report to him (effectively promoting him to Manager), and that Martin was very excited about the plan.

Nicole’s tone was enthusiastic and friendly on the surface. But she knew that the position she had put me in would be damaging. I could either go along with the plan, in which case Martin would get an effective promotion orchestrated by Nicole, or I could undo the plan, in which case Martin would perceive me as taking away a deserved promotion. Either way, Martin would end up being even more loyal to Nicole (with the promotion) or would be demotivated in his new role (as an individual contributor) because I blocked his promotion. Checkmate.

This was a huge professional “wake up call” for me – that there were actually people who would set traps to undermine other employees for their own benefit. Because I was responsible for outbound product marketing and Nicole ran inbound product management, avoiding her was not an option. I came to the realization that I was now at the stage of my career where I had to “grow up” or be crushed by the “big boys” (and girls). I had to find a way to work with Nicole.

Beware of Your Enemy

Inevitably, everyone in high-tech encounters professional enemies i.e. adversaries that undermine your professional reputation, conflict with your value system, and sound your internal alarm for “fair play” and “justice.”

As common as personality conflicts are in the workplace, they are the toughest problems to solve because you’d simply prefer not to deal with those types of people on any level whether professional or social. Socially, you can control who you interact with. However, broken professional relationships can be cancerous to your career success:

• Wasted Time and Energy – it takes a lot of energy to dislike someone. This negative energy is wasted in matters that are counter-productive to the business. It also takes away from your job satisfaction.
• Lost Productivity – avoiding someone who is on your team or who is part of your natural workstream makes for inefficient work.
• Stalled Career Advancement and Promotions – it’s easier for your manager to promote you if she knows that there is consistent support throughout the organization. Adversaries can do a lot of damage to your reputation and make it hard for your manager or others to support your promotion.

On the other hand, if you’re able to work through these differences, you can do a lot of good for yourself in building up key skills as well as your reputation. Managed properly, people will recognize you as:

• A Team Player - Companies spend millions on “teamwork.” At Oracle in the mid-90s, Ray Lane was adamant in rallying every employee in every function to focus all energies on beating Microsoft instead of fighting each other. If you can be a role model for “teamwork” and create highly functional cross-organization teams, you will significantly increase your chances of getting more responsibility and rising up the ranks.
• A Leader - Leaders work through differences and come up with solutions. Anyone can point out problems. Great leaders always find a way to work with all types of people and to motivate them to a common cause.
• Politically Savvy - You simply can’t avoid “Politics,” because “Politics” still exist everywhere and won’t avoid you. Playing good politics is required and it doesn’t mean you have to compromise your values. True North by Bill George provides a great foundation for understanding how your personal values align to your professional goals. People will respect you as someone who understands the game, but doesn’t “play dirty.”

“Keep Your Friends Close. Keep Your Enemies Closer!”

By the time HR gets involved, it’s usually a lose-lose situation or at best win-lose i.e. someone will lose. While it’s improbable that you’ll get along equally well with every person in your workplace, it’s also impractical to think that you can turn all adversarial relationships around. Take the first step to improve a bad situation. It’s to your benefit (as the old saying goes) to “…keep your enemies closer.” Here’s how:

1. Be the bigger person - If you lower yourself to internal infighting, people above, across, and below you will notice. And even if you “defeat” your enemy, people will be hesitant to build strong relationships with you because they don’t want to become your future “victim.” Resist innate behaviors to defend and attack by controlling or better yet disconnecting your emotions. Some of my greatest professional missteps were caused by inability to control my emotional response and reactions.
2. Stay in frequent, close contact – this gives you an “early warning system” so you can look out for their tactics. Find things in common to talk about. Look for “windows of opportunity” to make small talk. Then build up to non-work related topics, hobbies and shared interests to discuss. If you can find a “real person” within your nemesis that will help you to relate better to him in business situations down the road.  It’s also possible that you can slowly build some trust over time, but don’t be so naïve in thinking that given the opportunity he won’t throw you under the bus!
3. Keep focused on the business - Business is business so don’t make it personal. You will set an example for your team and send a strong message up your management chain if you are committed to put your interpersonal issues aside for the good of the business. It’s useless to worry about things that aren’t in your control. You can’t control what other people do (to you) but you have complete control over what you can do for the business.
4. Promote your enemy - Most of my executive clients have the greatest difficulty with this part. Finding ways to promote your enemies will clearly demonstrate that you are not competing with them and instead are focused on company success vs. your own personal agenda. This is a very powerful technique to disarm your enemies and demonstrate to the organization that you’re well above petty in-fighting.

Since then, I’ve faced many more “Nicoles” (and “Nicks”) in my travels as a high-tech exec. At best I’ve been successful in turning difficult relationships into productive, collaborative ones. At worst, I’ve kept my arch enemies at bay - limiting their damage by keeping them on my radar.

What strategies have you used to work through personal conflict situations? Please share your experience. If you found this interesting, please use the toolbar below to share it with your network.

Don't Roll Your Sleeves Up Too Far

“I’ll Do Whatever it Takes”

I’ve never been a “not my job” kind of person, whether I was a front-line technical services professional at Oracle or a VP at a billion dollar software company like Business Objects. If the team had a job to do, and if I needed to stretch outside of my basic job description to help get the job done, I’d gladly do it. Moreover, I truly felt that I was  modeling the business culture that I wanted my team to embrace and “leading by example.” It’s only in hindsight that I’ve become aware of the pitfalls and downside of that attitude, and how it could hurt me, my team, and even the company.

I was a VP of Marketing at a startup company. It was the day before a big trade show and we were inside a large convention hall setting up our booth. I had decided to run the event with minimal staff. That meant that there was only one other person from my team there to set up the booth. Not only would it take much longer with one person, but there were some sections that were physically impossible for one person to assemble. So I did what I thought any team-player and startup person would do. I spent hours helping to screw pieces together, hang graphics, arrange collateral, test demo stations, and more.

The new VP of Sales (we’ll call him “Rich”), who had spent most of his career in very large organizations, came by during the setup because he wanted to talk to me about an important partner meeting that we were tag-teaming later that week at the show. Rich and I got our game-plan together and outlined exactly what each of us would do to impress the partner and make them excited to do business with us. As we parted after our meeting, Rich said “Well, you probably have to get back and vacuum the carpet in the booth.” I thought it was a good-natured joke about how I was really “rolling my sleeves up.” It wasn’t. In hindsight, he was clearly concerned and maybe even annoyed that his executive wingman for the big partner meeting was also the guy with an allen wrench assembling the booth. In my mind, I was being a team player. In Rich’s mind, I didn’t know my role and had chosen to apply myself to low-value, manual tasks rather than strategic opportunities. He probably wondered why we hadn’t chosen an “executive” to be our marketing leader.

Consider Your “Stage” Presence

We’ve written about company stages and stage-relevant skills before. As your company grows and evolves, the way you execute your job and even the image and tone that you project must change.

Early-stage startups are often wary of “big company” executives coming in. They’re afraid that a new executive will join who’s no longer capable of doing real work, and instead just wants to build out a team, hire an admin, and set priorities and direction without helping on execution. When my startup was only 15 people in total, I often didn’t have any options when it came to handling mundane or administrative tasks here and there. To me, it didn’t matter that in my prior job at 4,000-person company, I had a global team of 35 and an admin. The work had to get done.

As we got more traction and our growth accelerated, we got into bigger deals, bigger customers, and bigger partnerships. We got on the radar of our competitors because they saw us as a potential disruptor in a very large market. The culture generally remained team-oriented, fun, and aggressive without being self-important or self-serious and I loved it. By the time the Rich came in, we were significantly larger and still scaling the business. In that world, executives didn’t set up booths.

My failure to recognize that perspective (which was also likely shared by other new-hires who came from larger companies) created unnecessary obstacles . In one sense, it’s as if some ideas or initiatives that came out of my team were viewed through one of two lenses 1) a good idea from a strategic, experienced marketing executive and industry veteran, or 2) a questionable idea from a “grunt” who puts booths together. That made me less effective, created some headaches for my team, and was a (minor, but meaningful) negative for the company.

Here are some suggestions to avoid typecasting yourself in a “small company” role as your organization grows and transitions to the next stage:

• Recognize and embrace organizational change – Once successful, your company will grow and the personalities and attitudes will evolve. This is true for mid-sized companies growing from 1,000 employees to 5,000 as well as early stage startups growing from 10 to 100. Rather than trying to preserve the status quo in terms of culture, approach, and how you perform your job, recognize this change and push yourself to evolve ahead of the curve, not behind it.
• Play your position –It’s an old marketing joke that you can’t market the same product simultaneously as a floor-wax and a tooth-polish. It’s true for people as well. Earlier in my career, I was a featured speaker at a breakfast seminar. One of the field marketing managers no-showed, so I volunteered to help hand out name tags. That’s when the lone marketing manager said “For this event to be a success, I need everyone here to see you as a subject matter expert when you’re on stage. If they see you first as the guy handing out name tags, they won’t be able to accept you as a thought leader when you’re up there presenting. So do me a favor and don’t help with registration.” It made perfect sense then but I should have internalized it in a big-picture way rather than as an isolated event.
• Do what’s best for the company with a long-term view – If you’re like me, you feel snobby, self-important, and egotistical when you don’t pitch in to help. But a short-term decision to “help out” can create long-term challenges. It’s not worth creating doubt or potential instability for your team just to fix a minor emergency. Look for other ways to fill in the gaps. In my case, I easily could have spent a few hundred dollars of my budget to get a contractor to help set up the booth, or even pulled in another employee. If I had found another creative solution, it would have resulted in better outcomes not just for me but for my team and for the company.

How have you adjusted your approach as a leader in a high-growth company environment? Please share your experience. If you found this interesting, please use the toolbar below to share it with your network.

Survive and Thrive with a Bad Manager

I Quit!

Early in my career, I joined a startup that went IPO. The company was trying to figure out how to scale revenues and operations. I was in technical support and our tiny 10 person department was feeling the stress from a growing customer base with buggy products. While the chaotic, responsive nature of supporting customers really excited me, my manager, who we’ll call Frank, made my life miserable. In short, he redeployed resources away from supporting customers instead to work on “pet projects” that made him look good in front of the Sales executives. Since I was the guy that was “left behind,” his reallocation of resources effectively doubled my workload and made it extremely challenging (what felt like ten-fold) for me to be responsive to customer needs. Worse yet, Frank kept beating on me about my productivity.

I loved my job. I was learning, making good money and people told me I was great with customers. However, Frank increasingly made my job unbearable over a 15 month period and my anger and frustration was spilling into my personal life. When Frank was promoted to Director, I thought for sure I was “cooked” because his work priorities were more visible in the company and therefore I expected my situation to get even worse (if that was even possible). Just as I started planning how I would resign, something absolutely unexpected and wonderful happened… I got a new manager! Sherry transferred from the Engineering team and now reported to Frank as a 1^st level manager. Previously, Sherry and I collaborated on several customer escalations and we had a good rapport. She was very metrics and process oriented.

After a few weeks in her new role, Sherry called me into her office. I sat down in her guest chair and she turned her computer screen around so I could see it. She had a dashboard that showed I was the most productive member on the team! She then proceeded to tell me that I was doing a great job (fielding and closing the most customer cases in the department) and to keep it up. Over the next 18+ months, I implemented training programs, worked closely with Engineering to improve the products, all while continuing to deliver support and excel with customers. I really hit my stride and leveraged those experiences and strong business contributions get to my next big role.

Things are Clearer on the “High Road”

It’s hard to be rational when you’re under attack. A natural reaction would have been for me to lash out and defend myself against Frank or on the opposite end of the spectrum, to crawl up in a ball and continue to absorb the abuse. Here are some steps you can take to gain control of your circumstance and come out with a stronger career position:

1. Stay focused on improving your skills – if you enjoy your work content, keep developing your functional and (if applicable) technical skills. Knowledge and experience are key to growing your career. If you stay focused on learning and doing the best job that you can then you’ll also build up your reputation. Just as your “bad manager” may have you under his microscope, consider that everyone else you interact with is also watching how you handle yourself. Are you perceived as hard working and dependable? Many of them may not even be aware of your dire situation so maintaining a good professional reputation is important because that will follow you wherever you go. Spending any amount of time playing “victim” will be counterproductive and slow down your development. One bad (manager) relationship doesn’t define who you are so keep things in that perspective.
2. Fight personal agendas with facts – Numbers don’t lie so make certain that you are able to quantify your productivity and work quality according to how you’re being measured. Whatever your manager is criticizing you about, the best way to move from subjectivity to objectivity is to get metrics-oriented. This is the first step in getting on the same page with him or her. Your metrics ultimately tie to departmental goals and objectives that are also quantifiable. Make sure that your work is measurable and aligned to those objectives. Finally, many disagreements have to do with hidden personal agendas. Get to know what your manager’s personal agenda is and decide whether or not it conflicts with your value system. In his book, True North, Bill George discusses the need for every leader to get a hold of his/her “Internal Compass” and how professional failures are quite often associated with compromises in their “values and principles.” My compass was pointing away from Frank’s but completely in line with Sherry’s.
3. Find supporters – Although I felt isolated under Frank’s attack, because I had strong working relationships with most others, I was pretty confident that he wouldn’t fire me. Generate support from within your department and also inter-departmentally, especially with your managers’ peers. Make sure that they experience and observe you directly and not just through the “filter” of your bad manager. This up-swell of “fans” will counteract the opinion of your bad manager. Additionally, I was fortunate when Sherry became my manager because she created a shield between me and Frank. I knew she had high regard for my work ethic and contributions and would protect me from further unfair accusations by Frank.
4. Run a marathon, not a sprint – Marathon runners are able to endure a lot of pain between mile 1 and 26. They train their bodies and minds to perform under adverse conditions and to get past that pain. Your current circumstance is just one stage in your (career) marathon where you are being tested. Be patient and try to work through your situation. Leaders learn as much from adversity (sometimes more) than when everything is going their way. If you make a quick to move (i.e. transfer out or even quit) then you’ll be robbing yourself of a great learning opportunity. My management and leadership style was significantly shaped from the negative behaviors I observed in Frank and other bad managers. While you can learn a lot from a good manager, it’s the bad ones that teach you what not to do.

I had a great 3+ year run at the company, both professionally and financially. I’m glad I didn’t “pack up” and quit while under duress because I wasn’t getting along with Frank. I endured his management tactics and when he eventually moved into a Sales role, I was happy that I “outlived” him. It really would have been a shame to prematurely quit a good job. Instead, I left on my own terms - and for a much better opportunity than I would have gotten after only about a year of experience.

If you have any good stories of how you overcame bad management or what you’ve learned from bad managers, please comment and share this blog with your colleagues using the social media toolbar below.

Get What YOU Want from Executives

An Accidental Enemy

Dean was a startup colleague of mine from a few years back. As the Vice President of Alliances he was successful in creating a partner channel that boosted our revenues. I always found him to be smart, engaging, and approachable, which I’m sure contributed in part to his success in building relationships. That’s why I was so surprised one day when he called me with a problem.

“He literally won’t speak to me,” said Dean. Although I had since moved on to my next role, I’m glad he felt comfortable calling me for advice. Apparently in trying to help the organization as well as to help a peer executive, Dean had created a professional enemy on the executive team, possibly permanently. The irony that a person who had developed hundreds of successful organizational alliances had created such a determined enemy dumbfounded me. 

Dean explained that in his efforts to recruit new alliance partners, he’d been asking the Product team to invest in developing connectors to third-party platforms. His requests always fell to the bottom of the priority list, so they were rarely addressed in the product. This connectivity was Dean’s #1 priority. Being a motivated and creative leader, Dean found the perfect partner to build connectors. Their references were solid, rates were reasonable, and they could address Dean’s needs while taking low-priority grunt-work off of Engineering’s plate. This was a “win-win” if ever there was one!

He shared the plan with the executive team at the next staff meeting, expecting a warm reception for the idea. Instead, a tornado of questions swirled around the room.

CEO: “We added 15 engineers last quarter. Why can’t they build the interfaces?”

VP of Sales: “Is our platform so complex that we have to go to third party specialists just to integrate it with other applications?”

COO: “Who’s going to manage the partner who does the work?”

CFO: “Whose budget does this come from? Is this already in the expense plan?”

Then the VP of Engineering became extremely defensive, and couldn’t address the pros or cons of Dean’s plan because he had never seen it. The tense meeting concluded, and most of the executives left the room feeling concerned about dysfunction in the team, and wondering if there was a problem in Engineering. That’s when the VP of Engineering decided he would never speak to Dean again. From his perspective, Dean had executed a frontal assault on his leadership, his product and technology, his team, and his process. To him, that was inexcusable.

Executive Empathy

Empathy is something we all practice consciously or subconsciously in our closest personal relationships. But somehow that gets left at home when we head off to work. “Putting yourself in others’ shoes” significantly impacts the way we interact with, react, and respond to others. In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell highlights a study that supports this. In a nutshell, patients don’t sue doctors that they like. Doctors who engaged with patients and showed empathy were far less likely to be sued for malpractice, irrespective of other factors like training and education and even whether they were at fault. Empathy works.

Executive Empathy puts this concept in the context of an executive. And the point isn’t to “Think like an executive.” The point is to “Think like each executive.” Every business function has different metrics they manage to. Marketing is primarily measured on metrics like lead volumes and sales pipeline. Finance cares about revenue accounting and forecasting, balance sheet, and cash flow. Services is accountable for revenue from services, margin, consultant utilization and customer satisfaction. So while every executive wants the company to be “successful,” they view problems and opportunities through different lenses because they’re measured differently.

Beyond that, there are natural “conflicting interests” that arise from each executive’s metrics. For example, Sales is accountable for revenue, and in most situations doesn’t care a lot about how much money is spent to generate that revenue, whereas the CFO and CMO operate within fixed budgets and have to be careful about overspending. Add in the fact that each executive has their own “hot buttons,” their own leadership style for example, directive vs. consensus driven. Moreover, every executive has personality and character traits that influence their decision making process.  You can see that executive empathy is complex.

Stephen Covey recommends “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” However, in the fast paced high-tech business environment, people’s  natural tendency is to advocate first and understand second, which usually works against their ability to influence executives. Furthermore, they tend to advocate for things from their perspective. While they don’t deliberately ignore others’ perspectives, they don’t seek to understand and empathize either, and that’s a missed opportunity.

If you want to advance in your career, you must be able to influence executives, so executive empathy is essential. In Dean’s case, his lack of executive empathy turned a great idea into professional failure. He could have strengthened his relationship with the VP of Engineering and made them both look like heroes. Instead the result was public embarrassment that left him with an enemy on the executive team.

Nurture, not Nature

The good news is that you don’t need to be born with executive empathy. It’s definitely a learned skill that you can continually refine. This is one of the key elements of our Executive Communicator 2-day workshop. To date, attendee feedback has been unanimously positive. In fact, a CIO said “I would have everyone on my 200 person team go through this training so that they can communicate and effectively influence executive decisions.” Executive communication isn’t something you want to learn in remedial training after making a public mistake. And for managers, don’t wait until someone on your team has flamed out in front of an executive audience before making this this important investment in their success… and ultimately yours.

If you have any good stories of a “CLM” (Career Limiting Moment) in front of an executive audience, or insights or highlights to share, please comment below and share this blog with your colleagues using the social media toolbar below.

Avoid Career-Damaging Job Transitions - Part 1: Seeing with 20-20 Vision

A High-Risk Career Move

Colin was 2^nd in command on the high-powered marketing team of a hot, market-disrupting high-tech software company that was about to eclipse the $1B revenue mark. He had started as a Director and over the course of 4 years, established a solid track record and gained the trust of the CEO. His personal “stock” was at a career high, but he wanted more. He wanted to be the CMO, but knew that would not happen in the near term so he decided to pack up his talents and take them elsewhere. 

He joined an up-and-coming startup and got the CMO title and “executive staff” prestige he was looking for. However, within 5 months, he unceremoniously left the company after never really getting traction or having an impact at the new company.

How can a smart, experienced, successful executive put his career at risk by making such a bad decision? Interestingly enough, this is an all-too-common occurrence in Silicon Valley.

In Search of “Fame and Glory”

Let’s take a close look at some of the factors that cloud the vision of high-tech rock stars. Being heavily recruited can certainly boost your ego and fuel emotional-based decision making. Here are the “blind spots” to look out for so you are sure you make the best and most informed decision for your career based on a thorough assessment.

• The “Big Pay Day”– It’s easy to get caught up in all the hype about your own success and role you played in your current company’s success – anxious to “monetize” your growing skill-set and contribution quickly. More money, more options, more responsibility and a bigger title at a new employer are hard to turn away from.
• Just give me the ball! – The thrill of making game-changing decisions that dramatically impact the business gets your endorphins surging. However, the intense desire to finally be the “big cheese” and to “do it your way” can be a seed of impatience and even impulsiveness.
•  The grass is greener on the other side – Working at your current company for any period of time provides you with first-hand knowledge of all the warts and wrinkles. There are likely varying degrees of frustration on things you feel should be done faster or in a different way.  As frustrations reach intolerable levels, you’re ready to make a move - perhaps prematurely.
• Follow the Leader – Having a great manager is one of the most important factors in your success and job satisfaction. So it’s natural to want to follow that manager to her next role. The danger here is that you are easily swayed to join the company based on your manager’s reasons, not yours.

Look Before You Leap

In the fast paced high-tech industry, you are usually reacting to new opportunities that come onto your radar. This reactive, reflexive approach makes you a slave to the process that is being dictated by recruiters or the companies that are courting you.  Here are some keys to help you take a proactive approach to your career management.

• Money Doesn’t Buy Success – Financial success is a big motivator in high-tech. But don’t just compare your last paystub with what’s in your new offer letter. Think about your finances over a 3-4 year horizon. Guaranteed cash comp, incentive comp, and options create complex earning potential scenarios. What’s your compensation growth potential in each role? What about things like employee stock purchase plan? Matching 401(k) programs? What are the growth prospects for each company and how will that affect each company's valuation? However, while figuring out which role and company puts you in the best position to make more money is an important task,  it doesn’t really matter if you don’t survive through your vesting schedule i.e. like Colin.
• Don’t believe your own press  – It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and ego gratification of being pursued by a new potential employer, but their enthusiasm to recruit you doesn’t mean that it’s the right move. Get objective counsel. Use a trusted resource who doesn’t have any strong connections to your current or prospective employer. Everyone could benefit from getting a unique perspective to evaluate high-tech companies in the Valley and relate that to your goals and skill-set. Let them ask you tough questions to help clarify your thinking and get you away from the emotion and excitement frenzy.
• Patience is a virtue – Recruiters and potential employers will push you hard to make a decision quickly, maybe even with an “exploding” (expiring) offer letter. Those timelines are usually artificial so you should negotiate the decision timeframe that works for you and set expectations up front when you know the offer is coming. Switching companies is a huge decision and you should take the appropriate time you need to consider your options. You will have a different perspective when you have enough time to think it through “away from work.” You should assess whether a few changes in your current workplace would make you want to stay. In other words, if you could outlive the situation that is frustrating you (e.g. a bad manager, difficult co-workers, less than exciting work, etc.), being patient would pay off.
• Know what you “don’t know” – You know all of the unattractive things about your current workplace. Challenging personalities, bad decisions that have been made, frustrating processes and norms. You don’t know any of those things about the prospective employer, but you should know that they exist. Their special warts and wrinkles will inevitably surface as soon as your “honeymoon period” in the new role is over. Even if you’re the one calling the shots, “wiping the slate clean” in a new company doesn’t guarantee that everything will go your way, so be careful that you remain objective about the new opportunity in front of you. Moreover, investigate. Reach out to your LinkedIn network to see who’s worked there, can give you direct feedback, political insights, and if you are replacing someone, why did that person fail?

Throughout the interview process, both sides are “showing their best.” In fact, you’re likely “playing the part” so well that you’ve convinced yourself that it’s the perfect match. Force yourself to challenge everything at face value and to probe deeper to see if it still holds true. Unbalanced optimism tilts the scale toward unrealistic expectations that could lead to an abrupt, premature exit similar to Colin’s.  There is no perfect job so having more of a “critical eye” will give you the 20-20 vision to clearly assess the pros and cons of each scenario.

In next week’s blog post we will explore the potholes and stumbling blocks associated with on-boarding into a new company and role and how to avoid them so that you get traction quickly. Download our High-Tech Job Search Advantage Program brochure to see more client service benefits.

What other insights can you share on career-damaging job transitions? All comments are welcomed.