Welcome back! I am so enjoying my new podcast and I hope you are too. I love kicking my managers butts and helping them think differently about REALLY why they aren’t getting the recognition they deserve. Why don’t they actually have a seat at the table. What is really holding them back from success. That is what this podcast IS ALL ABOUT.
And if you are one of those people, welcome, welcome welcome!
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Now at the beginning of this episode I called today’s episode a public service announcement and it is...if you learn nothing from me on this podcast except this one thing I will have done my job.
Middle managers, senior executives, I don’t care who you are. If you are still putting out fires at 2 in the morning. If you are relying on your expertise to get ahead. If you are getting stellar ratings on your performance reviews but you still aren’t getting a promotion to match - YOU HAVE GOT TO STOP DOING WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT.
I just had a really amazing conversation with a client about this today! She is the Vice President of HR and was six months ago when she hired me. She just signed on for another round of coaching so we were reflecting back on the past six months, how has she grown and where does to was to go?
She was telling me that when we first started working together, she responded to every little task. Her value was in her tasks. At one point, she was trying to negotiate a pay raise and she actually made a list of all the projects she was working on to build her business case. It didn’t work.
Maybe you have done that before too? Tried to negotiate something based on all the “stuff” you have accomplished. Did it work? I’d be curious to know. My hunch is even if it did work, it likely only got you a small % compared to what you could have earned if you truly knew your value.
So back to my client. I asked where is she now. She said, “Oh I don’t think about my tasks at all. I mean I do but that’s just work. The real confidence is coming for my ideas. I am being included in the conversation. I am being pulled aside and asked for my advice now. I am confident.”
Yes!!! But I never like just assuming that one is better than the other. And she was “happy” before we met. So I asked her which did she think is better.
Well for one, now she is actually doing her job as Vice President. So when she negotiated her pay increase AGAIN this past month. It was a no brainer. Her CEO said yes of course without batting an eye.
She also mentioned that she didn’t know what she didn’t know before. That she actually wasn’t aware that focusing on the task instead of the strategy was KEEPING her from getting ahead.
Maybe you are there too? Either it doesn’t occur to you that being a really great task master is not part of your job - if you want to be seen as a leader OR you know you need to get out of the weeds but aren’t sure how.
The good news? This podcast IS MADE FOR YOU!!!
Before we dig in, I want to clarify that I realize their are two tracks at work. There is the individual contributor track and there is the management track. And I am not at all saying that one is better than the other. If you want to rise the ranks as an IC, by all means keep doing what you are doing. It is working and by the time you retire, you will be pretty darn happy.
BUT if you are trying to switch over to management. Or you are already a manager but you are finding yourself doing all the same stuff you did as an IC AND NOW MORE. Then listen to me, and listen closely. Seriously, you GOT TO STOP DOING WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT. i am begging you.
Now what does that mean? How could you possibly stop doing what you are good at? Isn’t that job security? Isn’t that WHY you have the job you have? Isn’t that why people trust you?
The answer is yes and no. It might be why people trust you as an expert but it is NOT why they will trust you to be a leader at your company. It is not why they will trust you to have a seat at the table. It is not why they will trust you to present your ideas to the CEO.
Here is what I mean by letting go of what you are good at:
- I mean STOP being so Freakin’ organized. You have seriously got to stop having conversations with your boss about every little thing on your to do list. You have got to stop motivating your team through tasks and projects. You need to stop planning your week based on what is in your calendar.
Let go of what you are good at
- I mean STOP being so nice. If you are repeatedly told that you are the nice guy, that is a problem. I know this one oh too well because that was me. If harmony is your #1 strength, that is a problem when it comes to being seen as a leader. Now I am not advocating that you be mean instead. I am just saying, stop trying to people please all the time. Leaders can see right through it, guaranteed.
Let go of what you are good at
- I mean STOP relying on your expertise to get ahead. Maybe you have been doing the same thing for 15 years and you are really REALLY good at it. Great. I am so happy for you that you are good at something. But that something is not getting you a seat at the table. In fact, it is keeping you out of the leadership meetings. Because what they need at the table is someone who can think strategically, someone who can tie your expertise into the big picture. And that someone is not in the weeds all the time doing it all themselves.
Let go of what you are good at
- I mean STOP meeting deadlines. OK, you should still totally meet deadlines. But what I mean here is you have got to stop meeting the deadline by yourself. You have got to stop scrambling at the last minute to pull things together. Sometimes that may require extending a deadline. Especially if by doing so you can hit an even bigger target for the organization.
Let go of what you are good at
- I mean stop being a task manager. Just strike that word entirely from your vocabulary. From now on you are going to use words like “strategic” and “vision”. You are going to motivate your team through values and ideas and let someone else organize it all. Sound terrifying or impossible? Then that means you especially need to start operating this way.
Let go of what you are good at
- I mean STOP being so darn dependable. I have a client that responds to text messages from her boss while she is on a call with me. And she hired me. She paid me good money to be her coach. If she is doing that with me, imagine what she is doing at her job all day. There is nothing that breaks leadership trust more than responding within seconds to every single text. That is bad bad news.
Let go of what you are good at
- I mean STOP relying on your hard work to get ahead. STOP waiting for performance review time to talk about your professional development. STOP thinking that you will just get noticed. I know you “think” it’s being respectful but all it is really doing is showing your boss that you aren’t proactive, that you can’t think strategically and if you can’t speak up for yourself, how are you ever going to be able to lead a team.
Let go of what you are good at
So that’s it. Which one are you? You will know if you need too let go of what you are good are if you are too organized, too nice, too much of an expert, too reliant on deadlines, too much of a task manager, too dependable or working too hard.
Maybe you are 3 of these things. Maybe you are all 7. My question for you is WHY???
I have some ideas. But really I think it’s important to understand why you are doing things this way?
Is it because you don’t know any other way? I get it. How are you supposed to know what else if out there, unless you do something different.
Is it because you are too afraid to let go of what’s working? Of course you are. If you are like me and you’re in your mid forties it’s risky to make such a big career move. People depend on you. You don’t have the same energy or drive or ambition that you had in your 20s. I get it. Then why do SO MANY managers make this leap into leadership in their 40s? It’s because leadership requires wisdom. Strategic thinking requires that someone have loads of on the job experience, how else can they create a vision. It’s because it is actually your time. You know it or you wouldn’t still be listening to me ramble on.
How long have you been thinking about going for a promotion? How many hours a day do you spend knowing what you should be doing but not actually doing it? Think about it. Is it 6 hours a week? Six hours that you could be taking strategic action? Six hours that you could be networking or meeting people? Six hours that you could be asking better questions and getting to know the leadership team?
Stop wasting your hours! This all may sound harsh but I am telling you this because I truly care about your transformation. There just aren’t enough of them in the day. This is not useful for anyone. Plus, your company needs you to be a leader. Wouldn’t it be better for the organization to have you as the SVP instead of sucky mc suck suck over there.
Think about it. Can you do more for your organization? Think about the trade offs you are making by being in the weeds all the time. My client that I talked about earlier, she is NOW ACTUALLY ABLE TO DO HER JOB AS A VICE PRESIDENT. That is what they hired her to be and the CEO has even noticed her shift. Think about what brain power they are missing out on because you aren’t able to focus on the big picture and are always putting out fires.
Now here’s the thing. And this is a big BIG warning. You might even be wondering about it yourself. You are probably saying right now, “OK Stacy so you want me to let go of doing what I am good at, so what am I going to do instead?”
Exactly! Great question. Because imagine, you start handing off responsibilities to others. You start taking strategic walks during lunch time. You block an hour a day for super thinking. Won’t your boss think you are shirking your responsibilities? I mean, isn’t that what you are most deathly afraid of? And truthfully it’s at the core of why it feels so difficult for you to let go of what you are so darn good at doing.
You have to be aware of what you are going to do instead. If you are going to give up one thing, you must know what you are going to do instead. And this is going to take planning and thought. You have never done it before. You’ll have to actually DO something different. You’ll have to start acting like a LEADER.
So what does acting like a leader look like?
It means not reacting to the little problems.
It means painting a vision for your team and your organization.
It means understanding your leadership style and exactly how to communicate that to others.
It means taking your own professional development seriously, making strategic choices about your career. So that you not only know where you are headed but you have a plan to get there.
What if it was actually your job to present ideas, paint a vision and problem solve on a bigger level? And what if you could do that right now, in the current role with your current title and responsibility? What if you could take ownership of your career instead of feeling like you were waiting for someone else to tell you were good enough? What if you stopped letting others dictate what you should or should not get done each day, because you were in charge...of it all?
This is ALL possible. I just had a really amazing conversation with a client about this today! She is the Vice President of Human Resources at her company. So she has a pretty good title, no problem with that. But she noticed that no one around her seemed to care about what she had to say. So much so that her agenda items kept getting pushed to the last 10 minutes of the leadership meetings AND sometimes they wouldn’t even get to her.
We were talking today about how that has completely shifted over the past six months through executive coaching with me. When we met, her focus was always on the task, how much could she accomplish in a day. She even presented a two page document at review time to try and negotiate a salary increase for herself. Even with all that leverage, she was told no. Why? “Because there were still performance gaps.” No other tangible feedback. Basically she was just told to “do better” and sent on her way.
Maybe you have done that before too? Tried to negotiate something based on all the “stuff” you have accomplished. While that works just fine in an IC role, it doesn’t work in leadership.
Luckily she hired me and we were able to quickly identify how she could do better. Now that same boss who told her there was a performance gap is actually pulling her aside in the hallway to get her opinion on something. She is speaking FIRST at the leadership team meetings. And her ideas are effecting the bottom line of the business.
She is happier. She is more confident and she is excited to go to work each day. And she recently stepped in to renegotiate her salary again and guess what - this time her boss not only said yes but she offered her more than she requested!
That my friends is the power of letting go of what you are good at and stepping into something new, the way of leadership. The rewards are so so worth it.
Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of Maximize your Career with Stacy Mayer and I look forward to seeing you next week. Bye!!!
