How to Be Topp*

I recently found myself mentoring someone who wants to make it to the very top of her profession.

This letter is based on our discussions concerning how you might make it to the top. It doesn’t even scratch the surface of “Why would you want to get there?” All I am going to say about that is that whilst there are plenty of dubious reasons to make it to the top, there are also many good ones, including influencing for good, co-creating a place of belonging, learning and self actualisation. The ‘why’ is important, even pivotal, but we’re going to focus on the ‘how’ here.

I should also add that this article is written from the perspective of an employee rather than an entrepreneur, though much of it applies to both situations.

One of my client’s first questions was “How intentional should you be and how much should you trust it to luck?” I think that this was pretty insightful, as getting to the top involves both, as well as a deal of hard work.

I’m going to start by offering my own route to the ‘top’, if board director of a £350m turnover corporate and MD of an SME counts as such. I’ve represented it by the following diagram. When the line changes colour it indicates a move to a different company.

When I reflect on this, it’s apparent that I spent too long at the outset finding a job that I loved. (I explain about the importance of finding a job you love in a separate article, Finding Your Vocation: A Heretical Perspective.) Fully eight years went by while I was engaged in this endeavour, though I suppose it’s better than 40!

Moving around to find a job you love is not to be confused with leaving whenever a job is not to your liking. In his excellent book “Transitions” (1), William Bridges makes the distinction between change and transition. A change simply involves a different set of circumstances, but a transition involves self-transformation, which in turn involves reflection and growth. Finding a job you love inevitably involves change, but it also requires you to reflect on each experience and what it tells you about your values, motivations and strengths, and to grow in the process.

At the other end of my corporate career, I spent too long hanging around at Group Head Office in a “Group Head of …” rather than a line management role. That accounted for three years. If your career is stagnating, acknowledge it and do something about it would be my belated advice to myself.

Once you have found a job you love, this is the time to apply Stephen Covey’s advice (2) “Begin with the end in mind.” I wouldn’t necessarily advocate a laser-like focus here, because if you adopt that approach there is a danger you will fail to recognise opportunities (see below), but something like the relaxed concentration of a Zen master should do the job. Have a notion of whether you want to be a generalist or specialist, a line manager or a functional head — it’s often not easy to switch between these - and at what level.

This will allow you to be intentional in your learning and development. If you have a general idea of the direction you would like your career to take then you can prepare for the next step in advance. In my career, I gained three professional qualifications, an MBA and an ACCA Diploma in Financial Management in addition to reading any number of management textbooks. Nonetheless I could have improved massively by taking on a coach or mentor, and also by seeking out more stretch projects. My development has been too informational and insufficiently transformational — for more about this check out the chapter on Personal Development in my book Compassionate Leadership (3).

And then there is luck. Was it Gary Player or Arnold Palmer who said “The more I practice the luckier I get”? In the case of ‘How to Be Top’ it’s more a matter of “The more I develop myself and the more I network the luckier I get.” But luck on its own is useless. You need to be prepared to seize the opportunity.

I was working for the one of the UK’s major contractors on a £100m+ bid, when I colleague of mine in London sent through a press article on one of our competitors, the largest company of its kind in the UK at the time. He had written “Don’t mess with the big boys, Chris” on the top of his fax (remember those?). Sure enough, we lost the contract to the market leader. A week later I received a phone call from a headhunter acting on their behalf. That proved to be the biggest opportunity of my career and I made the most of it.

Frank Taylor of Taylor Woodrow said “Do your current job well, and you’ll be invited to the top.” I would not advise you to rely on this, unless your business has an exceptional talent management system. Many managers are very happy for you to work your socks off for them and keep your industry a secret, for fear that they will lose you to another division. Taking opportunities when they arise is a far more successful strategy.

Often taking opportunities will mean making sacrifices. That’s when the rubber hits the road with ambition. I would recommend thinking through your personal mission (back to Stephen Covey) and standards, with the help of your partner and a coach, in advance. In doing so, you will inevitably touch on the ‘why’ of your quest. It’s better to think these out before an opportunity is staring you in the face, when you might be tempted to accept or reject it for the wrong reasons.

For example, I was prepared to work away from home in London 4 days a week for 6 years (after discussing with my wife and children) but I never worked weekends. Whether you see this arrangement as lazy or insane depends on whether you are a city lawyer or one of my friends in Sheffield’s climbing, rowing or music subcultures, where life outside work is the priority. Standards are highly personal.

In conclusion (and it’s a fairly long one), I think my advice to my ambitious young manager boils down to:

1. Be clear on your personal ‘why.’
2. Do what you love, or you won’t have the energy or enthusiasm to get to the top.
3. Don’t hang around finding a job you love. Fail fast.
4. Be intentional about your learning and development, including taking on a coach or mentor.
5. Ditto networking.
6. Be prepared to seize opportunities. Outstanding ones don’t come along that often.
7. Figure out how ambitious you really are, because taking some opportunities may mean sacrifices in other areas of your life.
8. If your career is stagnating, acknowledge it and do something about it.
9. Make sure you enjoy the journey. Was the MD’s job my best ever experience of work? Hell, no! My favourite job of all time was Project Engineer at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in 1990. A great project and a great team.
10. Do it on your own terms. Work through with your significant others what those terms are.

If you do all the above mindfully then you will avoid what the Germans call Torchschlusspanik — panic due to closing of the gates at the end of ones career. You should be able to look back on a fulfilling career with satisfaction, knowing that you did all you could to set your self up for success, but without selling your soul in the process.

I started out by saying that this article was about the ‘how’ and not the ‘why’ of corporate success. However, the ‘why’ is indispensable and I offer the following from Felix Dennis (4) to start you thinking about that:

“Money is never owned. It is only in your custody for while. Time is always running on, and the young have more of it in their pocket than the richest man or woman alive. That is not sentimentality speaking. That is sober fact.

And yet you wish to waste your youth in the getting of money? Really? Think hard, my young cub, think hard and think long before you embark on such a quest. The time spent attempting to acquire wealth will mount up and cannot be reclaimed, whether your succeed or whether you fail.”

References

1. Bridges, W. (2004) Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Cambridge, MA: Lifelong Books.
2. Covey, S. (2004) The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. London: Simon & Schuster.
3. Whitehead, C. (2019) Compassionate Leadership: Creating Places of Belonging. UK: Solopreneur Publishing.
4. Dennis, F. (2006) How to Get Rich. London: Random House.

*’How to Be Topp’ was the title of a 1968 paperback by Willans and Searle parodying life in an English prep school