Want to Get Ahead? Follow this One Piece of Career Advice
Most of my posts are focused on the tiny piece of the population who are silly enough to start a company. This post is focused on everyone else.
I used to work for a big company, and I remember feeling under appreciated and passed over. Transitioning from working at a large company to founding a small company has allowed me to see the other side of the equation. Looking back, if I had one piece of career advice to give my 22 year old self, it would be this:
Even (and especially!) if you are at the bottom of the corporate totem pole, take constant action as though your individual career hinges on the success of the overarching company for which you work. In other words: be team first!
I know, this is a “youth is wasted on the young” type of maxim; it’s chalk full of irony, obvious, largely unrealistic, probably misguided and (considering that this advice is coming from me) hypocritical. Obviously, you will be least likely to give a flying hoot about the overall success of the company for which you work when you are in an entry level position, because you will have little to no stock or power to steer the fate of the business. But, that’s just the trick. If you can convince yourself that you can have an impact, and if you can genuinely care, you will find success in almost anything you commit to. Why? It boils down to incentive.
As employees move up the corporate ladder, an increasing chunk of their total comp package is based on the success of the mothership, and a decreasing chunk of their total comp package is based on individual performance (kind of like becoming a grandparent, I would think!). Therefore, the people at the top of a company are most focused on the success of the overall company / team, and vice versa. For precisely this reason, the people at the top of the company are looking for people in lower wage positions who genuinely care about the greater success of the business. And if people in lower wage positions are consistent, they will be identified and rewarded.
Full disclosure: I was a terrible employee until I knew what I wanted to do with my career. The time between when I knew I was going to start my own company and when I actually quit my job to start my own company was roughly one year. During this year, for the first time in my career, I became a good employee. Since I knew I was leaving the company, I let go of all my anxiety about my career trajectory at the company and refocused on helping my peers succeed in any way I could. Why not? I was leaving anyway. It was the most rewarding and happy year of my professional life, up to that point, by far. And it was a period of significant self realization, because I discovered that at that juncture in my career, I needed to go out on my own to be happy (I don’t think that this is the case for most people, fortunately, but it was for me). So, how can you be a team first employee?
Things you should be focused on:
- Making sure you’re working at a company that is doing something that you’re excited about
- If you’re not working at a company that is doing something that you’re excited about, leaving
- Making sure you’re the type of person who can get excited about something any company is doing
- If you’re not the type of person who can get excited about something any company is doing, become a consultant, founder, artist, etc.
- Helping your customers succeed
- Helping your company succeed
- Helping your team succeed
- Helping your peers succeed
- Helping your supervisor succeed
- Helping your vendors and other stakeholders succeed
Things you should not be focused on:
- Your compensation
- Getting credit
- Whether you deserve a promotion
- Whether others are working as hard / smart as you
- Fairness
Life is short. You may as well love what you do.
More broadly, I don’t think that this pyramid works as consistently as it should in the reverse direction (towards the top, executives should not only think about their company and customers, they should also consider the well being of their employees, vendors and other stakeholders), and ever more broadly, I don’t think the Golden Rule works as consistently as it should! But those thoughts are for another post.
