3 Ways to Accelerate your Current Career
As a self-improvement junky, I read a lot about entrepreneurship, starting a new career, or your own side gig. There’s a ton of great inspirational information about putting in the work, focusing on one thing, doing what you love, finding your why, etc.
But what if you’re currently in a career you enjoy (or at least aren’t trying to get out of) and want to improve yourself, move up the ranks, and be more valuable?
A lot of companies promote from within based on tenure and “performance”, which is often quite subjective. Or they bring in outsiders that wow them with impressive resumes and buzzwords, who are sure to be the solvers of all the company’s problems.
We’ve all seen it. The star salesman from a competitor that will most certainly bring a list of clients, a book of business, and amazing results right away.
Or the manager from a bigger company who will come in and revamp the processes and culture and ensure growth.
Of course, none of those things typically happen…but that’s a conversation for another day. The purpose of this conversation is to give you a few ways to side step those unfortunate but common business happenings.
To give you a quick background, I started out working for my employer 20 years ago when I was in high school. I started at the very bottom of the bottom in the organization, a part time employee who washed trucks after school. Over the past 20 years I’ve worked my way to Vice President, overseeing 70 employees in both sales and operations, and ~$30 million in annual revenue.
The 3 things I’m about to share with you have been HUGE in getting me to where I am today.
1. Do the things no one else is doing.
Most people have their job description, or what they’ve been doing for however long, and that’s what they do. Nothing more (and usually less). It’s the leader’s job to make sure all of the necessary things are being done with the necessary amount of employees.
The problem is, there are always gaps. Especially in growing companies. Throughout my career I’ve been able to identify these gaps, and fill them. Which then resulted in a new responsibility, which led to a new role. I always joke that most of my official titles within the company were brand new, with no one ever holding that specific title prior to me.
As I spent time in the organization, I was able to see ways we could be doing things better, and/or new things that could be done that would benefit the company. So I did them. Those things weren’t part of my job description, I wasn’t told by anyone to do them, and I wasn’t compensated (at least at first) for doing them.
Some of them were unpleasant or boring tasks that others avoided. Some were oversights by the rest of the team. Some were innovative new ways of handling things. But they all led to me being more valuable, and ultimately more successful.
Think about your current role. What is something you could do to improve that role, or the organization, that you’re not currently doing? Start doing that thing today.
2. Make the decisions no one is making.
Part of leading an organization is making decisions. Early in my career, I assumed the owners and bosses enjoyed making all of the decisions. After all, how awesome would it be to be able to sit in a fancy office and tell everyone to do things exactly how you want them to be done?
We know that in reality making all of the decisions is exhausting. Especially the smaller ones. Those bosses didn’t want to deal with trivial day-to-day things. They needed their decision making horsepower to go toward the big decisions.
I also realized that a lot of people are afraid to make a decision. What if it’s the wrong one? What if their boss finds out and they get blamed for making a bad decision? Ohh no… they’re not putting their name on that.
What those people don’t realize, is that most of the time their boss trusts them to make the right call and move on. Stagnation over a trivial decision is a waste of time and money. If their boss is a good leader, they’ll love that they don’t have to be part of every little detail.
So when there was a decision to be made, and I felt it was one that I could make and move on, I did it. Did I make some bad or misinformed ones? Absolutely. But as a whole, the leaders of our organization saw that I was able to assess a situation and make the right call. I was decisive. I was confident in my abilities.
The next time something comes up at work, and you are about ready to ask your boss how he or she wants it to be handled, stop. How would you handle it? Chances are you’re right. If it’s something that you are confident in and you don’t need to bother your boss with, make the decision and go with it!
3. Ask the questions no one is asking.
I want to start off by admitting that I’ve always struggled with this one, and still do at times. We’ve all heard that “there’s no such thing as a stupid question”. But we’ve all heard a lot of stupid questions.
Over the past 5 years or so I’ve realized that if I had asked the questions I wanted to ask, but didn’t, we may have progressed a lot faster than we ultimately did.
Open-ended questions can really get the conversation going in a meeting with coworkers, customers (potential or current), or your boss.
Things like “Why are we doing it this way?” or “What is the goal of doing this?” or “Should we make more chocolate donuts or glazed?” (That was a test…you should be making that decision!)
I was always afraid of sounding stupid, or being annoying. So I didn’t ask enough questions. Eventually I learned a few little tactics that help me with that. I often start off a question with “This might be asked out of total ignorance…but I’m going to ask it anyway.” Or “I’m going to play devil’s advocate and ask a question about this”. Those little statements soften things up a bit before just blurting out a question, and they give me the confidence to ask.
Being inquisitive and questioning the way things are being done is a very powerful thing in business. Another thing we’ve all heard is that the 7 most expensive words in any business are “We have always done it that way”.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Use some of the buffers I shared to help ease into them. The more you do it, the easier it will get, until it almost becomes natural. People will notice and appreciate your interest and efforts.
That’s it. Nothing revolutionary but all three of these tips have helped me tremendously over the past 20 years. I hope they help you too!
