Self-Awareness: How To Develop A Sharp Edge
This is the second post in a 3-part series about the foundations of a growth culture: Home, Edge, and Groove. Part 1 covered Home, or psychological safety, which is the ability to be yourself at work. In part 2 I’m going to talk about Edge, or self-awareness. What does it mean to be self-aware in the context of work? What does it look like when you have it? And can you have it at team level, or even for the firm as a whole. (Spoiler: yes… yes you can.)
Self-awareness at work is more than just knowing your own mind. To be truly self-aware — to have a “sharp Edge” — you need clarity in three areas: your role, your mastery of that role, and a focus for your development.
Clarify Your Role
“What’s my job again?” It’s a common question we all ask ourselves on occasion (often when we’re sure no one else is within earshot.) Work is about production: you produce something. Maybe you produce clarity and inspiration. Maybe you produce working code. Maybe you produce decisions. Maybe you produce signed contracts. But there are always inputs and outputs, and the work you do is the bit in the middle that turns the former into the latter.
So what are those inputs and outputs and what is the work you do? Where do you go to find that out?
For most people it starts with a job description. Yes, that drab document full of abstract boilerplate language about “ensuring”, “managing”, or “maintaining” this, that, and the other thing. Designed primarily to not offend, most job descriptions (or “JDs” as the shorthand goes) are as vague as tea leaves, and often consulted with similar superstition.
Another source of potential clarity is a conversation with a manager. “What’s my role here, as you see it?” You might ask in your monthly 1-to-1. You then spend 15 minutes talking about roles and responsibilities, key dependencies, the latest project the team is working on and how you fit into that. But it’s an ephemeral conversation and the clarity it gave you fades with each day that passes. Soon enough, you’re back in your 1-to-1 and it’s deja vu all over again.
At CultivateMe we build an iris — a visual taxonomy of the skills and activities that help you turn your inputs into outputs. You don’t need Iris to do this (though we think it helps). A Trello board or a spreadsheet will get you started just fine. We’ve been known to even use sticky notes.
Here’s a simple process for mapping out your role:
- Go through your calendar and todo list. These are the activities of your role. The things you do all day. If you’re using a spreadsheet, each activity should get its own row. Keep them short and use active verbs: “Attend weekly team meeting”, “Write a blog post”, “Mingle at a conference”, “Present proposal to a client”, “Fill out creative brief”.
- Consider your rituals. What are the activities you do every day? Every week? Every month? Thinking about frequency and cadence is another way to generate awareness of your role. Add these to your list.
- Divide your activities into groups. I’ve found it’s most effective to group activities by process. What is the process of turning your inputs into outputs? If you’re a designer, there are likely stages that begin with the brief and end with a finished design delivered to the client. If you’re in sales, it might start with a lead and end in a signed contract. Try to order your activities along this process.
- List some skills. As you look at all the activities required to turn your inputs into outputs, what are the 5–10 essential skills you need in order be successful? These tend to be more abstract things like critical thinking, verbal communication, follow through, persuasion, negotiation, etc. Add those to your list and put them in their own group.
Now you should have a clear list of, literally, what you do all day in your role, the skills needed to do that role well, and the larger context for how those activities and skills come together to actually create value for your customers and colleagues.
If you’re using a spreadsheet, aim for about 30–40 rows (cards if you’re using Trello.) If you’re over 50 then you’re being too precise and probably just making things more confusing.
Gauge Your Mastery
Now that you can see all the activities and skills of your role, where do you struggle and where do you shine? Go through and rate your mastery of each. Don’t overthink it. Just go with your gut. A simple rubric with some heuristics can really help here. We use a 5-level mastery scale:
- Beginner: I’ve never really done this before. If you asked me to do it, I probably couldn’t.
- Novice: I can do this, but I’m not very confident. Someone needs to help out or check my work before it goes to the client.
- Competent: This is not a problem for me, but I wouldn’t put it at the top of my resume. I do just fine.
- Pro: I’m good at this. People like my work and often let me know about it.
- Expert: Not only am I good at this, but other people seek me out for help and advice when they’re trying to do this.
Go down your list of activities and skills and rate your current mastery of each. Then step back and just take it in. Is there a pattern to the mastery levels? Is there any correlation between your strongest skills and your strongest activities? Is there a part of the process — some group of activities — where you’re especially weak? Why might that be?
Find Your Focus
To have a truly sharp Edge you should also be actively developing some aspect of yourself as a professional. Now that you understand your role and your mastery of it, pick something. Maybe you want to be a better negotiator (skill). Maybe you want to do a better job of leading the weekly team meeting (activity). Maybe the firm is focused on building their pipeline this quarter, so you want to get better at developing leads (group of activities).
You know how when you’re thinking of buying a red car, you start seeing red cars everywhere? The same thing happens when you pick a focus. Simply declaring “I’m going to get better at this thing” changes your awareness. You notice more. More about yourself. More about others. More about the work going on around you. That’s what it feels like to have a sharp Edge.
Go Beyond Yourself
Edge isn’t just for individuals. You could run the same exercise for a team or for the firm as a whole.
At the team level you can ask questions like…
- What roles do we serve elsewhere in the company? Who are our “clients”? What are our inputs and outputs as a team?
- What’s our process? What activities turn those inputs into outputs? What skills are needed to perform those activities?
- Where are we struggling with those activities and skills? Which ones consistently trip us up? What are our current constraints and where should we focus as a team?
At the firm level you can ask questions like…
- What are the functions of our company? What are the inputs from both clients and vendors? What outputs do we ultimately deliver? What do people pay us for right now?
- What are our business and transformation goals? What kind of company do we want to be in 3 years?
- What are the essential skills required to succeed right now, in our current state as a company? Do we have them?
- What are the skills and activities we’ll need in 3 years given our transformation goals? Do we have them?
- What skills should we be building now, and in what parts of the organization? Should we develop those skills within, or should we hire for them? How might teams and roles need to change in order to be the company we want to be?
Having a sharp Edge, in the context of work, is knowing what your job is, how good you are at doing that job, and exactly where you’re getting better at it right now.
Role + Mastery + Focus = Edge
Take an hour and try the steps above. See if they don’t change what you notice at work. See if you don’t come away with a sharper Edge.
In the final part of this series I’ll discuss Groove, or regular practice, which is the engine of growth for yourself, your team, and your firm.
CultivateMe is a talent development agency for agencies. We help agencies establish a repeatable, scalable, and sustainable system for growing their people and winning the talent war. To get fresh ideas on how to improve learning at work, sign up for our newsletter.
