Keys to Success — starts with people

Surround yourself with Amazing People

Most of us start our careers as individual contributors at some level. As with any organization, the journey to the top of a corporate latter is a journey peppered with accumulating skills (both technical and soft) and surely, some luck.

The growing set of skills and experiences we gain early on are critical to position one for future success, but it’s the softer skills you should focus on. Usually you begin to develop these skills as you influence peers and manage projects, or better yet, expectations. It’s these skills that are the basis for developing your leadership skills. And more importantly, you begin to learn how to leverage yourself.

Being the smartest guy in the room for few years, works. But let’s face it, once you’re well into your 30’s with 10+ years of experience, you are either a technical employee or you begin to manage teams — and in some cases, you might be leading multiple teams while setting strategy and direction.

This journey works well in medium to large firms due to scale but can lack depth in smaller businesses and startups. Although, we all must achieve comparable results in terms of financial and operational performance.

As a small business owner, I often remind myself and the team that training & development is more than spreadsheets and numbers. As managers, we should help our people develop the softer skills too so that they can one day be managers of people. We invest in our people and probably spend more management time on annual reviews, goal setting, and development plans than the average business of our size.

Recently, GrowthLab had a $10+ million company ask where do you find your people… they are amazing! The reality is, you don’t just simply find them. You find the right people that have an awesome attitude and a strong aptitude. My team hears me say this all the time, “Attitude before Aptitude!”

At GrowthLab, we have a two-prong approach to professional development, and no we’re not perfect.

First, we identify those team members that are more senior and are looking for greater professional development and a career road map. The latter being more difficult in a smaller organization. We then assign some readings, mentoring sessions (1-on-1) and self-assessments or 360’s. Our favorite is an assessment of emotional intelligence.

Second is identifying those team members that are more entry level and show signs of future career growth with the following attributes: accountability, responsibility, enthusiasm, and intellect. For this cohort, we want them to begin to learn to manage up, improve self-awareness and be more proactive with their career.

Why do we do this? It’s expensive and time-consuming. Two reason we do this: to create a culture of high performers and management leverage.

My mentor would tell me, if you want to go it alone then be the smartest guy in the room. It’s lonely with great uncertainty he would say. Otherwise, learn the power of leverage… leverage yourself by convincing those around you to take risks, be confident, develop team members, and follow you.

If you invest in your people, have empathy for your people, and are compassionate, you will be surrounded by amazing people.

Plus, it’s more fun and exciting doing what you love with people around you…it’s not as lonely!