Screw To-Do’s. Focus on To-Don’t’s.
2017 Anti-Resolutions
Oh, 2016.
Oh, oh, 2016. World maps changed. Political norms changed. Zoo enclosure safety protocols changed and, on an individual level, my personal and professional path changed as well.
Move thousands of miles, find a fresh job, build a community, change the world, I had so much to do as 2016 began! Well actually, I had too much to do as 2016 began. Now, after a dozen months of reflection, I think 2016 may have been easier on us all if we focused on what not to do just a bit more.
See, this time last year I found myself armed with a To-Do list so long, I’m pretty sure you had to strap on binoculars just to glimpse the end:
- Apply to 400 jobs every month.
- Treat 10 startup hotshots to coffee every week.
- Write 1,000 words every day.
- Listen to hours of productive podcasts every morning.
- Read a dozen industry blog posts every afternoon.
- Redefine and refine your online personal brand every few evenings.
- Be grinding every minute.
- Be grinding of every second.
- G.S.D. EVERY. SINGLE. MILLISECOND!
…and so on…
Was it pleasant? Christ, no. Was it effective? Well…
While I found a slick Californian startup to scoop me up into my very first managerial role, I soon realized I had a lot to learn. I’d become so focused on checking off my infinite to-do’s that I nearly forgot what it actually takes to get things done. It’s a tired metaphor at this point but, much like Sun Ra’s Jazz classics, the notes you don’t play can be even more important than those you do.
With more and more millennials progressing through the workforce, I’m confident I’m not the only one who has felt (and feels!) growing pains as they break into pressure-packed managerial and leadership positions.
Here’s a bit of what I’ve learned since making The Show.
Four New Year’s Anti-Resolutions **NOT** To-Do
1. DON’T: Remember what your mentors said.
…remember what they did.
I recently moved from riding shotgun on big deals to spearheading a big time BizDev campaign all by my lonesome. For inspiration, I caught my old mentor on the phone (as he jumped into an Uber, leaving one hot-shot meeting, en route to another hot-shot meeting). He was rushed, distracted and — though his intentions were pure — not as helpful as I had hoped. His words of wisdom?
Make it hap’n, Cap’n.
Right…but how?
No Startup Success For Dummies check-list for me to mark off? Nope. Your mentor’s job isn’t to hold your hand. It’s to inspire you in the right direction.
When taking on a new challenge, reframe the question from:
What would my mentors tell me to do?
Instead asking:
What would my mentor do in my shoes?
Perhaps not the most ground-breaking concept on Earth, but I’ve found beauty in the simplicity.
2. DON’T: Get starstruck.
I’ll be forever growing up, even if I make it eleventy-one.
While my millennial bones aren’t quite as old and weathered as young Bilbo Baggins, I’ve still picked up a lesson or two along the way, and there’s one I keep learning time and time again: Everyone is a person.
That’s it! Everyone — no matter how famous or successful or strong or smart or sexy or swagged out or scary—everyone is just some regular-ass human being trying to make sense of the Big Bad Real World. No one has it all figured out. No one has all the answers. No one has beaten the game.
In this realization I have found liberation. All those I held on pedestals as some superior, unreachable other? Ain’t nothing special about ‘em, really.
The 6th graders who so impressively terrified my Little League teams with BMX wheelies and no-hander-landers behind our dugouts? They had curfews and fearsome parents just like the rest of us, even if their bed times were a bit later in the evening.
Those fearsome parents? I began to realize my mom and dad weren’t omnipotent Worldminds right around the time I started to ask…those…type of questions. I’ll leave the details to your imagination, but let’s just say that Momma Quinn definitely did not know it all.
It’s been just the same since in the working world. My first startup’s Founder sells million dollar companies like a baker bakes bread, listens to music for hippies, and has Larry David’s approach to simple stop and chats. The Silicon Valley VCs who’ve visited my companies to investigate their investment laughed at my lame puns, drank a TON of hot chocolate and couldn’t quite figure out if they were to handshake or fist-bump the younger members of the team. The CEO of Reddit? Dances like a goofball.
I say all this not to put anyone down, nor to say anyone is better than anyone else, just to say that there’s no real difference between one human and another at the end of the day. So there’s no real reason to be starstruck by some C-Level big shot, and there’s no real reason to think the new intern isn’t a star being born.
When you’re able to break down those mental boundaries, nothing is left to hold you back.
3. DON’T: Be a Kingslayer.
Content is King? Wretch! A pretender King, mayhaps, and one in need of usurping.
Culture is the one true King, m’ladies and m’lords, and don’t let any mummer’s farce tell you otherwise. Even if your House is bolstered by the sharpest minds in all the Seven Kingdoms, it won’t mean a thing in a culture as toxic as Littlefinger’s Strangler Poison.
I used to interview potential developer hires, even though I still can’t tell you the difference between JSON and GRRM. What was a programming-illiterate commoner like myself doing in the dev interview process, you might ask?
Culture, culture, culture. I can’t read code, but I can read people.
Maybe I can’t pick out her code’s engineering bugs, but I can tell how she’d fit into the office as a person. If she’d be a helper, a supporter, a selfless teammate. I can tell if she’d make our culture one of inclusion and inspiration — one that the team truly wants to come be a part of every day. Or I can tell if she’d kill the Kingly culture a successful team has established.
A happy team is a motivated team. A motivated team is an cohesive team. A cohesive team is a hungry, determined, innovative and driven team. I mean, we’re all in it together, right? It’s easier to progress alongside a team of friends than it is a team of plain ol’ coworkers.
4. DON’T: Settle.
Ever.
Culture is King, but that doesn’t mean that classic, measurable skills are to be thrown by the wayside. If there’s one way to turn a stellar team to stardust, it’s by bringing in outsiders who just don’t fit. There must be a fit in terms of the social and communal aspects of culture, of course. Just don’t forget; success is a BIG part of a successful team’s culture.
As teams grow, and especially so if the growth is over a short period of times, it becomes all too easy to fall into adding new members who simply fall short. Those who don’t quite click with everyone in the office, or maybe those have most of the skills your team needs, or those who you think can learn on the fly. Those who, simply put, are just not “A” Players.
How long does it take to compromise a team after the first B+ (or lower) Player joins the ranks? How many poor hires or suddenly toxic teammates can a promising team take before it begins to rot from the inside? I can’t say with much certainty, but there’s no real need to find out.
Don’t lose touch with your culture. Don’t hire anyone but “A” Players. Don’t Settle. Don’t settle.
Ever.
Like what you read? Like what you read! Like this:
