How to Succeed in a World (Seemingly) Hell Bent on Self-Destruction. That’s the working title for my next book, which is now officially underway.
This week and next, I’m looking for your help. Each day, as I give a quick overview of a new chapter from the book-to-be, I’m hoping you’ll ping me with comments, questions, suggestions, and additional resources you think should be included. The framework for each chapter is already done, including detailed outlines. What I’m looking for from you, my readers, is three-fold: first, a gut check that the outline matches what you’d expect from the title and from the preceding chapters; second, honest feedback about how compelling the topic is; and three, a quick description of specific content you hope would be covered in the chapter. This could include concepts, anecdotes, references, how-to’s, etc.
In this section, I dive into the four main areas introduced earlier, this time looking at the solutions for each… but unlike books that focus on one specific area, the punch line to this section is: pay attention to the connections between areas!
Objectives for Job Seekers (heavy self-motivation factors)
If you are looking for a job, you have a problem. The problem isn’t that you don’t know enough people, or have the right skills, or don’t fit the quota, or have bad timing. Actually, I take that back, it’s all of these things. But before it’s all this—what all this stems from—is a lack of self-motivation. Your lazy-bones attitude is keeping you from solving these issues, all of which are within your control!
It’s very similar to your physical health. When you’re unmotivated, you sit around, you eat poorly… you coach potate, if I can verb a phrase. Once you get a little motivation, though—maybe to do 10 push ups a day—you find that you also start eating just a little bit better. After a month, you’re doing 50 push ups a day, some crunches a few times a week, you’re eating your fruits and veggies every day. After 2 months, you’re even stretching and running a few times a week. And before 90 days are up, you’re hitting the gym and things are 180 degrees from where you started.
How’d you do it? The answer wasn’t in running, or eating right, or even in doing the push ups… even though it was, ostensibly, all of those things. The answer is, you did it through self-motivation. Or perseverance, or determination, or whatever label you want to affix to it. The point is, you forcibly dragged yourself out of your current routine until the new one started to take hold.
Job seekers, this is the world in which you live, and you Quality Time objectives need to reflect that.
Objectives for Workers (heavy problem-solving factors)
Anecdotally, based on what I see, this is the level at which most people, including many managers and executives, operate. This is the level of plans (strategic, developmental, or otherwise), goals, metrics, and milestones. This is the level at which much of this book is being written.
Objectives for Managers (heavy empathy factors)
When the thing standing between you and success is someone else’s decision, you had better be operating at the empathy (or political) level.
At this stage, it’s not what you do or how well you do it. It’s who you do it for, who’s watching, and how they are likely to interpret what they see.
One of Clinton’s cabinet members was recently on cable news, talking about this weeks confirmation hearings for Obama’s cabinet. He said that the hearings are not about policy. No one cares; everyone assumes that you’ve been vetted on that score. What the Senate wants to know is that you’ll be respectful of Congress, that you’ll honor them, and that you’ll “play ball” by not making them look bad. That’s it.
This isn’t to say that policy—or your ability to do your job—isn’t important. It’s just that everyone expects you can do that part, so you don’t have to prove it anymore. Your objectives here must showcase an entirely different, more social, set of abilities.
Objectives for Leaders (heavy courage factors)
At the truly strategic and political levels, not only is there great doubt, but also great resistance.
Think about a CEO’s job: the CEO is supposed to energize the organization, get people fired up, and create so much excitement that workers take initiative, buyers become advocates, and suppliers offer favorable terms simply for the privilege of doing business with the organization. Yet the CEO has no carrot… if a CEO offers someone more money, that person is likely to feel like s/he already deserved that money, and that the pay raise is a delayed “thank you” for performance already rendered. The only tool a CEO really has is a stick—the power to fire someone. That’s it.
Now, let’s say that’s you. You’re about to become the CEO of a 5, 50, 500, or 5,000 person company. You’ve read all about the dangers of coercive management. You’ve read about—and experienced firsthand—the sophisticated, delicate game that is Board politics. And you have absolutely no idea how on earth the company is going to hit its numbers in the next fiscal year because you, like all of us, have no crystal ball. Oh, yeah: here’s your stick… go get ‘em!
Whether it’s company-wide or on a smaller scale, you are faced with a thorny set of issues that will make it unlikely you can move in a straight line toward your goals. Instead, you’re going to have to get there in multiple moves, and along the way, it is probably going to look to many people like you are moving backward. For instance, let’s say one of the members of your top team is inept but politically strong, while another is a superstar. What do you do? You promote both! It gives the superstar a chance to shine, and the dud a chance to “hang” himself. But of course, you can’t say that to anyone… you can only hope they figure that out for themselves. Moreover, the strategy is not without its risks: the dud could get lucky, and the superstar could stumble. And in the meantime, all the people who have been working hard and hoping for a spot on your team see you promote the dud and, rather than thinking about how the world must look from your point of view, throw up a collective WTH and start sharpening their pitchforks.
Hope you’ve got the courage to face the mob, my executive friend…
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks good. Perhaps ‘building a backbone’ would capture the feeling a bit better than ‘growing a backbone’ which makes it sound almost accidental.
Jason–
Re: Objectives for Leaders, there is remarkable density of insight and truth in your post. Specifically, “At the truly strategic and political levels, not only is there great doubt, but also great resistance.” Brilliant! Also, “unlikely you can move in a straight line toward your goals. Instead, you’re going to have to get there in multiple moves” 40 words–crystal clear and spot on. Thank you.