In the minutiae of life, it is easy to forget how much is under our control. To think that our fortunes are largely at the mercy of fate is counter-productive. When there's a will, as clichéd as it may sound, there's a way.
Marathon, Not a Sprint
It is easy to let our worries be in the driver's seat: facing a tough job market, getting passed over for a promotion, or being compensated below market. While these are real and, hence, important, they're still a bad substitute of long-term planning. What we are ignoring is the value of time: a career spans over decades.
Of course, it is vital for us to know the "why's" of our choice of career, what is it that we're after. Given our goals, not being on the right track in the present might just seem like a minor inconvenience. For example,
- Not getting to work much with the most brilliant folks on the team
- There's a constant stream of low impact but urgent tasks
- Manager but doesn't put up a fight to get recognition for their team
What counts as a tolerable inconvenience definitely varies from person to person, but the common denominator is we downplay its importance. Over the span of our career, these minor inconveniences compound into significant amount of lost time and opportunity. To put it more concretely, imagine starting a marathon with a slightly sore ankle. This isn't just inconvenient, it should be unacceptable to us!
Half the battle is figuring out whether our present situation or trajectory doesn't align with where we'd like to go. Once we're more aware, getting good advice is usually pretty easy.
Discerning Eyes
It is our responsibility to know what we've gotten ourselves into.
- We should be explicit about what we want. It is only within that framework that we can critically look at behaviors incentivized by company's culture, processes and priorities.
- Ask for feedback, widely and often. There's a lot nuance in how to get feedback, how to handle both good and negative feedback, and how to handle disagreement. In any case, we'd rather find out sooner than later and be able to do something about.
Being open and honest is also the fastest way to establish trust and get honesty in return. And it is important to appreciate honesty, even if we did not necessarily like what he heard.
A lot of knowledge lives in the subtleties of everyday interactions, or lack thereof, and we should try to notice them.
- When asked about yearly growth goals, does a manager just list items on their roadmap?
- When we ask for something that's important to us, and we've expressed so, but it's not important to the other person, how many reminders does it take to get it done? Do they even bring it up if we don't remind them?
- Does leadership ever reach out to us proactively to discuss career growth? What about the more senior team members?
- When asked about why someone moved into management or a leadership role, do they even mention team's growth?
- When anyone's shortcomings are mentioned, does leadership self-reflect to see if the same applies to them?
Choose Wisely
Once we know where we see things going, we're ready to decide if we're happy with that or not.
- It is reasonable to be satisfied with how far someone has come along, to not want further career growth, to not want to push hard anymore. There is, after all, much more to life. But if we report to such a person and choose to stay with them, we are at best choosing a mediocre pace of career growth for ourselves, which is perfectly alright to want.
- Someone who's willing to put up a fight for us will most likely push us to grow faster, which can get very uncomfortable. Again, this is a reasonable path to choose.
- Unfortunately, world is filled with people who moved into a leadership role to solely benefit their own careers. While they may push us to deliver more, we might never see any rewards for our efforts.