Bite off more than you can chew
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Following last week’s article by Scott looking at how you can deal with the bigger challenges in your career, I wanted to to take a look at “why” you should take on those bigger challenges…
I was recently discussing career tactics with a group of high potentials, and as I often do, I asked them to list their career concerns and questions. In among these was the question “How do you get to be CEO?” This is a question that has many answers (some of which will be shared here at a later date!), but one of the biggest pieces of advice from our research is that those who reach the top of organisations consistently bite off more than they can chew – and then chew very hard.
What does this mean in practice? Well, it means throwing yourself in at the deep end – volunteering for responsibilities that you don’t yet have the skills or knowledge to carry out effectively. Once you’ve committed yourself to a responsibility, the adrenalin will kick in, making you an extremely efficient learning machine focused on one thing – surviving the scary new task you’ve taken on. Your brain will be on high alert for opportunities to learn. That means that you’ll find the nerve to ask questions and actively seek out people with the knowledge you need, and then suck up everything they know which could help.
Your reticular activating system (the part of the brain that screens the mass of data hitting you for relevance) will highlight all the key information in your environment that could possibly be useful. Did you ever notice that when you decide to take a holiday in Japan, or run a half marathon – suddenly the papers are full of articles on the subject, and the TV has not one but three programmes on the topic? Have you heard your name mentioned in a very noisy room – even though the speaker is several feet away? That’s the reticular activating system at work. Adrenalin will galvanise you into action – setting up mentors you can call on, and building relationships based on urgent need. You’ll also set up rapid feedback loops so you get quick and accurate feedback on your performance on a daily basis, even hourly when you have a lot of new decisions to make.
If you regularly bite off more than you can chew, you’ll develop excellent ‘muscles’ for achieving results despite an initial lack of knowledge – tactics, strategies, network. You’ll develop confidence that you can survive and achieve despite not knowing how to do it, or even fully understanding what you are going to be responsible for! Once you have this confidence, you’ll start volunteering quicker – and that will help you pick up the stretch opportunities that mark you out as a fast tracker.
TAKEAWAY
Directors and CEOs spend much of their time making fast decisions on imperfect information. If you really want to be CEO, expect to spend much of your career feeling out of your depth. Make a habit of volunteering to do things that are beyond your current capability – and hone your frantic learning muscles!
I was recently discussing career tactics with a group of high potentials, and as I often do, I asked them to list their career concerns and questions. In among these was the question “How do you get to be CEO?” This is a question that has many answers (some of which will be shared here at a later date!), but one of the biggest pieces of advice from our research is that those who reach the top of organisations consistently bite off more than they can chew – and then chew very hard.
What does this mean in practice? Well, it means throwing yourself in at the deep end – volunteering for responsibilities that you don’t yet have the skills or knowledge to carry out effectively. Once you’ve committed yourself to a responsibility, the adrenalin will kick in, making you an extremely efficient learning machine focused on one thing – surviving the scary new task you’ve taken on. Your brain will be on high alert for opportunities to learn. That means that you’ll find the nerve to ask questions and actively seek out people with the knowledge you need, and then suck up everything they know which could help.
Your reticular activating system (the part of the brain that screens the mass of data hitting you for relevance) will highlight all the key information in your environment that could possibly be useful. Did you ever notice that when you decide to take a holiday in Japan, or run a half marathon – suddenly the papers are full of articles on the subject, and the TV has not one but three programmes on the topic? Have you heard your name mentioned in a very noisy room – even though the speaker is several feet away? That’s the reticular activating system at work. Adrenalin will galvanise you into action – setting up mentors you can call on, and building relationships based on urgent need. You’ll also set up rapid feedback loops so you get quick and accurate feedback on your performance on a daily basis, even hourly when you have a lot of new decisions to make.
If you regularly bite off more than you can chew, you’ll develop excellent ‘muscles’ for achieving results despite an initial lack of knowledge – tactics, strategies, network. You’ll develop confidence that you can survive and achieve despite not knowing how to do it, or even fully understanding what you are going to be responsible for! Once you have this confidence, you’ll start volunteering quicker – and that will help you pick up the stretch opportunities that mark you out as a fast tracker.
TAKEAWAY
Directors and CEOs spend much of their time making fast decisions on imperfect information. If you really want to be CEO, expect to spend much of your career feeling out of your depth. Make a habit of volunteering to do things that are beyond your current capability – and hone your frantic learning muscles!