6 Unavoidable Real-World Facts About Managing Career and Priorities

They say experience is the best teacher, but sometimes that experience can involve the expenditure of time, frustration, and the thought ‘I wish someone had given me this advice’ rather than having learned the hard way.

Here are six things I have learned in the real world about managing career and priorities ... things they don't often teach in business school.

Managing Career and Priorities – Real World Learning #1

If you don't plan and manage your own career don't expect someone else to do it for you

It is naive to believe that an employer has your best interests at heart. Employers invariably have their own best interests at heart, and if these align with yours that’s a bonus … and this may be the case at a certain time, and not the case at others.

I believe if you have a good employer you should seek to satisfy your career aspirations within that company as the first option. Always remember your employer’s level of commitment to you is probably in writing somewhere … and it amounts to maybe 1, 2 or 3 months’ notice or, if you read your contract carefully, this as severance pay and for no reason you have any control over, you could be called to an unexpected urgent meeting at 5pm one day where you will be told

this is your last day in the office. You may have no control over what is done and what is communicated thereafter and it is not unheard of to be figuratively shot in the back on your way down the stairs.

Thinking ‘that would never happen to me’ is also naïve. This is not an encouragement toward disloyalty to your employer, but take a cold look at the reality of your employer's true commitment to you. Why should your commitment in return be any greater?

Managing Career and Priorities – Real World Learning #2

I have so much to do today I must spend the first two hours in prayer

Martin Luther was also right, regardless of your type or level of religious persuasion. In this classic paradox he has two things to say:

Firstly, keep your priorities in the right order and don't allow short term demands and pressures to prevent you from giving your best to your higher calling, be that your God, your family, your dreams and your desires or whatever that may be.

Secondly the more busy you are, the more important it is to resist the temptation to rush into things headlong but to stand back, consider, plan, prioritize. I can’t emphasize the work prioritize enough.

When you are under pressure to do many things in a limited time frame it is very hard to resist the temptation to simply make a start but without planning and thinking carefully that could be the wrong place to start, and actually cause you more effort to undo and start over in the right direction.

This is easy advice yo give in theory but very difficult to implement in practice: that doesn't mean it is bad advice ... but as the old saying goes, it can be tough to stay focused on your objective of draining the swamp when you are up to your armpit in alligators.

Managing Career and Priorities – Real World Learning #3

Icarus was right. If you fly too close to the sun the wax holding your wings on will melt, and down you go!

Your work occurs within the eclipse shadow cast by your immediate superior, and this association – whether warranted or not – may present both challenges and opportunities.

When a CEO leaves for any reason, his/her direct reports

are likely to be in the direct firing line for the new CEO. Conversely when a superior is promoted or given another position, there’s a good chance their gravitational pull may benefit you as well.

This issue can be beneficial or harmful and is like having a patron or sponsor - when the going is good for them it is likely to benefit you as well, and vice versa.

Naturally there is a flip side and that is if you happen to be closely aligned to a ratbag, then chances are you will be tarnished by that person's reputation - as the saying goes 'if you lie down with dogs, you'll get fleas'.

The best advice is take time every now and then to consider your position vis-a-vis your close alignment with current or former superiors, how this is likely to be perceived, and whether that is likely to be detrimental or advantageous to you. And always remember - perception is reality.

Managing Career and Priorities – Real World Learning #4

The biggest mistake a strong leader can make is to surround themselves with similar people.

Regrettably it’s also the most common mistake made by those in senior leadership roles. “Type A” leaders – the ones with attributes like energy, vision, drive, capability, ambition, (and their houseguests of impatience, arrogance, intolerance, hubris and so on) often find it difficult to see value in those who don’t exhibit the same characteristics, and so over time tend to surround themselves with ‘clones’ of themselves.

This tends to be a blind spot to many leaders who are able to point out this weakness in others but are unable to apply the same analysis of their own attitudes and behaviour.

This leads to imbalance and is something a wise leader will seek to avoid. Relatively few senior leaders have the self-confidence as well as insight to see this as an important issue.

And it's not unheard of for a previous leader's 'unbalanced' team to be 'rebalanced' by his or her replacement, and under the delusion of 'diversity' simply re-creating an equally unbalanced team that is a reflection of the incoming leader's bias and blind spots.

Managing Career and Priorities – Real World Learning #5

The second biggest mistake a string leader can make is to weed out those who don't agree with him or her, which leads to becoming cut off from any dissenting or diverging perspectives.

In the days of the Roman Empire when a conquering Caesar would return to Rome and head a procession in which the people would praise and applaud him, it was the role of his most trusted bodyguards – the Praetorian Guard, to accompany the chariot and whisper ‘remember Caesar, thou art mortal’ lest he start to believe the adulation of the people.

Far too many CEO’s would see such words as negative, or disloyal and the giver would be quickly unwelcome. The result can be the individual leading an organization becoming completely cut off from any real communication that doesn’t get sifted by someone who is pre-selected only to transmit in a certain way. It’s a big danger and more common that it should be.

Allowing and heeding dissenting views can be uncomfortable however a good leader needs to take care to have channels of communication where advice and information can be obtained from all perspectives, and not censored deliberately or innocently by a group of individuals all with similar outlooks.

In large organizations with a professional Board or independent external Directors, it is imperative that Directors take on this task of challenge, provision of alternative perspectives or the 'devil's advocate' role if the CEO demonstrates a reluctance to be exposed to this from subordinates.

Managing Career and Priorities – Real World Learning #6

It takes a special type of person to both survive and prosper in large companies for any length of time. Performance and ability are just small parts of the equation.

Just as intelligence tests can be described as a way to rank people according to their ability to answer intelligence tests, so too long term success in a corporate situation may have very little to do with performance or capability, and more to do with the ability to adapt to the corporate culture and survive the changes of manager you are exposed to.

Often, one measure of this ability to survive and prosper is the capability to manage upwards, in a way that is wanted by an individual’s leader. Depending on the style of leader, this can mean a demonstration of loyalty, support, or agreement that has more to do with political correctness than choosing and implementing the course of action that would be of greatest benefit to the company and its shareholders.

The term 'cultural fit' although somewhat imprecise in its definition is a much greater determinant of an individual's career progression in a large organization, and it is not uncommon to see individuals advance who have not shone brightly when it comes to performance or innate ability, but they have performed well in managing and building relationships and the perception of being loyal and well aligned with the corporate culture, and thus a 'safe' choice.

For those who recall C S Lewis's 'Narnia Tales', Mr Beaver explains this point well when he is referring to the hoped-for return of Aslan, the lion. 'Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he's not safe! But he's good. He's the King'.

Aslan would have never had a successful 40-year career with regular promotions in any large organization or MNC that I can think of, which is just as well because it just wouldn't be the same if everyone was looking forward to Aslan's return because he was once the local Branch Manager before becoming Regional Director Central Narnia before being posted to the corporate office and would be making his first visit back to wintertime Narnia as recently appointed VP Climate Change Strategy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David Christensen is a highly experienced Asia Pacific business executive and consultant who has lived and worked in 14 different countries and is presently based in Bangkok, Thailand. He writes on a variety of subjects which are consolidated in his business blog site, InversionPoint.com.