You’ve been there, working hard for your company, waiting
for the day your ship will come in, and suddenly the day arrives. The manager
of your department decides to move to North Dakota and suddenly there is an
opening on your team that will land you a big, fat paycheck. Without haste, you
immediately pull up the resume you’ve stored on your personal drive and before
you know it, you’ve hit the final “Submit” button on the application. With
enthusiasm you begin to wait, thinking that this is your shot to move into
management, your shot to finally get into the “big leagues.”
Your interview is a smash, and
within days you get the offer, the office, and the title. The first day isn’t
too bad, everyone is congratulatory, but then weeks and months in you realize
you are spending what used to be your free time on annual reviews. The time you
used to spend catching up with colleagues in the break room is now dedicated to
coaching your team, managing budgets, tracking reports, and dealing with
personnel issues. Time goes on and before you know it, you have less time, the
money you thought you were making somehow vanishes, and you have a heap of
responsibility weighing you down. What happened? You got managered!
Since I
started my career in Talent Acquisition, I have seen a number of people
interview for management jobs who were incredibly talented individual
contributors. However, after doing their jobs for a period of time they get
complacent and get bored. They want to make more money and see what their
manager is doing and think, I can do that
job. However, once these individuals assume the coveted management title,
they suddenly realize that life at the company isn’t how it was at all when
they were a graphic designer, accountant, assistant, coordinator, or specialist.
The wonderful freedoms available in those positions are now a distant memory because
they let the lure of the almighty dollar pull them in.
I find
it interesting that when I interview people for management positions (in a
promotion situation) and ask where they would like to be 10 years from now,
many responders admitted they would like to continue doing what they are
presently doing. In my imaginary mind, I stop and wondered, why are
we even having this conversation? Why
had these individuals taken the time to apply for a job they really didn’t want?
After digging a little deeper in my follow up questions, I typically
discover that the motivation for the move is to retire at a higher income
bracket to ensure security for their families. While I find this to be a noble
response, I have to speculate that perhaps the reason people think they need to
move into management is because they don’t understand the ways they can grow
exactly where they are right now.
Believe
me, I understand wanting to drive your career into high gear. I know what it’s
like to want to work so hard that you will do whatever it takes to get what you
want, what you need, or what satisfies your goals. But, I also understand the
significant sacrifices that are made the higher up the chain you reach. Before
anyone assumes that I am simply unsympathetic and am a dream-killer, I want to
stop for a moment and talk about two things.
1. Do you absolutely love what you are doing
now?
2. Will becoming a manager/supervisor/higher
level officer bring more joy to your overall life?
If you answered positively to the first question, and you
love what you do, then do not deprive the world of your gift. Make a voice for
that passion, and share it! If it is anything from mopping floors, to singing,
to analyzing data, to reviewing credit reports, if what you are doing everyday
brings you joy, then you should absolutely pursue doing more of what you love.
If being a manager will enable you to do more of that, then follow that path.
If you love what you do, and you are passionate about teaching others how to do
it, and you coincidentally also enjoy things like adhering to and creating
budgets and would like to help others create a career path around that talent, then
being on the management path works for you.
However,
if you move into a management position with the assumption that you are simply
going to make more money, then there will come a time when the money will not
be worth the significant personal sacrifices. So, what should you do instead?
You should take your passion for the thing you do and become an expert. Here me
out here. If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers,
then you know this already, but if you haven’t then here’s some news for
you: it takes 10,000 hours to really gain mastery of a skill. If you are
spending a minimum of 40 hours per week doing your job, and the typical work
year is 2,080 hours, then by the time you’ve been doing your job for 4.81
years, you already have the experience necessary to achieve expert status. If
you’ve been doing your job less than 4.81 years, then start investing in
yourself in your free time: read books about people who are successful in your
career, attend networking events to grow your circle, get hungry for success,
find out what other people have done to be successful in your field, listen to
every podcast on the topic, and start taking action. No matter what field you
are in, there are experiences you have had that you can share with others that
can help make them better at their jobs, too. If you become an expert, here are
some opportunities that you will have available to you:
·
Get
recruited by a competitor or vendor: Believe it or not, there are very few
people in this world who bring true passion to what they do. If you are in a
company that values that passion, then by all means stay, but if you are in a
situation where you are demonstrating excellence in what you do, believe me,
other people will start to notice.
·
Create an
info product to teach other people what you know: People love success
stories, and they love learning how to get to where you are. If you create an
info-product, an e-book, online videos and tutorials, then you will further
separate yourself from the average Joe or Jane. If your product is good, people
will buy it, and you’ve just created a new opportunity to make more money.
·
Speaking
opportunities within your field of practice: Speaking is not only a great
opportunity to establish yourself as an expert, but it is a great way for you
to grow personally and learn more about the thing you love. Start with
professional associations, but be open to opportunities where you can meet new
people and give back.
·
Start a
side consulting business: If you are serious about creating more revenue
for yourself, then doing consulting work will make you more money, and
fast-track your knowledge. When you consult, you are going to have
significantly more exposure to case studies and different scenarios, and you
will find you become exceptionally effective at solving specific problems.
Create a system around how you solve those problems, and package it for more
than you make in your current role, and sell it. Side note: Just double check your standards
of conduct first to make sure you don’t have a conflict of interest in your
present company.
·
Mentorship
opportunities to teach junior employees, interns or even high school students:
The best career advice I’ve ever received came from my old coach, Robert
Schantz who always said, “Come from a place of contribution.” Don’t expect
anything in return, just help others and your life will improve.
What I want to express more than anything is that you have
options available to you. If you are passionate about what you do, then get
ahead by investing in yourself. As you develop yourself in time that would have
otherwise been spent on your department budgeting report, you will find you can
start to have a vision of possibilities. Out of that vision, you can create
opportunity, set and achieve goals, and drive your future exactly where you
want to go. When you have that clear vision, then you will see that anything
standing in the way of you reaching that goal is simply not worth your time.
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