Principled Professional

How to Succeed in the Professional World

Don’t Burn Bridges, Take The High Road

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A coworker decided to leave the company we worked for in favor of another opportunity. Turns out she was frustrated by having to deal with another colleague, and it drove her to leave.

Unfortunately her last 6 days were full of excuses and poor work. She missed meetings, didn’t follow through on commitments, and schedule personal appointments during her last few days instead of helping to transition her work.

A different coworker recently left to pursue a job that was a significant step up in pay. He wasn’t leaving a difficult situation, but the new job was too good to pass up.

He left detailed notes on his past work, stayed longer than expected, and even offered to be available for questions after leaving.

The company won’t consider the first person for another job, and would take the second back in a heartbeat. Same goes for the employees that interacted with these two.

Even when you’re dealing with difficult people, don’t attack with passive aggression. Don’t leave a trail of destruction as you walk out the door. Don’t burn bridges; take the high road. Practically, you’ll never know when you’ll need these people again. Morally, it’s the right thing to do.

Punctuality Is A Choice: How to Be On Time Every Time

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“On time is late, and 15 minutes early is on time.” -My high school lacrosse coach

Are you always late? Do you consistently finish tasks after a deadline you committed to?

Chances are you’ve justified these occurrences with one of the following excuses:

  • “The bus, train, subway, Uber was late.”
  • “Traffic was worse than I expected.”
  • “I didn’t think it would take this long.”
  • “Something else got rescheduled.”
  • … something else beyond your control

We’ve all been late. Sometimes work just gets away from you. But some people are chronically late. They regularly show up just a little after the meeting starts. They regularly turn in a project a few hours or days after the deadline. And they always have a reason why it happened and they couldn’t do anything about it.

Don’t buy into this bullshit. Punctuality is a choice.

Choose to learn how to be on time. Choose to finish what you commit to when you commit to it. Do what you need to do to make sure it happens.

For the past four years I’ve taught a course on Digital Marketing in San Francisco. I live in San Jose, about 50 miles south. Despite this, I’ve never been late to a course I’ve taught. Why? I’ve learned a key skill.

The skill isn’t a secret, and I’m not the only one with this skill. Many other principled professionals out there are consistently on time for every appointment.

In high school I was regularly late to appointments. That Is until my high school lacrosse coach taught me the meaning of being “on time”.

Practice started at 3:30pm. At the first practice of the season, several people showed up right at 3:30. Coach was ready to start drills, but these guys still needed to get their pads on and their shoes laced up. (That doesn’t sound like it would take time, but even 5 minutes is important.)

Coach told us, “on time is late, and early is on time.” He told us about Lombardi time, named after the famous coach Vince Lombardi, and that our standard for the season was Lombardi time. He made sure the lesson stuck by pairing it with wind sprints.

What’s the key to punctuality? Plan to show up early, and stick to your plan.

Once my coach told us about Lombardi time, the team planned to be on the field, suited up and ready to practice by 3:15. We adjusted our schedule to make sure that happened.

Occasionally someone would be ready a little past 3:15 (because of traffic or other unforeseen challenges), but that was OK, because practice didn’t start until 3:30. By building in time to account for the uncontrollable, the team learned how to be on time.

 

What’s the key to finishing on time?

After high school as I started my career I would commit to deadlines without considering what it would take to actually get the work done in an effort to make my colleagues happy. This inevitably led to me missing the deadline I committed to.

Luckily I met a coworker who taught me the keys to finishing work on time. There are three.

Consider how long it will take to do the work, then add time for unforeseen circumstances

When you consider a task or project, carefully visualize how long it will take to complete the project. Consider all the steps involved. Think about what you will need from others, and coordinate with them. Identify any aspects that you don’t feel comfortable estimating and seek advice from someone who’s done that task before.

Write down how long it will take to do each step and add it up. Then take a look at your calendar, and estimate how much time you’re able to spend on each day to accomplish the project. Just because you’re working for 8 hours a day 5 days a week doesn’t mean you have 40 hours a week for this project. What else are you doing? Do you or anyone else have vacation time you need to consider? What about other projects?

After you’ve identified how long the project will take and when you can spend that time, then consider adding some time for unforeseen circumstances.

When I first learned this strategy from a coworker (thanks Amanda), she suggested I double the amount of time it would take. I’ve learned that may be overkill. Shoot to add between 50% to 100%. Use your best judgement, but don’t commit to the exact date you calculated without adding a little bit of time.

Example: your boss asks you to create a presentation on competitors for a meeting that occurs in 6 weeks. You think through the presentation, what you’ll need, and who else you’ll need to work with, and you decide it will take about 30 hours of work to complete.

Then you look at the calendar. You see you’ve got two other projects going on right now for the next month. You figure out you can contribute about 2 hours a day to this project. There’s also a Monday off coming up. So the project will take you 15 days (30 hours divided by 2 hours per day), and about four weeks to deliver (5 days a week). You decide to add three days to the deadline and tell your boss you’ll have the presentation ready in four weeks. (Your estimate includes drafts and review meetings so your boss will be able to see your ideas before then.)

Block out/reserve time on your calendar to do the work.

Once you’ve made a commitment, block out time on your calendar to do the work. Literally make an appointment with yourself for the days and times you’ll be working on the project. This prevents other meetings from taking all your time in a day where you need time for projects. It also prevents you from forgetting that you committed to work on the project, and spending your time focused on something else that grabs your attention.

Don’t commit to something you can’t deliver. Learn to say no.

This was a huge challenge for me. Others would ask me to deliver something by a certain time, and I would say “yes” without considering how I would actually meet the deadline, thinking I would figure out. More often than not I didn’t figure it out, and I let my colleague down by not delivering on time.

I learned that the discomfort of being honest and saying “no” when I couldn’t deliver was much easier (and more principled) than committing to something and then not following through.

Deadlines should be a negotiation. Sometimes you’ll get a request, consider the deadline, and realize you can deliver with no problem. Other times you’ll be pressured to finish something faster than you’ll able to. You have to stand up for yourself. Even under intense pressure, it’s your responsibility to commit only if you’re reasonably sure you can deliver. This is not easy, and it takes practice. Once you master this skill, however, you will gain the respect of your colleagues, even those who pressured you to deliver.

Choose to be punctual and reliable

Professionals are built on strong relationships , and relationships are built on trust and history, also known as reputation. Build a strong reputation for being on time and turning things in when you committed to.

What strategies do you have to show up on time and complete your projects on time? Share them in the comments and help out your fellow professionals.

The Difference Between Service and Servitude

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While it may be old, I’m a huge fan of the series Kung Fu with David Carradine. Each episode contains a nugget of philosophical thought that is at once self-development and moral guidance.

In one of my favorite episodes, young Kwai Chang Caine gets angry when partaking in a ritual that all the young monks-in-training at the temple partake in: bringing rice to the master. Basically his attitude is “I’m no slave… why should I bring you rice?”

You may expect some reprimand from the master along the lines of “I am the Master! If you want to learn from me, you must be humble.”

Instead, the Master empathizes with Kwai Chang, and invites him to sit in the spot where the Master receives the tribute. Kwai Chang becomes instantly frightened, yet follows the instructions. Then the Master bows to Kwai Chang Caine, and gives him the rice that was intended for the Master! Kwai Chang Caine is squirming now, embarrassed at having said something that would cause the Master to serve him!

After persisting in this way for some time (washing Kwai Chang’s feet, bringing Kwai Chang his meals, etc.), Kwai Chang finally relents to the teachings of the Master. The Master asks Caine how sad it would be if one were not given the opportunity to serve someone else. The Master says “If in serving one is served and in being served one also serves, are these not folds of the same garment?”

”I’m due for a promotion, I deserve a raise.”

A common theme in the workplace is the employee who feels he is owed a promotion, or she is “due” for a raise.

Place yourself in the shoes of the manager when this opinion is expressed. You have a true desire to serve your direct reports. You know that a primary motivator is income and title. And yet, when the raise is “deserved,” the promotion is “due,” do you not feel like young Kwai Chang, feeling forced to bring rice to the Master? Do you not question the deserved-ness of this raise or promotion?

I am not immune to this reasoning. After two years, I felt I was due a promotion. After all, others who were there longer got promoted about every two years, why shouldn’t I?

The problem with this mindset in the employee-employer relationship is that it ignores the relationship and focuses on unspoken (and undefined) expectations of what should happen. When I said I “deserved” a promotion after two years, I believed that two years of work means the company owes me a promotion in the same way they owed me salary, but that’s not the reality. My salary is part of a contract. My expectation of promotion is only that, an expectation.

The best business relationships are based on clear contracts and solid relationships. If the two sides of a relationship are constantly having to write contracts for every little thing, it’s not effective, and it’s not a good sign of a valuable partnership.

On the other hand, when the partners focus on serving the relationship and the interests of the other partner, the relationship thrives. The focus is on service, on providing value, and the trust is that the value will be returned, even if the specifics are not written out in every detail.

When you’re an employee, you are in a partnership with your employer. Respect their situation. Serve your employer, and allow your employer to serve you.

If you feel that you are in servitude, rather than service, to your employer, question yourself first. Are you expecting something that hasn’t been discussed? Are you feeling you’re owed something simply because of time served? These beliefs come from anger, not respect.

If you feel your employer can serve you better, ask for what you want in clear, plain language. Trust in the relationship you’ve built. You may not get what you ask for because the employer can’t afford it, isn’t able to approve it, or various other reasons, but you will be listened to. If you’re not, it’s time to start looking for a new situation where your service is respected in kind.

The point: the professional expects rewards in exchange for honest service. She doesn’t expect it for “time served.” She prioritized the relationships over any particular request. She has the mindset of mutual service driven by mutual respect.

How have you lost sight of service and respect in your profession? How can you improve one of your professional relationship by shifting your focus from “what’s in it for me?” to “how can I serve you better?”

What happens when you f*** up

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The ideal world clashes with reality in harsh, defining ways.

The truth is that even with focus on principles, careful estimation of timelines, effective time management, and assertive expectation management, you will drop deadlines, miss the mark, and not deliver on your promises.

We’ve all done it. Even me, recently.

I took on a project, helping to create the next version of a course I’ve taught many times. Despite having a busy schedule, I took the opportunity, since I was passionate about the course and the students who would take it.

The work started well enough, but then life happened.

A new responsibility at my primary job took much of the energy and time I was counting on for the course development. This meant competing priorities. Unfortunately the nature of my primary job isn’t time-bound, so it’s difficult to limit involvement while maintaining quality of work.

Then the project was delayed by the other team members. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge issue, but I had already committed to another project scheduled to begin after the course development was completed. The delay meant the project would now happen concurrently with the course development, requiring time and energy I didn’t have.

The time pressures combined to cause my work to be behind schedule, rushed, and subpar.

The stress, disappointment, and lost credibility was emotionally devastating, and had a significant effect on future opportunities with the client.

Although my story is unique, many cases of “not delivering” have the same causes and symptoms. Below I analyze the two mistakes I made, how they could have been prevented, and what you can do to recover and prevent this happening to you on the future.

First mistake: Not resetting expectations once the project timelines had changed.

While I do take responsibility for not delivering what I promised, I could have made the project a lot easier on everyone by resetting expectations once the project had become delayed.

Some managers don’t believe that a delay in a project should mean renegotiation of commitments. After all, if a contractor needs 4 weeks, what’s the difference between that time being used 2 weeks from now vs 4 weeks from now?

The fact is, for many contractors, it’s a huge difference. Imagine you’ve scheduled a project to take all of your time in November and be delivered by November 31. You also have a project scheduled to take all of your time in December. You learn that you won’t get a key document you need from someone else on time, it will be two weeks late.

What to you do? There’s no good answer, but the best answer I’ve found is to reset expectations. Tell the owner of the project, “I understand there’s been a delay. Unfortunately this means we’ll need to reconsider my deadlines, as I had planned on having what I needed on schedule. Let’s renegotiate deadlines.”

Second Mistake, saying yes to too much: At certain points in your life, it’s important to say ‘Yes.’ Especially early in your career, you want to remain open to opportunities.

The downside comes when you say yes to too many things. If you say yes to everything that comes along, you won’t have any space to invest in the next thing.

In my story above, I had said yes to the course development, yes to my job, and yes to another project, even though I knew it would take all of my free time.

Now I’ll apply a stronger filter to my decisions: perhaps borrowing from Derek Sivers (check spelling) “Hell yes or no” mentality.

Recovery is difficult when you under-deliver… when you don’t meet expectations. The trust you had is damaged, perhaps irreparably.

Your first step for recovery is to analyze what you did and don’t do it again. This is all anyone who is extremely reliable and successful has done: made mistakes, learned from them, and improved. Everyone makes the mistake, the reliable ones don’t do it twice.

Make sure you start saying no more often. Make sure you reset expectations on any other projects, even if the reason you have to reset is your fault. Reliable people bring up problems as soon as possible, not at the last possible moment.

Your second step to recovery is to apologize sincerely, and then try to take on another project with the same group that you can over-deliver on. Don’t take it on unless you absolutely know you can do a fantastic job. This will help begin to repair your reputation.

Finally, don’t beat yourself up too much. Everyone has missed at least one deadline. Learn from it, then let go, move on, and focus on what’s next.

9 unexpected truths about a successful job search

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The job search is a daunting gauntlet of hard work and uncertainty. It’s even worse when you don’t know the pitfalls that await you. These 9 truths, learned from hard experience, will prepare you for what lies ahead, and help you find a job you want, not just one you need.

The job search is mostly random

Lazlo Bock, SVP of People Operations at Google, and head of hiring, said this in an interview with the New York Times in 2013:

Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship. It’s a complete random mess, except for one guy who was highly predictive because he only interviewed people for a very specialized area, where he happened to be the world’s leading expert.”

If Google, a company that has invested millions in hiring, and is “25 times more selective than Harvard, Yale, or Princeton” can’t train interviewers to score job candidates in a way that reliably predicts future performance, then no one can.

During a job search, you’ll submit résumés, participate in phone screens, and hustle through second interviews, third interviews, practical interviews, etc. But after all that, you still need a little bit of luck if you’re going to get the job.

There are simply too many factors involved in the hiring process for any candidate to predict and control. I’ve known excellent candidates who were more than qualified who didn’t end up getting the job because:

  • The company had a structural change that made hiring for the open position no longer necessary.
  • The company fell on hard times and decided to freeze all hiring.
  • The company was simply too lazy to get around to finishing the hiring process. (This is particularly common at smaller companies or companies without a dedicated HR staff).
  • A significant local, national, or global event occurred (such as the 9/11 attacks in the United States) that caused the company to panic and stop hiring.
  • A key member of the hiring team quit, was promoted, got pregnant, or changed his mind. (I’ve seen all of these happen).

All of this is completely out of the candidate’s control, mostly unpredictable, and totally unrelated to a candidate’s ability to do the job.

Should you change your approach to the job hunt? No. Just make sure you’re not betting everything on just one potential position, and you’re aiming for multiple offers.

Should you quit trying? No. This is just part of the job hunt.

Actions: You’re best bet is to focus on generating first interviews and building a match between you and your potential employer. Let the things you can’t control worry about themselves.

Companies don’t pick the best candidate (or at least not the most qualified)

I remember interviewing potential candidates for a marketing position. One candidate (call him Joe) had a few years of experience, excellent interviews, and a good grasp of the industry. Another candidate (call her Sue) was an internal candidate who had no experience in the marketing world, and was only relatively new to the industry.

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