Success is all about the C’s
Clearly, it’s not just your work
Success is multi-variant, for sure. I’ve known people who were considered amazing employees in one company and complete misses in another. I’ve seen truly smart and talented leaders miss promotion after promotion. And, of course, I have known some that I found mediocre at best that thrived. There are so many plausible reasons for the seeming anomalies, not the least of which is the fact that, while pretty good, I do not claim to be the perfect judge of talent.
Recently, however, I have begun to form a hypothesis around four traits that might just guarantee your success if you can master demonstration of all of them. They just happen to all start with the same letter. And, as always, I welcome your thoughts.
Competence
This is pretty obvious, right? Of course, if you hire someone, you want them to be able to deliver to your job description. And yet this is not always what we look for in hiring or promoting.
If you’re hired to lead a team of engineers, you must have the appropriate leadership skills and technical acumen to do so. You must be able to lead, guiding your team toward some shared vision and objective. You must understand engineering, at least enough to sniff out poppycock and identify opportunities. Likewise, CIOs must be able to talk about business strategy and how to tie strategy to technology investments. Architecture leads need to understand structure and working with developers. Finance professionals must know financial standards and practices. Sales people must be able to manage a client sales cycle. This is table stakes.
Yet, all too often there are individuals who have so mastered the art of “networking”, that they forget they actually must understand their area of responsibility. This blog is not really for those guys, however. This blog is for those who are highly competent yet still miss out. Read on, because knowing your stuff is simply not enough.
Content
I truly believe that most humans do enjoy learning something new — whether it’s from time to time or everyday. Therefore, the ability to come to the table with content above and beyond your primary role is very important to success. This could be a deep understanding of one particular area of expertise so that you are the smartest person in the room whenever this topic is discussed. Or it could be a broader, slightly more shallow knowledge of many different things. Either way, the goal is that every time you bring up one of these things someone learns.
People are by nature intrigued by something previously unknown to them. When you come with facts, studies and insight, they are engaged listeners– and that increases your value and likelihood of success.
Whenever I talk to mentees, especially younger ones, I encourage them to get a subscription to Harvard Business Review, The Economist, or The Atlantic. Each of these three publications are amazing at providing insightful analysis and background on things relevant to the world today. But your content can be loads of things. If you know a lot about diversity, support your company’s D&I goals. If you are a trained musician, bring that up and perhaps apply your music talents to the crafting of strategy, which is simply a collection of “notes” coming together to form the “music” of profitable growth.
In short, bring content and you will be invited back to the table. Or the “room where it happened.” But, guess what? It’s challenging for people to find out you have content worth inviting you if they have never actually invited you to the room. See the challenge?
Communication
As you advance in your career you must communicate with greater awareness/ with purpose/ more consciously. It is absolutely amazing how many people NEVER talk to their boss about their goals, aspirations, and development needs. You want to have a spot on the agenda at the next company retreat? Ask. You think you deserve the promotion? Ask. Know something about a topic you know is important to the CEO? Make it known. How on earth would anyone know about that if you don’t speak up?
I learned this the hard way. Heck, sometimes I still forget. Earlier in my career, there were lots of specific projects and tasks and initiatives to which I was assigned. There were managers overseeing me and my work showed my worth — but these managers were mostly low-to-mid-level. They had time for overseeing and were trying to drive their own careers.
As my career progressed (as any does), management above me were more senior people with significantly less time for oversight. I realized almost too late how important it was to communicate what I had done and how I had succeeded. The fact is, senior managers are communicating regardless of whether you’re in the room so you better talk too. And the more senior you get, the less you will have others talking about you, your needs, or your successes. Sad but true.
That said, communication is not simply about selling yourself. It is also about communicating challenges and asking for support. It is about probing to find out what’s going on that you might have missed. And it’s about being clear with your intentions and your direction so that there is no doubt the path/strategy is right. And that is where confidence comes into play.
Confidence
I must admit that it took me years to realize just how confidence shrouded so many subpar professionals in a cloak of seeming invincibility and perceived intellect. Mediocre performers become super heroes daily with a simple turn of a phrase, swagger in the walk, and well-placed compliment from a close friend for whom he or she would do the same. Confidence is important and for many, it is a very difficult task to ensure you do not confuse confidence with arrogance. In cultures where talking about yourself is frowned upon, this can be even more difficult.
Ok, now stop reading my blog and read this post on the difference between arrogance and confidence. (Click here to open, but come back!). In case you don’t have time, here is the key point: “Get the idea of ‘overconfidence” out of your head right now. Overconfidence doesn’t exist; there is no such thing as too much confidence.” The article goes on to say that “The opposite of arrogance is not a lack of confidence. It’s deference.”
This is so very important. I have seen time and again that people are so afraid of being confident that they miss opportunities to shine. They come off as weak because they are trying not to come off as arrogant. I have suffered from this as have many friends. You don’t have to suffer as well!
“In the board room, when you’re perceived as tough and aggressive for the right reasons, in the right moments, that’s an asset, that’s an attribute. That’s helped me,” said Gene Todd, interviewed in a recent article.
Bottom line
(This is why “culture” does matter, as an aside.) A lot goes into success, including teammates, partners, relationships, company, intelligence, work output, adaptability, etc. But these C-words above drive a ton of what constitutes “success” in most work contexts. Focus on being good at what you do, uniquely contribute content to the conversation, communicate your needs and your successes, and remember that it is absolutely ok to be confident.
You’ll rise up.
There are about 97 million books, podcasts, videos, and blogs about how to be successful. What if it’s just a series of C-words?
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com (Driving Value)
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