It turns out, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you make good career choices. Some of the smartest people I know keep tripping all over themselves as they stumble from one bad situation to the next. They fall victim to at least 4 big career mistakes.
That’s too bad. Our careers like our lives are all too short.
Review the list and see if you see yourself here. Of course, chances are, you won’t. We’re mostly blind and deaf to the cognitive tricks that easily send us down blind alleys on our career journeys.
Top 4 Career Mistakes of Otherwise Smart People
1. Believing they are their title or role.
I see and hear this one regularly. It’s limiting and often destructive.
Imagine the brilliant individual getting paid to be a project manager. He’s a good project manager, but he’s not satisfied. He’s looking for something more in his work. He’s also looking to grow his compensation and climb the ladder.
He switches firms every few years looking for something more rewarding and challenging.
He always moves firms as a project manager. After all, that’s what he is, isn’t he?
In reality, he’s a master of creating functioning groups that solve problems and collaborate—often on short notice—to create something for a customer.
Oh, and he’s a great teacher.
Assuming he’s his role is limiting.
You’re not a vice-president of something or another. You may have the title, but it doesn’t adequately define or describe you.
Quit thinking you are your title. Or, your job.
You’re much more than both of those. They are easy, lazy labels and self-limiting boxes.
2. Ignoring or suppressing their superpower(s)
Most of us think we know our superpowers. We’re usually wrong.
Our superpowers hide in plain sight, visible to those around us, but invisible to the definition of ourselves locked in our minds and printed on our business cards or displayed on our LinkedIn profiles.
One of the smartest people I know has stumbled from situation to situation for most of her career, only occasionally glimpsing and applying her superpower.
When she sees and seizes upon it, the results are remarkable.
We all see it.
Most of the time, she is engaged in a role that draws upon her weaker powers. Her results are as expected, and she’s unhappy in her career.
I tell a story of my battle with this issue.
I’m really good at strategy and driving execution. My firms consistently ended up as market leaders.
It took a smart, thoughtful boss to stare at me and say, “You know, you’ve got your superpower all wrong.”
It turns out, he was right.
My superpower had much less to do with strategy and management and leadership. It has everything to do with helping individuals do things they never thought possible. I used the tools of leadership and management to enable those individuals to prosper. As a result, our firms prospered.
I had seized upon my title and my work and placed myself squarely in a box and pulled the lid shut. I needed help to get out.
All of us need help to uncover this unique ability. And then we need help developing it.
Ask someone what it is you are particularly good at in your work. Ask a lot of people from different stages of your career.
And then ask these same people: “How did I impact you?”
And then get some help parsing and interpreting the feedback.
Most people are amazed at what this feedback tells them about their superpower.
It might transform your life.
3. Investing too much time in the wrong situations.
It gets worse.
Smart people often chronically suffer from maladies that sound and look like survivor bias meets the sunk cost effect.
I regularly hear from prospective clients who describe spending a decade or decades in situations that never really improved.
When I ask them why, they offer something that sounds like, “I believed I could change it,” or, “We were always one new leader or reorganization away from getting it right.”
A cat never catches the laser dot. (OK, don’t do that, it’s cruel.)
I like the self-belief in the ability to impact something positively.
Sometimes “something” is bigger than us.
And the words, “with a little more time or money” are some of the most dangerous words in business and life.
Maybe it’s a superhero complex. (I’m making this up.) We believe we have the powers to influence situations on a macro basis, and when we struggle, it steels our resolve to try harder.
In reality, we are packing kryptonite in our minds, negating our superpowers.
Set limits on your time investment.
Do your best and then even better to make a difference.
And when nothing improves, it’s time to move.
4. Believing loyalty to the firm will be reciprocated.
There are some leaders and particularly some business owners who are loyal.
A few.
For everyone else, accept the firm is nothing more than a piece of paper. It has no loyalty.
NONE!
Get over it.
Don’t base your decisions on a false sense of loyalty.
A longtime colleague momentarily in place on the corporate equivalent of the Titanic called me recently, concerned about leaving for a bright new opportunity.
He felt he owed something to the people.
I know him. He gave them something every single day. He didn’t owe them anything.
He owed himself permission to do the right thing.
I gave him permission.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Career ownership is challenging and potentially costly. It takes hard work and sheer tenacity to identify the best situations to apply your superpowers. You need to know yourself, and you need help finding what it is you do that creates magic for others. You also need to remember, it’s OK to be selfish about what and where you apply your talents and for how long. If you don’t manage yourself, no one will.
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