"Keep your head down."
That's probably the worst piece of advice you can possibly ever hear.
When it comes to wanting a promotion at work, we have made impossible games for ourselves. Promotional systems that exist today generally have good intentions behind them: we like to create predictable growth. Predictable growth usually comes in the form of promoting certain behaviors, so companies seek to elevate those who exude certain competencies from people who helped pioneer that predictable growth.
Seems smart, right?
Wrong.
It makes a gigantic underlying assumption: that growth is predictable. That what we did yesterday will certainly work today. And to be honest, yeah, that is often the case. Companies like Apple have been around for a long time and will probably be around for a good while.
But we don't know that to ultimately be the case. In a free market, there is always the opportunity for another competitor to come and eat your lunch. There is no guarantee the top dog will always remain the top dog. Kodak, formerly one of the biggest photography companies in the industry, is a mere shadow of its former existence. MySpace is laughably an afterthought compared to Facebook. And did you The General Insurance used to be one of the biggest insurers in the world?
If you've been following Apple's quarterly earning reports, you'll see that iPhone sales are falling flat. Where sales used to skyrocket through the roof, competitors like Samsung, LG, and now Google are entering the market with even more remarkable products. It's clear, the, that growth is truly NOT predictable.
Now, I'm not saying that the competencies wished for in an executive are necessarily bad, but what I will say is that when you setup a system (or as I like to call, a game) where everybody is playing by the same rules to move up the corporate ladder, people play that game.
Obviously, we've established that this promotes behavior that don't guarantee growth, but it also creates this pack of people all vying for that top dog position. From an employee perspective, this makes it really, really difficult to climb the corporate ladder. After all, if the guy in the cubicle over has the exact same qualifications as you, then why not choose him over you?
We have created a false security blanket for ourselves in this regard. We believe that if we keep our head down and keep playing the "game", we'll eventually get noticed and moved up the corporate ladder. But we have to understand: this game has become a lottery. If everybody has the same qualifications, then there is no such thing as differentiation.
This is why it's risk to NOT take risks. We might think its the smart thing to play the game, but really, it keeps us down. And god forbid a company do layoffs because when you become a replaceable cog in a giant machine, then you face the chopping block. Thank you for your time; there's the door.
Of course, you can't just take any risk you want. It has to be a risk you thoroughly perceive to benefit the company. An example of a bad risk is just choosing to not show up to work. Sure, you're not playing the game anymore, but I think we can all agree that that's a pretty stupid idea. But if you can think of something that doesn't fall within the confines of "predictable growth" yet presents itself as a major opportunity... you might just have a gold mine on your hands.
Seth Godin calls these people linchpins and talks about this at length in his book Linchpin. If you haven't read it, definitely check it out. It's definitely changed my mindset about work, both for the benefit of my workplace and for the benefit of myself. Don't be afraid to get a little messy. Don't mistake a comfort zone for being a safety zone. The two are no longer the same.
That's probably the worst piece of advice you can possibly ever hear.
When it comes to wanting a promotion at work, we have made impossible games for ourselves. Promotional systems that exist today generally have good intentions behind them: we like to create predictable growth. Predictable growth usually comes in the form of promoting certain behaviors, so companies seek to elevate those who exude certain competencies from people who helped pioneer that predictable growth.
Seems smart, right?
Wrong.
It makes a gigantic underlying assumption: that growth is predictable. That what we did yesterday will certainly work today. And to be honest, yeah, that is often the case. Companies like Apple have been around for a long time and will probably be around for a good while.
But we don't know that to ultimately be the case. In a free market, there is always the opportunity for another competitor to come and eat your lunch. There is no guarantee the top dog will always remain the top dog. Kodak, formerly one of the biggest photography companies in the industry, is a mere shadow of its former existence. MySpace is laughably an afterthought compared to Facebook. And did you The General Insurance used to be one of the biggest insurers in the world?
If you've been following Apple's quarterly earning reports, you'll see that iPhone sales are falling flat. Where sales used to skyrocket through the roof, competitors like Samsung, LG, and now Google are entering the market with even more remarkable products. It's clear, the, that growth is truly NOT predictable.
Now, I'm not saying that the competencies wished for in an executive are necessarily bad, but what I will say is that when you setup a system (or as I like to call, a game) where everybody is playing by the same rules to move up the corporate ladder, people play that game.
Obviously, we've established that this promotes behavior that don't guarantee growth, but it also creates this pack of people all vying for that top dog position. From an employee perspective, this makes it really, really difficult to climb the corporate ladder. After all, if the guy in the cubicle over has the exact same qualifications as you, then why not choose him over you?
We have created a false security blanket for ourselves in this regard. We believe that if we keep our head down and keep playing the "game", we'll eventually get noticed and moved up the corporate ladder. But we have to understand: this game has become a lottery. If everybody has the same qualifications, then there is no such thing as differentiation.
This is why it's risk to NOT take risks. We might think its the smart thing to play the game, but really, it keeps us down. And god forbid a company do layoffs because when you become a replaceable cog in a giant machine, then you face the chopping block. Thank you for your time; there's the door.
Of course, you can't just take any risk you want. It has to be a risk you thoroughly perceive to benefit the company. An example of a bad risk is just choosing to not show up to work. Sure, you're not playing the game anymore, but I think we can all agree that that's a pretty stupid idea. But if you can think of something that doesn't fall within the confines of "predictable growth" yet presents itself as a major opportunity... you might just have a gold mine on your hands.
Seth Godin calls these people linchpins and talks about this at length in his book Linchpin. If you haven't read it, definitely check it out. It's definitely changed my mindset about work, both for the benefit of my workplace and for the benefit of myself. Don't be afraid to get a little messy. Don't mistake a comfort zone for being a safety zone. The two are no longer the same.
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