Tag Archives: Professional growth

I was struck by the way we respond to conflict is a case study in deferred gratification.  Cases involving money permit more objectivity; interpersonal conflicts are much more difficult to maintain perspective.  An emotionally charged situation offers two options – the angry and the thoughtful. 

The angry is the immediately satisfying, typically aggressive and hurtful approach.  It feels good in the moment, defending yourself from attack by attacking your tormentor. 

The thoughtful takes a higher level view, noticing that the conflict of the moment plays a small role in the big picture.  Satisfying immediate urges for retribution or “justice” may prevent a future happiness.  This is, at its core, an exercise in deferred gratification.  The thoughtful doesn’t require us to “roll over and take it”, rather to use the conflict constructively to further our goals.

This advice is easy to preach but often difficult to practice.  In the heat of the moment, keeping a clear head can be near impossible, depending on how emotionally charged the situation is.  However, the deferred rewards – not having to apologize afterwards, and remaining on track to reach your goals is worth the effort.

Establishing a consistent core set of principles from which your actions flow is the single most important thing you can do to drive clarity of intent and action across all phases of professional and personal life.

Clear articulation of principles is most valuable in ambiguous and new situations, providing a starting point from which to respond.  It also has the value of being consistent with your prior set of actions, making it more readily processed by your stakeholders.

This applies to:

  • Organizational: This is the core strength of an explicit principled approach, especially for organizations and initiatives that span multiple functional or management groups.  It drives internal alignment, agility and the ability to speak with one voice.
  • Professional: This is the core of your Personal Brand and should never be compromised.  It drives signal consistency and is the foundation of your message when interviewing for jobs.
  • Personal:  This is often the hardest to define.  Personal principles are typically so polished by years of experience and nuance that they are hard to distinguish.  However, it can be an enlightening exercise to explore your core principles and what they imply.  I like StrengthsFinder, amongst the host of self-help systems.

It is tough to walk into an interview and not catalog the substance of your experience - the concrete things you've done.  You're proud of them and want to share the blood, sweat and tears that they represent. 

However, unless your target company wants you to replicate a specific experience, what you've done is largely irrelevant for the task at hand.  This is especially true of folks with higher degrees and those looking to change fields.

Your Goal:

Get the interviewer to check "hire" next to your name.

In other words, convince the interviewer that you represent a low downside risk (you won't reflect badly on them if they recommend you) and that she would like to work with you following a successful interview.

How to Get to "Hire":

1. Know your needs

2. Know what the position requires (and the company culture, more generally)

3. Match them together with each and every step of the interview

When to Share the Meat of Your Work:

Use it as the basis for concrete examples of your proficiency with relevant skills and how you face and overcome challenges.  A prepared candidate can readily pair glowing work experience examples with classic interview questions, such as:

Can you describe an occasion when you were in conflict with a coworker?  How did you resolve it?

or

What is your leadership philosophy?

Hiding behind the comforting wall of past achievements wastes the precious moments that you have to present yourself.  Take full advantage of the opportunity by sticking to what's relevant for the task at hand.

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Communicating doubt and changing course can sometimes be a signal of self-awareness and maturity.  But for career development, projecting confidence and consistency is the better plan.

Internal State:

I don't know what we should do with my life - it is a judgment call, and I don't have the experience or data to make a strong recommendation.  Thus, I'll choose the option that looks most attractive in the moment.

External (Manager's) Need:

 Clear signal of what you want to do.

Source of Conflict:

You're setting the wrong standard.  Uncertainty is expected.  If you get to 100% confidence, then you've wasted a bunch of time. 

Resolution:

Your manager can't read your mind, and constant oscillations will lead to immobilization, eliminating your strongest advocate in your organization.

Make a choice, based on a simple consistent narrative and stick with it.  Don't go chasing shiny objects.*  Devote yourself to reaching clarity.  Only when you reach a significant change in your understanding, and have found a simple, linear way to communicate it should you ask your manager to change course.

* Be careful pursuing opportunities inconsistent with your career path narrative.  The groundwork within your organization hasn't been laid for such a change, and your manager may become immobilized.  If you don't get the position, you will need to work to re-establish your career narrative.