3 Ideas About The Evolution of Work and Careers
Hello,
And thank you for reading. Thanks to all the new members of the newsletter who joined this week. Make sure to reply to this email to say hello and to let me know what 1 question you hope to answer about your life and career
I’m trying something new this week with the newsletter - I’ve come up with 3 topics that I am thinking about and pondering, a brief synopsis of my own thinking, as well as some resources to further your knowledge if you’re interested. If any of these topics resonate with you, I’d love to hear which ones do and what you think.
Topic #1) Building Companies and Cultures That Are Powered by Kindness and Compassion Leads to Exceptional Business Outcomes
I’ve always believed that investing in building a company culture that put humans first, by investing in them and empowering them to do their best work was the right way to run a business and would lead to better outcomes. The “doing well by doing good movement” was a good start, but often focused on ESG and sustainability (a worthy cause, IMO.)
In the future of work, humans play a critical role even with our advancements in technology, but we’ve also created a workplace that isn’t so great for them.
I’m interested in exploring how to create a human-first workplace and culture where people can use their talents, time and energy to contribute impactful and meaningful work.
Podcast: Brene Brown: Dare to Lead with James Rhee: Kindness, Math, and the Power of Goodwill
This is a wonderful interview with James Rhee, who has a multi-dimensional career and does some really interesting work. James has a TED talk that was a massive hit, but has used his belief in kindness to generate some incredible results running companies and investing in them too.
Topic #2) What is productivity for, and how to reframe it
Now that I am working on my own business, my time is my own and I have to pick and choose how to spend it. This is exciting and freeing and I love the autonomy, however, I also struggle sometimes knowing what to spend it on, how to make the best use of it in order to achieve my goals, and how to measure the effectiveness of it.
Traditionally, I measured productivity as the gap between the time that I had, the goals I was working towards, and how fast I was to get there. On the surface, it seems like a reasonable starting frame.
While some of that is true, I think over the years I have been guilty of working for the sake of working - trying to get an extra email or two in, spending time on the weekends to catch up on work so Monday wouldn’t be as bad.
All of those things, on the surface, can seem like they’re valuable, and being able to check items off the to-do list or get to inbox zero definitely gives you a dopamine hit of accomplishment. But over time, I began asking myself “what is this really all for? Which caused me to think deeper about how I wanted to spend my days and what I wanted to do.
There’s been an interesting discussion around productivity and I’ve been fortunate to start to hear great other ideas such as Khe Hy’s 10K work. (I interviewed him on my podcast, and look forward to sharing it soon)
Peter Drucker, the management thinker once said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
If you’re going to strive for efficiency or productivity or any other measure of output, how do you do it in a way that allows you to focus on the things that actually matter and in a way that is sustainable and energy giving? The short answer is, it starts within defining what is “enough,” but that’s a hard question to answer.
Article: Do I Have Productivity Dysmorphia? (Refinery29)
The author of the article, Anna Codrea-Rado, is a writer on work and careers and hosts a podcast on these topics. Ana penned this article back in September of 2021, but I wish I had seen it in 2018 or 2019. Her concept of this is that it's an internal feeling of angst when we accomplish something only to realize and feel that there is so much more we ought to be accomplishing or doing.
I think this is something I’ve felt both in the corporate world and even now as an entrepreneur. If I was ever slacking in the corporate world, I had a boss (or an inbox or slack) to let me know. In this world, it's just myself. I am constantly asking myself even after a day where I completed what I said I wanted to complete if I did enough and if I need to be doing more. The learning I have come up with so far is to start understanding for yourself the answer to the questions of “what does more get you” and “what is enough?” Not necessarily easy answers, but a good place to start
Another great listen is to HBR’s podcast episode on Breaking Free of the Cult of Productivity, and Slow Productivity from Cal Newport.
#3) The Importance of Building Your Superteam
One of the things I learned early in my career working at a large consulting firm was that if you didn’t have the answer the next best thing was to be able to find someone who did. What you know will always be important, but who you know could also be a valuable tool. The impact of simply finding out who the expert for X, Y, or Z also had a side benefit - I ended up becoming “the person who knows the person for X, Y, and Z” and would start getting random requests for help or expertise from people in the company I never met. I was, quite honestly accidentally, building my brand and growing my network.
I have used these principles over the course of my career and they have paid off time and time again and they have altered my career trajectory in ways that I couldn’t imagine. But what that experience did teach me was that being successful in the workplace extends far beyond the base foundation of doing exceptional work.
It includes, intentionally cultivating relationships, communicating to others including your peers, manager and other leaders about what you are doing (internal marketing) and spotting and identifying opportunities to connect ideas, people and initiatives that can achieve outcomes for yourself, or other people. This all goes back to having others around you, who are giving you feedback and ideas, sharing knowledge, and helping you get access to opportunities and spaces that you can’t always see on your own.
Traditionally, this was called something like networking, or personal branding. But I think both of those get a bad rap and are seen as kind of off-putting, although they are really important.
One idea that I’ve been playing around with is with this idea of a superteam. If you’re a sports fan, think about the Golden State Warriors with Steph, Klay, KD, and Draymond and Andre, or LeBron, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade. If you’re not a sports fan, think about your favorite superhero team (ex: marvel) - Having a superteam, and a group of other talented and diverse people who share some common interests to work with you to test out ideas, share information, work on common goals, and help you navigate the workplace is critical for your own development and growth.
These individuals can be within your organization, but in many cases also involve those outside of your organization who can also provide a different perspective that still has enough context. For example, people like Diego and Felix are great examples of this, who have built their own superteam through their Product Management Mastermind Group.
If we know that many of the opportunities that help people advance in the workplace come from other people opening up doors, one of the ways we can increase the opportunity for that to happen is by building a team of talented peers around us, who know who we are, who can help us understand our strengths, provide feedback on our ideas and just support us in our journey. Furthermore, it also gives us a chance to support others too, which in of itself, gives us another set of opportunities.
Finding opportunities for growth and advancement is about increasing your surface area - having a superteam helps with that.
Article: The Career Success Guide (Sahil Bloom)
Sahil wrote about what he calls a “decentralized growth tribe,” or a group of people outside of your core network who can give you ideas, feedback and insights that can fuel growth in your career. I think this speaks to what I am trying to articulate, perhaps in a better way.
Would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas. Let me know what you think
Have a great week,
Al