3 Mental Models To Make Better Career Decisions
3 Career Equations to make more confident decisions
No matter how ready you think you are to make a move, career changes are daunting. The stress of leaving what you’re comfortable with to venture into a new opportunity whether that’s at your company or somewhere else stops many people from taking the first step toward something new.
One of the things I've found is that. When it comes to giving career advice. It tends to be generic or it tends to be hard to be actionable without context. Yes, “talking to people” and “knowing your goals” are important and super helpful things to do, but merely getting that advice isn’t usually enough to move the needle toward a decision.
As someone who has made career transitions numerous times and helped hundreds of others through career decisions, I’ve learned a few handy mental models to help think through how to make career decisions. Using mental models can help you clarify the direction you want to go and plan for how to get there. I find that these are most helpful for the following circumstances and use cases
Trying to determine if you want to start searching for a new career opportunity
Trying to determine if you want to raise your hand or take on a new project, initiative or role that expands on what you currently are doing
Assessing if you are in a “rut” and if so, if you need to make a decision to do something in order to get out of it
With that in mind, let’s get to the three career mental models:
#1: The Give/Get Ratio
The give/get ratio is one of the easiest to apply and works more or less in any opportunity you are in, and any opportunity you are trying to evaluate. The give/get ratio simply means that for any opportunity, for any job, for any role there's things that you give up. And there's things that you get in return. And think of this as a ratio that is unique to you, versus a standard or a benchmark.
If we accept that no job is perfect and every meaningful job requires sacrifice and commitment, we can acknowledge that in order to do the job, we have to give up certain things (ex: time, energy,) but in return, we get other things (ex: compensation, growth, etc) The give/get ratio is meant to help you explore what you are getting and what you are giving up. Said another way, at what cost do you get those benefits?
There are plenty of different inputs that go into give/get, and the goal is to help you think about A) what the inputs are for you
B) If you feel comfortable with the current equation, or the potential give/get ratio of the new opportunity
C) if you feel that you have the right set of inputs for your give/get ratio.
At various stages of your career, the ratio is going to change. At certain stages, you may be willing to give up certain things in order to get certain things. But at a different stage, that may change.
Furthermore, different companies and roles may mean the give/get ratio has different inputs. For example, someone who works on commission in sales may have a high potential for compensation (get) but may also have a high stress level due to the uncertainty (give)
It’s important to remember that your Give/Get Ratio is unique to you. Your peers may have a different give/get ratio, as will your manager, because they have a different role than you do, and perhaps are at a different stage in their career or their life as you are. The goal here is to identify really first what you're giving up, but also what you're getting in return.
And then second. If that feels right for you. And perhaps a good kind of way to think about this as if you can do this. Check-in maybe every four to six months, just to make sure of what you're doing. Number one is that you understand it. But number two, that you are okay with the trade-offs that you're making.
This could be a very valuable mental model to use. And an example perhaps of this is that let's say that you've been working a lot. You had a really busy couple months. It can be by be good to do the give, get ratio, just to make sure that because you're expending so much energy and time. Okay. What you're giving up.
You still feel like you're getting the right amount of things in return.
Example of How I used this equation
After about a year into my last job, I got promoted after a strong year of work. I realized that I had what it took to be successful, but also that there were opportunities ahead of me that I could take advantage of for further growth and development, and perhaps even another promotion in a short time frame. As such, I decided to raise my hand to take on even more responsibilities. Every time my manager asked my team “can someone do this?” I said yes. This changed the calculus on my give/get ratio significantly. On the give side, I was giving up more time (I was working more because I hade more projects) but I was giving up other things like my weekends (because I was working) and my freedom (executives sometimes demand things with a quick turnaround) But on the “get” side of the equation, I was getting more exposure to senior leaders, decision making for the business, and rapid learning and growth.
After about about 14 months of this, I was starting to feel tired, but also stressed. Because I was working more and more with senior leaders and closer to the decision making process, I was beginning to take the work much more seriously but to the point where it was causing me to stay up late at night thinking about what I was doing. I did a self-reflection check in where I used the give/get ratio where I wrote out what I was giving up and what i was getting in return. After 14 months of this, I realized that the calculus was no longer working for me, and I had a conversation with my manager about trying to shift certain projects off of my plate.
The timing of this couldn’t have been better (February 2020) and while the events of March 2020 were not easy, they became much more manageable. While I definitely lost some of the stuff in the get column especially around promotions, compensation, etc, I got back things like energy, time, and a manageable stress level, and a Give/Get Ratio that was much more manageable for where I was at in my career.
#2: Thinking vs Doing
The second career mental model Is thinking versus doing. This is think of this as a percentage - So a certain percentage of your time is devoted to thinking. And a certain percentage of your time is devoted to doing. This really stems back to the two fundamental things we have in life. The actions we take and the thoughts that we have about whether an act we are going to take specific actions.
When To Use This Equation
This is a valuable equation and exercise to run when you are trying to size up whether or not you should pursue a new opportunity, such as:
Taking on a new hobby or side hustle
Exploring a project or skill that you think could lead to a career change
In the early stages of exploring a new career
Your own personal development and growth
This equation is important when we consider the extremes. For example, if you are someone who spends 100% of your time thinking, you will have done a lot of great analysis, planning, and analyzing information, but you will have taken 0 actions that help you work towards what you are evaluating. As such, you are no farther along, and will have wasted a lot of time just thinking.
On the flipside, if you are in 100% “do” mode, you will have taken many actions, some of which probably are successful, but without any thinking time, the actions may be scattered, have no rhyme or reason, or you may not have enough time to learn on what you did, and make adjustments to how you proceed moving forward.
This equation is valuable for two reasons. First, to get a baseline understanding of what you traditionally spend time doing, and what your default is. Perhaps you are someone who is always thinking but takes less action - that’s good to know! Same if you are the other way, as you can watch your blind spots.
Second, its also important because it helps you figure out the right mix of activities you need to do in order to make a decision, depending on the size and scope of the decisions.
Jeff Bezos likes to use an analogy that there are two types of decisions, Type 1 Decisions and Type 2 Decisions. A type one decision (he estimates approximately 70% of life are these) is easily reversible, whereas type 2 decisions are much harder to reverse. If you have a career decision that tends to be a type 1 decision, your thinking/doing equation is going to be geared more toward doing vs thinking. On the flipside, if you have a type 2 decision, you may want to spend more time thinking
Example of How I’ve Used This Equation
In January 2020, I published a book, and started going on a mini book tour. As part of the longer term strategy with the book, I earmarked a project to start a podcast but wanted to do it only once the book tour finished. As the book got launched and the book tour started, I began to start putting together some research and a project plan around the podcast, and doing some planning and steps to get it ready. Then, around March 2020, COVID-19 hit, and I realized that the book tour was going to be put on pause. When I began reflecting on what I wanted to do and where I wanted to invest my time, I started thinking more about the podcast, and if i wanted to accelerate the project because of the change in priorities. At first, I was hesitant to do so. I wanted the podcast to be successful, and I wanted to make sure that I had my ducks in a row before launching. But at that point, most of the book tour activities had ceased, it wasn’t clear when (if) they would return, and I knew I already wanted to do the podcast.
Instead of waiting to do all the research and planning I dove head first into the podcast. I reealized that even if it wasn’t perfect, any decision I made that could go wrong could probably be reversed without too much effort. Furthermore, I also realized that there were plenty of other podcasts out there that were successful who started off not perfect but eventually evolved over time. In retrospect in that decision I realized I could go lighter on the “thinking” and heavier on the “doing.” 16 months later, I’m 114 episodes in and counting.
#3: Learn Versus Earn
The final mental model for career decisions to think about is the learn versus earn model.
I've heard this from a number of people and I've adopted it myself. But I think I want to give credit to Mark Suster because he was one of the first people to talk about this. But any given job. Were you, or perhaps when you're trying to decide between maybe two jobs.
You want to ask yourself, do you want to learn or do you want to earn. Now. It'd be great if you have a job out there where you can learn and earn at the same time. But I think the better way to frame this is to really just think about what you are optimizing for. You might be optimizing for.
Gaining experiences and skills because down the road that will be valuable and translate into more money. At any given time. Or perhaps you are optimizing for earning - Because it's important to you for where you are in your life. Or because you want to be able to get to a point in your life where you have a certain amount of resources.
When to use this equation
When you are evaluating a job opportunity
When you are evaluating between multiple job opportunities
How I’ve used this equation
In 2017, I decided I wanted to leave management consulting to pursue a career change. I was primarily evaluating two potential paths:
Path 1: Product Marketing for Fast Growing Startups (Series B or C)
Path 2: Product Marketing for Large Tech companies
After reflecting upon it, I realized that while startups were really interesting and enticing, I wanted to capture some of my earning potential which I felt short-term wise would be better at larger more established corporations which could pay higher salaries, bonuses, etc. Furthermore, I also reasoned that while I could learn a lot at a fast growing startup, since I was making a career switch into a new function and role (Product Marketing) I was going to learn a significant amount as it was, and I felt confident in that opportunity.
Conclusion
Career changes and decisions are some of the biggest moves we will ever make, but they don’t have to be daunting. Using mental models helps us find both the direction we want to go and a path we can take to get there. The result is a change that aligns with the person we are, as well as the person we want to be.