Tag: Career

You may be asking if these are not the same thing expressed different ways, but I make the following distinctions:

Loving what you do is about the field you are in, the detail of the day-to-day, or your chosen industry sector. For example; nurses, fire fighters, teachers, research scientists, professional athletes and so on, all love what they do. They love it whether or not they are the best at it, and would keep doing it even if it meant they will never be highly successful in material terms.

To love doing what you’re good at means that it does not matter the field you are in, it is not a passion in and of itself. It means that you are doing something at which you excel, thoroughly enjoy, and would keep doing regardless of the industry sector in which you currently find yourself.

It has taken me 46 years to realise that I have not missed out on anything by not having a passion related to any topic. I always envied people who knew from the age of 6 they wanted to be a dentist, or a soldier, or what not. To me, NOT having a passion meant I was destined to only ever be average at something, because I assumed that without passion, I would never have the energy or interest to be the best.

I don’t even have a hobby.

Recently however, I came to the realisation that there are at least two forms of passion; passion-in-the-thing, and passion-in-the-process. Passion-in-the-thing relates directly to loving what you do (e.g. nurse), and passion-in-the-process relates to loving to do what you’re good at (e.g. fix broken things). One is not better than the other, but while passion-in-the-thing usually becomes obvious at a very early age, passion-in-the-process can go a lifetime without being realised.

If you let it.

I am 100% in the passion-in-the-process camp, which will become obvious when I make the following statement; I actually don’t care about information security.

What?! (you gasp) You write a blog that positively DRIPS with passion (or angst, depending on your point of view), how can you say you don’t care?!

Because it’s not information security I care about, it’s the PROCESS of simplifying a difficult concept until it’s available and understood by those who need it that gets me going. Simplifying is a passion, and helping people and organisations get the BENEFIT of security is a passion, security itself is not. I could just as well be in advertising (for example) and love my job, but I’m neither creative enough, nor do I have the patience / inclination to start my career all over again.

Why this is so exciting to me, and why I bothered to write this blog in the first place, is that ANYONE can do what they’re good at! In my experience, only a few people ever find a true passion for something specific, and fewer still make a career out of it, but if you can take the WHAT out of the equation, and replace it with HOW, this becomes available to everyone. I think I’m right in saying that, almost by definition, there is no scale in passion, you have it or you don’t (like Billy Connolly’s “F&%$ off, he hinted!“). This makes both forms of career passion equal.

Actually, I should say that everyone who makes the effort to understand themselves can do this, but so few do. I touched upon this in one of my earlier blogs; Never Follow the Money, but I missed the point when I suggested that more introspection is required to find the things you’re good at, and to focus on those. Yes, you should absolutely do that, but unless you accept passion-in-the-process as an equal alternative to passion-in-the-thing, you will probably still be discontent with your choices. Perhaps assuming that your life will really only start when you find someTHING you love.

It does not have to be a thing.

Finally, the best part about all of this is that it’s NEVER too late in your career for you to discover either of these passions, but only passion-in-the-process is something you can work towards right now, today, you just have to stop using a lack of passion-in-the-thing as an excuse not to get what you want, whatever that may be.

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Once in a great while, a phrase comes along that immediately sparks a thousand thoughts in your head.  It does’t matter if the thoughts are even relevant to the context in which you heard the phrase, the thoughts are there.  Clearly my written English will give this poor justice, and as my Sister is always kind enough to point out; I’ve never met a grammatical error I didn’t like.

Unfortunately the phrase ‘strategically intelligent mistakes‘ is not mine, it’s Accenture’s, but was brought to my attention in a pending article by Peter Livingstone, a Publisher at Financier Worldwide. I will be ‘advertising’ this article when it comes out so that my enormous following can enjoy it.  I’m fairly sure my 18 subscribers will make all the difference to its success.

Accenture’s context is; “Some companies have recognized that they can allow innovation teams to make strategically intelligent mistakes within a clearly understood governance framework. This, in turn, enables a culture that not only tolerates risk but also embraces failure as an integral part of the innovation process.”

Which is perfect for the purposes of this blog, (and my last one on Why Everyone Should Start a Business) because it’s very much the thought of failure that prevents so many good ideas from becoming reality, or causes thoughts to die on the vine. That, and having no idea where to start, but that’s blodder for another time.

Whether the idea is for a start-up, a new service line, or an improvement on something that already exists, fear of failure / ridicule / loss of respect, or any number of fear-based de-motivators prevent those ideas from being freely expressed. The only truly bad idea in business is one that never see’s the light of day. Sure, it might fail, fail spectacularly even, but no-one has just one idea, so the next one will have the benefit of experience for the creator, and everyone around them.

Thomas Edison, arguably the most famous inventor in recent history, failed over 3,000 times to invent the lightbulb (though he certainly didn’t phrase it that way).  My favourite quote of his; “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

You do not have to be an entrepreneur and start your own business to make a significant impact with your ideas, there are plenty of examples of an ordinary individuals’ idea making significant positive impact on an organisation. It is the CEO who ultimately holds the key to how ideas are received, and whether or not his/her people feel as though their ideas are welcomed, regardless of the possible outcome.

A recurring theme in my blogs is; “Let’s be very clear; The CEO sets the tone for the entire company: its vision, its values, its direction, and its priorities.  If the organisation fails to achieve [enter goal here], it’s the CEOs’ fault, and no-one else’s.”

In Accenture’s article, there is this wonderful paragraph; “For instance, a large advertising agency awards a quarterly Heroic Failure trophy to recognize clever, unproven ideas that may not work out in practice, but nevertheless demonstrate creative risk taking. And an online payroll provider offers $400 to the winner of its Best New Mistake award, which goes to an employee who made a mistake but learned from it—and, in doing so, helped other employees avoid similar mistakes. The idea behind both awards is to support creativity by encouraging openness about errors and rewarding those who genuinely learn from their failures.”

Can you imagine working for an organisation that rewards and encourages you  regardless of your mistakes.  No, neither can I, but it’s a very pleasant thought isn’t it?

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Update 14-Oct-13 15:09: My thanks to Jon Hawes for pointing me at this article; http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/09/how-i-got-my-team-to-fail-more/

 

 

I’ve been out on my own for 5 whole months, and I think that gives me the right to tell everyone to start their own business? Well, yes, actually I do, but probably not for the reason you think. I’m also not suggesting it be your sole source of income, though that does lend a certain urgency to it.

To massively oversimplify it; there’s no way you can lose.

Not everyone will be a Steve Jobs (well, eventually …death and taxes and all that), or a Richard Branson, but in the end there are only two outcomes:

  1. Your business is successful enough that you can continue to pursue that course and support your family, or;
  2. Your business fails and you go back to a regular job.

Wait – I assume you’re saying – the second option sounds like the very definition of loss! However, I have had a lot of time over the last few months to consider what would happen if my own business failed and I had to start looking for a day job. Clearly I would be unhappy, and I don’t know of any entrepreneur who doesn’t hope that their start-up becomes the next Google, but seeing as my aspirations are more mundane, I can actually see the many benefits:

First – You sacked-up and did it – For years I have thought I wanted to be out on my own, but didn’t have the nads to make it happen. I am out on my own now because a) I was made ‘redundant’, b) the 9 – 5 options at my level were very sparse, c) I had enough saved that I could give it a go, and, most importantly, d) a wife who does nothing but support my every move. Even the bad ones. You start your own business and your confidence levels shoot through the roof;

Second – You get to find out if being an entrepreneur is actually right for you – It’s VERY easy – for example – to criticise your bosses all the way up to the board of directors about what you see clearly as mistakes they’re making. Now it’s your problem, your mistakes, and potentially YOU who is now the one screwing up your employees’ lives. That’s OK though – not screwing up peoples’ lives of course – because if you do end up going back to a 9 – 5, you’ll have a better understanding of the pressures, and may be able to communicate your solutions in a language they’ll understand;

Third – It’s easy – Of course, I know that NOW, but before I knew how it was done it looks very intimidating. You have to have an idea in the first place, hopefully an existing pipeline, then you fill out forms for Companies House, HMRC, bank accounts, web designs, marketing and the whole gamut. But, and here’s the kicker, there are literally hundreds of people you can ask, and who love to help. My own journey has been ugly, but fascinating, and now that I know what to do, any idea can become a new business, whether I’m running it, or helping someone else;

Fourth – You become far more aware of other business ideas – Whether or not your current venture succeeds, by going through the process you adopt the entrepreneurial mind-set whether you mean to or not. Ever notice how, when you’re considering buying a certain type of car, that you suddenly see them everywhere? Business ideas are the same when you’ve had one of your own (business, not car);

Fifth – You’ll be more content. If your business succeeds, you’ll never be happier, but if it fails, you’ll at least know that when you’re back in your 9 – 5 that starting your own business is not for you, and be more content where you are. Maybe you’ll work for a few years to save the capital for your next business, or maybe you’ll succeed beyond all previous expectations in your 9 -5, either way, you’ll have what too few people out there attain in the Information Age; Self awareness.

Try being content or successful at anything without it.

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Just chatting with my wife the other day about mentoring, and she raised a very interesting, and valid, point. A coach and a mentor are two very different things, though often used interchangeably. This led to the thought that in the course of our careers, we may ask for (or settle for), and get, the wrong one. Or just as bad, the right one at the wrong TIME!

As I think she described it – bearing in mind she’s a lot smarter than me -, a coach is someone who teaches you to get better at the thing in which they are expert, but a mentor is someone who helps you get better at whatever YOU want to be better at doing. Even if the mentor is not an expert in it themselves. Another way of putting it, is that a mentor helps you think in different ways, understand things of which you have no prior experience, and guide you in scenarios through which you have yet to live yourself.

So which one do we need? Quite simply, both. The trick is to know when you need them, and you will never be able to do that if you don’t know what you want. Or just as importantly; what you are good at. I have posited several times (like in Loyalty vs. Personal Values, and Never Follow the Money), that unless you are ‘honestly introspective’, you will always have challenges that could so easily have been avoided.

Neither a coach, nor a mentor, nor anyone for that matter can help you if you don’t know what it is that YOU want. And if what you want is not realistic, you are basically wasting your time. I’m not saying don’t push yourself, but wanting to be a supermodel or astronaut is only OK for a tiny percent of the population. No offence, but if you’re reading this it’s unlikely you’re one of them.

Word of warning: There is a fine line between a true mentor and someone who wants you to become like them, don’t cross it. Emulation is OK in very few circumstances, and unless your actions stem from YOU as the foundation, they will come across as fake. No mentor will be perfect, they will have an ego, and be easily flattered by your request for help. This can lead them to advise you in ways that are simply not within you to emulate.

From my perspective, I will ask for a coach when there is something I really want to be able to do, and just can’t get my head around. But this will be very specific, and I will control the outcome. As for a mentor, I now have several people in my life who have already done things I am trying to do, and while the relationships are not ‘formal’ in terms of mentor / mentee, I love listening, and they love talking! 🙂

There is absolutely no stigma attached to asking for help of ANY sort, and those who don’t ask, will never achieve as much as those who do. Don’t be a pest, but don’t sit on your arse either.

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One of these days I will learn to do some proper research on my blogs in order to provide the links to materials that I only assume exists. I can say there are thousands of articles out there on presentation skills, and not quote a single one.

Not going to this time either, but when I type in ‘presentation skills tips’ into Google, I got 17.5M hits, so it’s out there.

This is not about HOW to present though, that’s been covered by people far better at it than me, this is about WHEN to present, or more specifically, when NOT to.

A phrase occurred to me today that I feel sure I’ve stolen (and more than likely corrupted) from someone else, but I can find it’s like;

“A good idea presented badly, is often less effective than a bad idea presented well.” 

To illustrate, I will go to the extremes.  Fascism is a VERY bad idea, but I know of two people in history that turned their entire countries to it.  Ending World hunger is a VERY good idea, but the altruistic pleas of those who dedicate their lives to it, fall on mostly indifferent ears.

How is this possible?  Well, the two Fascists I’m thinking of were incredibly charismatic (according to the history books), and understood human nature innately (exploitive).  The people who want to end world hunger are usually too busy working toward that goal to do the rounds, and the chances are, they are not much into oratory (givers).

Humans are basically good, and it’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we have our own lives to get through, and we are generally far more receptive to the concept of mutual benefit than we are towards ‘one sided’ charity.

So what does this have to do with presentations?  Let me ask you; Are you good at presenting, and do you enjoy it?

I can guarantee that more people THINK they are good at it than actually are, and that the ones that don’t enjoy it, never are.

So whom do you want presenting your business plan to angel investors?  Or whom do you want presenting your company’s proposal for a multi-million $/£/€ deal?  Right, someone who’s really good at it, but for some reason this is not always a prerequisite.

Presentation skills are up there with any skill you want for your business, from sales, to finance, to consultancy, to R&D, and should be every bit as important a entry on your CV/resume as your education and work experience.  Smart hirers even have their candidates perform a presentation during the interview process.  Candidates have 1 hour to create a 5 slide presentation, and 15 minutes to delivery it + Q&A.

I’m not saying don’t hire people who CAN’T present well, they may simply not have the experience, but you have to KNOW this both for your business’s sake, and the candidates.  If their job requires significant face-time with the client, the importance of presentation skills is almost paramount.

Every organisation needs a couple of people who are their ‘big guns’ in terms of presenting, and they should be brought out when the stakes are high.  Choosing your presenters by availability is asking for trouble.

If you are poor at presenting, this is the one time I will say work on your weakness, it will pay dividends.

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