If You Do Only One Thing, Do Great Work!

The one unifying aspect of affecting your current situation or enabling you to change for the better comes down to three simple words: Do Great Work!

Over the past few weeks I've had conversations with college near-graduates, recent hires, people searching for what's next in their current situation, a few people who have lost or left jobs, and a couple who are ready to jump shops. With very rare exception, the theme remains the same: do great work!

Vince Lombardi once said "Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." Which is exactly the point, though it's not what people really want to hear. Let's break this down.

Do great work where you are
Almost every manager and employer wants and needs impassioned employees who throw all of who they are in to what they do. Look around the typical work space and you'll find loads of people wading through their day, shuffling paper or moving widgets from one shelf to the next. These same people tend to be the ones who complain that they never get noticed, they never get promoted, they never get a raise or a bonus or the good office or (fill in your choice of frustration here).

Want to get noticed? Get a raise? Get a bonus or a good office or a better shot at doing what you really want to do? Do great work! Take the initiative and make a difference. Understand how to compromise without settling for forgettable. Upper management is looking for people who rise above. You can do that. Do that.

What if no one notices you where you are? Do great work, and network. You may very well be in a space where people just can't see the value in what you do. But someone will. And someone else will be glad to have you on their team doing exactly what you're doing.

Fear losing your job? Do great work!
In times of tight economies and business fluctuations, tough decisions have to be made on who stays and who goes. If you really want to be one of the ones who stay, you need to do great work. It's the differentiator. No company wants to see the best talent walk out the door, and if it comes down to you versus your neighbor, the one who's getting it done most often gets to stay.

Sure there are exceptions, so let's say you do find yourself in the firing line. I've been there a number of times. It's not fun. But here's a key nobody ever seems to talk about: it's incredibly hard to join a new company and kick into a higher gear if you left your last job stinking up the place. Your next employer is going to evaluate you based on where you've been and what you accomplished while there. Do great work!

If you get laid off and have an amazing track record of successes, you're already in a better position than the next guy who coasted and got laid off, too. There are other companies that need someone like you. Do great work!

Bad bosses are out there. I've known a few. Even if you're the top performer in the company you could be fired. Fine. Chances are good that your next interviewer had a bad boss or two as well. You have an excellent track record of successes that will play out very well in your interview. And they need someone like you. Do great work!

Newly hired? Do great work!
Once you land that new role, assess the landscape and the people around you, join the community, find others who want to make a difference in the world and do great work together. Seriously. Pour your passion into what you do and make it count.

I challenge people to find one thing each month that they worked on that makes them proud. One thing. You'd be amazed at how many people struggle to find one. I then ask them to identify the top one or two things they accomplished for each quarter. For the calendar challenged, that's three months of effort that far too often blows by us because we get caught up in doing work, but not great work. Break that habit!

Make it a point to find at least one thing each quarter that stands out for you. One per quarter is just four per year. Stay at your job for three years and you'll have twelve great stories to tell in your next interview. Every HR manager on the planet will tell you that number puts you ahead of the game. And every HR manager is looking for people who do great work.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to one simple idea: Do great work!

You'll make a difference where you are and could seriously impact where you're going. It takes effort. It takes courage. It takes looking at the world in whole new ways. But the world is looking for people willing to make a difference, for people who will change the trajectory. The world needs you to do great work.

Does grace have a place in business?

Grace isn't something people talk about in the office. It's the kind of touchy-feely emotional connection executives can't quantify and therefore don't want to address. Yet it's exactly the kind of connection more executives could learn to use to transform their organizational culture.

I run into the fundamental attribution error in executives in all kinds of companies. If you're not familiar with the term, it's when we assign someone else's actions as tied to their core personality when we give ourselves a pass for the same actions. It's easy for us to say someone else is stupid or irresponsible when they make a mistake and without even thinking about it excuse our own similar actions as being influenced by factors like schedule, stress, distractions, etc.

We give ourselves grace for our issues but quickly blame others as fundamentally flawed for the same issues. Even worse is when we blame others for problems we've caused them.

I've found that in healthy business cultures, people work hard to do the right thing most of the time. And in pushing forward they make mistakes for all the right reasons. When those mistakes are made, management owes it to their teams to have some grace. We could all use a lot more grace.

"That's not the problem we told him to solve."

When working with executives to document their core Behaviors (Values) I often ask them to name an employee or two who represent their ideal staffer and then unpack what makes them great.

In one particular exercise the attributes included: can-do attitude; takes initiative; passion; courage, etc. Sounds like the kind of people who could move a mountain, right?

In the next exercise we did the same thing only with employees who don't embody the culture we want. One employee was named but there was some concern in the room because one exec said the guy had really come through on an issue.

"But that's not the problem we told him to solve," came an exasperated reply. And then the room fell awkwardly quiet.

On one hand they wanted people like themselves who took initiative and conquered big challenges. At the same time, they felt threatened by that behavior. Managers who live like this destroy good people and derail careers. They kill cultures and companies from within.

You want your best people solving problems on their own. You NEED your best people solving problems on their own. You also need people to solve problems you don't see or understand.

Strong managers get this. Weak ones never will.

Why You Should Make Better Mistakes

Avoiding mistakes is useless. Making them is human. Owning mistakes and learning from them is where leadership begins.

As we wrap up one year and head into a new one, I think it’s healthy to reflect on what was tried, what failed and what succeeded over the last 11 to 12 months. It may be a factor of age, but I’ve gotten to a place where one of my biggest fears is not trying enough big ideas to make a difference, in settling for less than what was possible and becoming comfortable with what is versus what could be.

Fear of failure is the term we hear most often. I’ve seen it in brand managers afraid to screw up a brand assignment they just took over. I’ve seen it in corporate executives who were living examples of the Peter Principle who, instead of remaining open to help from others and being vulnerable, fell prey to the idea that they always had to have the winning idea. I’ve seen it in senior managers who killed ideas because they were more disruptive than the manager was willing to fight for, even though disruption was desperately needed to keep the brand alive. When this happens teams eventually fail because the ideas just get smaller and smaller—because small ideas are easier to protect.

This is also a problem with people who haven’t been allowed to fail along the way. The kid who must get straight A’s, who can’t miss a note on an instrument or make a bad throw on a ball field may be doomed to a life of pursuing a goal that doesn’t exist.

Perfectionism Is An Issue

Better by Mistake author Alina Tugend, put it this way: “Experiments showed that those who are always scared to make mistakes—ultra-perfectionists, they are called—perform worse in writing tasks than those who aren’t as worried about being flawless. Experts theorize “superperfectionists” are afraid to practice writing, because to practice means to make mistakes. More importantly, they fear receiving any kind of negative feedback, so they don’t learn where they went wrong and how to get better.”

You Can’t Win Them All

Once you accept that you are going to fail, eventually, you free your mind up to do bigger things. It’s the act of trying that makes the difference. Relax. It’s not like you avoiding mistakes is going to make things any better or worse. Peter Drucker once said, “People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.” If you accept that you’re probably going to make two big mistakes a year, wouldn’t you rather make those two mistakes on something that has a chance to change your world? Or change the world?

There are stories out there of people who made it big without putting themselves or their ideas on the line. Personally, I think most of these are just scrubbed to remove any blemishes in the pursuit of perfection. When you aim high you may achieve great things. But even if you don’t win, you find out what you’re made of when you get back up again.

Consider these examples:

• Triathlete Mark Allen, in the seven years before he won his first of six Ironman Championships in Kona, Hawaii, did not finish, placed 3rd, placed 5th, did not compete, placed 2nd, placed 2nd, and placed 5th.

• John William Lindsey, who played first base for the LA Dodgers, spent 16 years in the minor leagues, the most by any player, before being called up to the Bigs.

• Post-it Notes came to life when Art Fry heard of colleague Spencer Silver’s low-tack adhesive and figured he could use it to help him mark his place in his hymnals because his bookmarks always fell out. It only took 10 years or more for the formula to find a home.

• The inventors of Bubble Wrap started out with a concept for wallpaper, then moved to greenhouses, then to packaging.

• Silly Putty was discovered during the pursuit of a rubber substitute for World War II. Though it wasn’t suitable for tires or boots, it was suitable for fun. Okay, this one probably shouldn’t go in the great examples category, but I like Silly Putty, so here it stays.

So You Blew It. So What?

I’ve been in bands and played guitar and sung on stage for years. One of my worst moments became one of my favorite memories. Standing in front of an audience of a couple hundred people in a church in Mississippi one night I played and sang a song I had performed dozens of times. Yet on this night as I finished the chorus and started the second verse I couldn’t for the life of me remember the words. Not one. And since I didn’t have lyrics with me I was stuck.

Rather than try to fake my way through the rest of the song and limp back to my seat I stopped, kind of chuckled nervously and said, “Have you ever had one of those moments when you forget a song? Yeah, me too. But I’m not leaving this stage until I finish a song for you, so if it’s okay with you I’d like to try a different option.” The audience laughed with me, which helped calm my nerves and ease the uncomfortable silence in the room. I sang my second song without any issues and got a standing ovation at the end. I figured I had just survived the worst nightmare a performer could have on stage. And I haven’t forgotten the lyrics in a song on stage since that night some 25 years ago.

Failure Has its Benefits

Evolutionary psychologist Nigel Barber, Ph.D., wrote, “People who fail repeatedly develop persistence in the face of difficulties … only people with extensive histories of failure could survive the difficulties that (some) individuals endured. Such dogged persistence is not a universal trait, of course.

With success, people keep on doing the same thing. When they fail, they are forced to adapt and change. That is not just a human characteristic but constitutes a basic feature of how the mammalian brain works.

If a lab rat no longer gets rewarded for pressing a lever that had yielded food pellets before, it gets visibly upset. As its frantic efforts fail, it resorts to all manner of strange, or novel, reactions from grooming itself to biting the lever, or leaping into the air. It is learning that the world has changed and its brain is getting rewired, so to speak.

When one combines emotionalism with originality, that is fairly close to what most people think of as artistic creativity. Artists are not necessarily frustrated people but tend to be dissatisfied with what they have accomplished previously and try to do something better, or something new.

The magical power of failure is not restricted to the arts, or to political leadership. It applies to all fields of human endeavor, including the crass activity of financial money grubbing. Anyone who bought Apple stock over most of the past decade made wads of money but learned nothing. Those who bought at the peak and lost 40 percent of their stake are still scratching their heads. Like the rat in the experiment, they are learning something.”

Failure Helps:

1. Discover what didn’t work

2. Fuel your creativity (I won’t compare you to the lab rat example above)

3. Inspire new energy

4. Warn you off of a dangerous approach further down that path

5. Uncover your own strengths

6. Humble the bold

Five Tips for Making Better Mistakes

1. Start with the idea that most people truly want you to succeed, so they want to support you versus try to break you down. The mind space you use to worry about what’s chasing you could be better spent looking forward and considering options. If you fail, those same people want you to get back up and win.

2. Surround yourself with people who embrace the chaos, accept that mistakes will happen and know the team will grow as a result. Building a healthy team culture enables you to keep the right kind of positive mindset you’ll need to try, fail, pick yourself up and try again. And again. And again.

3. Consider both sides of the results of your efforts. Life is rarely lived in the extremes, so the goods may not be as good as you dream and the bads are rarely as dismal as you fear. Unless you’re Nik Wallenda and walking tightropes between high-rise office buildings, failure will probably not be life threatening. And as long as you’re alive, you can try again.

4. Live and learn. Failure is rich in information, which you need so you can build your way to success. Stay open to the data, learn from your stumbles and keep moving.

5. Share your stories. The school of hard knocks is a tough way to learn, but necessary on the way to greatness. Learning principles would seem to indicate that you will get more out of your experiences, both good and bad, if you will teach others the lessons you learn. Your students will benefit as well.

Embrace your blunders. Learn to love them, then move on.

Now get out there and try. I kind of hope you fail, just a bit, so you can go on to do something amazing.

10 Ideas for Taking Charge of Your Career.

Whether you’re just starting out or rethinking your current situation, you’re in charge of you. Where you go from here is largely related to who you are, how hard you’re willing to work and what kind of impact you want to make in the world. Choose to be amazing.

Early in my career a mentor helped me see that I had a choice in how I worked my way through life. He said that though I’d never be able to control every aspect of what happened, I could control how I showed up, what kind of impact I had and how I felt about that impact.

I’ve collected the best advice I’ve received over the years and narrowed them down to the top ten. I’d love to hear what works for you.

1. Be YOU

Much of the world doesn’t like originals. They like things and people that are predictable. But you have a choice in the kind of life you want to live. I love Todd Henry’s statement that “cover bands don’t change the world.” They play someone else’s music over and over again. Don’t be a cover band. Be you.

2. Have big goals

Be willing to aim for lofty goals, so that even if you fall short you will have accomplished something and that something is relevant to you. Long-term goals help you have an idea of the smaller steps you need to take to reach them. If you’re focused only on today, you become very fragile when things don’t go your way. Things are going to be different than what you planned. You should plan on that!

3. Make a difference

Plan to make a difference, to learn and grow and change the world. Those things don’t happen overnight. They aren’t killed overnight, either.

I encourage people to take a moment each quarter and document what they did over the previous three months to have an impact. A lot of people struggle with that. They can tell me all the work they did, or number of projects or clients, or places they went. But not anything of significance. Don’t confuse effort with outcome. Plenty of people work very hard and have nothing of significance to show for it.

4. Worry about what you can control; not about what you can’t.

This was something I heard early in my career and is absolutely one of the most important lessons of my life. Obsess over things under your control but learn to give up the things outside of your control.

You can’t control how your presentation will be received by the people you present to, but you can control how much time, energy, thinking and general preparation you put into your presentation. I’ve found that when I did the heavy lifting on my end more often than not the outcomes came closer to what I had hoped. It’s when I cheated on the prep that things went badly.

5. Take what you do seriously, but not yourself

Learn to laugh. Enjoy your work and the people around you. Nobody wants to work around the office curmudgeon and they certainly won’t be around to help make your life better if you’ve made theirs a personal hell. Do great work but enjoy the ride.

6. Be curious

Stay open to what’s new and different and crazy and special. Stop trying to know the approach. There is no one approach. That’s a fixed mindset that says somehow you’ve arrived and now you can’t grow any further. Science proves that your brain can rewire itself continuously and learn new techniques. So keep up the curiosity.

7. Be amazing at something

Don’t be normal. Normal is boring and doesn’t leave a mark. Be amazing. It doesn’t matter what you choose. Find your passion and work like crazy to be amazing.

8. Be willing to fail

I guess I’m lucky here, because failing comes so naturally to me or because I’m willing to put ideas out there and get a reaction. A few years after college I was on stage one night playing my guitar and singing before several hundred people and forgot the second verse to a song. Oh sure, I had the guitar chords down, but the lyrics were gone. I could have walked off the stage embarrassed or I could have … yeah, walking off wasn’t an option. I asked the audience if they’d mind me singing a different song. They didn’t mind. I played, sang and finished the song in style. I’m convinced the big applause I received wasn’t so much because I did anything special but because I had just overcome one of the top nightmares for people performing in front of an audience. I think they liked knowing I didn’t spontaneously combust. I’ve performed thousands of times since then and had any number of issues pop up. But I’ve always survived.

9. Don’t make excuses

Good things happen every day. Bad things happen every day. Own your issues and improve when you screw up. You will screw up. Hopefully, because you’re going to be willing to fail and that means you’ll miss the mark sometimes. When that happens, be the adult in the room who takes the heat.

10. Be open to change

What I do now didn’t exist five and ten years ago. Technology I use every hour didn’t exist three years ago. It’s an amazing time to be alive. Go with it. Learn new things. Be curious. Have a growth mindset and enjoy the ride.

BONUS: Who you are is not who you will become

Take a good look in the mirror. Whether you love or hate what you see, you have a chance to make tomorrow something special. You’re not stuck. If today was lousy, make tomorrow better. You can control that. You should control that. In the end, be you. Be amazingly you. And change the world while you’re at it.

7 Reasons Why You Should Fire Yourself

Don’t wait for someone else to evaluate your performance. Do it yourself. Then either make the necessary changes or fire yourself and improve your life.

Too many people want to blame their issues on the system, on a manager who is out of touch, on a company that just doesn’t understand them or have programs that meet their needs. If this is you, do the world a favor and fire yourself. Quit and go do something you know and love. Use all your energy to have a positive impact on the world and make a difference somewhere. Go ahead, the world will be a better place for it and no one will miss your whining at the place you left. Trust me on this.

Not ready to take that step?

Let’s do a little personal inventory on whether you should stay or go.

1. You don’t take your work seriously.

This is an easy one. Have a blast at work. Be happy. But do your work. Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile and independent researcher Steven Kramer, noted in their heavily researched book The Progress Principle, that happy employees do, in fact, work harder, do better work and create what the authors call a “positive spiral.” If you’re on the downward slide and it’s affecting your work, you should seriously consider a change of heart or workplace.

2. You complain. A lot. And often.

No one likes a whiner. It’s a toxic trait, it’s contagious and habit forming. So, if you’re the first one to complain about every little thing in the office, especially while never being part of any solution, it’s time for you to go.

3. You don't contribute to the company culture.

We’ll consider that you’ve already addressed the issues in number 2 so you’re no longer a whiner. But what else have you done for the culture? Those company values you like to make fun of ... how many of those have you embraced and brought to life? And what about helping your teammates achieve their goals? Zig Ziglar made a career out of helping people see how “you can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” All you have to do is keep in mind that this world is not about you. You're important, but so are the others around you. Don’t agree with me? Fire yourself.

4. No one is dying to have you in the room for the big challenges.

Are you a problem solver? Someone who rolls up their sleeves and tackles the hard challenges? Didn’t think so. Those big challenges require taking risks and calculated jumps. You don’t like to do that. But that’s what the company needs right now. If you’re not going to be one of the people willing to do what it takes to get us to where we need to go, you’re taking up precious space. It might be time to fire yourself and go find an easier job. We’d love to have you here, but that’s your choice.

5. If there’s a problem, somehow your name is always attached, and never in a good way.

Yeah, I know, you’ve just had an incredible streak of bad luck. I get it. I also know that you need to fix that or you won’t be here to extend your streak. Refer to the previous issues and become a positive force in the company, someone known for solving problems and getting stuff done. If you do this, you won’t have to fire yourself.

6. You’re not accountable to anyone, including you.

Pointing a finger is fine as long as you point one at yourself first, make the change and then move around the room. Do like Michael Jackson and start with the man in the mirror. Hold yourself accountable for your thoughts, words and actions. Be an adult. If this is hard for you and you’re unwilling to grow up, hand yourself a pink slip, if you can.

7. You have nothing to show for your time at the company.

This is a company built on results—positive results and, well, you don't have any of those that we can find. That means you are probably coasting and picking up a pay check. We don’t really need those kinds of people here because we’re looking to make a difference in the world. We believe you have it in you but if you don’t believe that as well it’s probably best if you move on.

Or ... hire yourself every day

Do you remember how you felt on your first day at your new job? Chances are you were filled with excitement, with all kinds of energy and ideas on how awesome this job was going to be. You didn’t join to be a slug. You didn’t set out to coast. No, you were going to make it to the top.

That’s a choice you get to make every day. So start with a good, hard look at who you are, where you are, and what you want to be. If you’ve drifted, get back on track. If you’ve slipped into a funk, get back on solid ground. If you can't get back on your own seek help ... and then get out there and make a difference.

What do you think? What did I miss?