Career Advice: Run to the Mess

Several years ago, former Market Leader and Likewise CEO Ian Morris spoke to my students at Bryant University (where Ian graduated with a Bachelor's degree in the early 1990s before completing his MBA at HBS).  Ian offered a few wonderful pieces of career advice.  First, he always told the students to "leave well" when changing jobs.  Give extra notice, help train your successor, and preserve relationships.  You never know when you will cross paths with those people again. Second, Ian suggested that they "run to the mess" if they want to build new skills and accelerate their career progression. Ian mentioned that many people avoid difficult situations because they fear failure. Yet, he described these tough circumstances as the best opportunities to truly shine, to make your mark.

A recent Stanford interview with Jane Fraser, CEO of Citibank, reminded me of Ian's advice. Fraser also commented on the value of taking on the tough jobs during her career, even if they were not the ones that others found attractive and interesting. Fraser said,

Interviewer:  Why did you pick these tough jobs?

Jane Fraser: Yeah. I mean, because someone once asked, “Is it because none of the men wanted to take them?” There might be a bit of truth in some of that. I think one of the things, I’m not a tweaker so I never wanted a job where you’d just be tweaking things to make it better. I think I’d be awful at it. I think a lot of people in this room would be awful at tweaking jobs too. It’s more fun to be bold in making changes. And then if something’s not in great shape, it’s amazing how you get left alone to fix it. Whereas if something is actually going well, you have everybody giving you helpful advice and opinions on what you can be doing better. So one of the fun things about turnarounds or changing things more radically, quite often you’re left a little bit more on your own.

Then when it starts getting successful, then everyone jumps onto the train and heads that way. But I’ve always quite enjoyed transforming things a bit more and then you learn a playbook of what you need to do and you can repeat a lot of it in different situations like get the team in place that you need as a first step because otherwise you’re going to be doing everybody else’s job and be really lousy at the one you’ve actually been put in to do. So there’s just different steps that I put in place each time now and they’ve been helpful so far.

Does Your Boss Know Your Strengths and Help You Pursue New Roles Based on Those Skills?

Source: https://www.skillscaravan.com

Has one of your former bosses identified your (perhaps previously undiscovered) strengths and helped you pursue new roles that were well-suited to those capabilities? If so, you are very fortunate. The benefits from having such a boss may be significant and long-lasting.

In today's Wall Street Journal, University of Chicago Professor Virginia Minni explains the findings from a well-designed study of managers at a large multinational company.  She identified "top managers" as those who were promoted much faster than their peers.  She explains her methodology and results:

Here is how it worked. Let’s say two different teams of comparable workers have a regular boss (in other words, not a top manager). Then the managers rotate, and one of those two teams gets a top-performing leader while the other team gets another lesser chief. Since the two teams are otherwise the same, the manager would be responsible for any changes in performance.

The results were striking. For one thing, employees who had contact with a high-quality manager were much more likely to make a lateral move within the firm—about 40% more likely than other workers, within seven years of being assigned to a top manager. These weren’t trivial moves, either: They often involved large changes, such as moving between completely different roles at the company.

That leads to the next striking difference in performance. The workers who served under a top manager and changed jobs were much better paid and much more productive than other workers. Within seven years of contact with a top manager, these people earned about 13% more than workers with lower-performing managers. And their performance metrics—like sales per capita—were 16% higher than other workers’ numbers.

Minni discovered that the effects endured, meaning that the workers did not just benefit while working for the highly effective boss.  They continued to excel in their career after shifting roles and working for different leaders.  She finds that these excellent bosses spent more time in one-on-one meetings with workers, which she argues helped these leaders match their employees with the right roles moving forward.  Moreover, they coached people to excel in those new roles.  

While the study may not offer earth-shattering (or even mildly surprising) results, it does document in a very rigorous way the impact of having an excellent boss who looks out for your interests.  What I would add is that some managers are not bad at leading their current teams, but they do hoard talent.  In other words, they are not always looking out for the interests of their team members.  They would rather hold on to talented individuals, rather than helping them find the next great role that could advance their career.  The best leaders create high-performing teams, but they also develop their people and help them secure great new opportunities.  Because they know how to identify and develop talent, these great leaders don't worry about losing that talent.  They are able to find new people who they can coach and develop to replace the people who have shifted to new roles.  

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Shaping Your Career Journey

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently penned a blog post about career planning and development. Mostly, the post offers a series of clichés such as "find your passion" and "don't be afraid to fail." However, one point bears emphasis and reflection. Jassy argues as follows:

"I don't think that you have to know what your final destination is in your job early in your life. Maybe not even in your 40s, 50s, and 60s. I think that you have a chance to keep writing your own story and reinventing your own story.  Before I got to Amazon, I had tried sportscasting and sports production, I coached a soccer team, I worked in a retail golf store, I did product management, I tried investment banking, I tried sales, I tried a lot of things.  I really do believe it's perhaps as important to figure out what you don't want to do as what you want to do, because it actually helps you get more centered on what really makes you happy. So don't be afraid to try a lot of different things and don't let people tell you that whatever you've done—even if you've done it for a while—is what you must do. You have the opportunity to write your own story."

Most of my young students feel a great deal of pressure about their career choice and job search as they complete college.  They often think they have to have it all figured out.  If only they thought hard enough, talked to enough people, found the right mentors... they would land the perfect job and know precisely what career they should choose.  Then, all they have to do is begin to set some concrete goals for the next 3, 5, 10 years... and they are off to a great start.  

The reality is much different, of course.  Most will switch jobs frequently, particularly in the early part of their careers.  Some will switch to completely different professions, or different functional areas within the business world.  The shifts will occur for various reasons, including the emergence of incredible opportunities, changes in family situation, etc.  Some, though, will make substantial shifts because they are not satisfied with their early choices, don't find them fulfilling, or discover that they are simply not well-suited for those roles.  Here, Jassy's advice becomes so important.  We should not think that we have to have it all figured out.  We should be willing to experiment, particularly early in our career.  We will only know what we enjoy, and what we are skilled at, if we experience it for ourselves.  Talking to others is helpful, but not sufficient, for coming to these conclusions effectively.  

The willingness to experiment should not end early in your career, according to Jassy.  Here I agree wholeheartedly as well.  New technologies will emerge, creating new threats and opportunities that will shape people's careers.  The willingness to learn will be crucial, and so will the willingness to adapt.  Those who began their careers 35 years ago in retail could hardly have imagined the landscape today.  Yet, opportunities still exist for those willing to put aside their early career goals and rethink what is best for them today.  All of this change may be unsettling, but the first step is to accept that the career path will not be linear for most of us, even later in our lives.  

Thinking Carefully about Boomerang Employees

How often do employees return to your company after departing for a promising opportunity elsewhere?  Why did they leave, and what caused them to return?  Anthony C. Klotz, Andrea Derler, Carlina Kim and Manda Winlaw have conducted some useful research on the topic of boomerang employees.  They found that returning to an organization where an individual once worked is quite common. Based on their analysis of extensive employee work records, "28% of “new hires” were actually boomerang hires who had resigned within the last 36 months."  Clearly, employees depart and often discover that the grass indeed was not greener elsewhere.  

What does this boomerang phenomenon mean for employees and employers?  For employees, the research implies that individuals must do more homework before jumping ship.  They need to go beyond what recruiters might be telling them and try to ascertain precisely what their role and responsibilities will be.  Moreover, they need to try to determine how the culture and values as articulated might differ from the actual practice within the organization.  Chris Argyris used to describe this schism as the difference between espoused values and values-in-use.  Employees also need to focus on how they leave their existing organization.  Ian Morris, co-founder of Likewise and former CEO of real estate software company Market Leader, once advised my students that they should always "leave well" when departing an organization.  You never know if and when your path may cross with that of a former co-worker or manager.  Preserving relationships during and after the departure may be very important for one's career.  It surely will help if you become a boomerang employee.

For companies, the boomerang phenomenon means two things. For the companies losing talent, managers  should maintain open lines of communication with talented former employees.  The research shows that many boomerangs occur shortly after the one year mark at the new company. Thus, managers should reach out around that time to see how things are going for the former employee at their new organization.  For the companies gaining talent, they need to think about how they can check in regularly with new employees to see if they are finding the position consistent with their expectations.  Identifying discrepancies between expectations and reality as early as possible can help to avoid misunderstandings, clarify roles and responsibilities, and make adjustments to better match workers' professional goals with organizational needs and demands.   Don't wait for the one-year merit review to have an in-depth conversation with a new employee because they may already have one foot out the door at that point.  

Negotiating a Job Offer: Step Back, Think Broadly

As the new semester begins, many soon-to-be-graduates are deeply immersed in the job search process.  Some already have job offers and are contemplating whether to accept those positions.  During this process, many students and recent graduates ask me about negotiating with their potential employers.  Can I negotiate? What should be the focus of my negotiation?  How do I make sure that I don't harm the relationship before I even start working?   For those students, I highly recommend a Harvard Business Review article by my friend Hannah Riley Bowles and her co-author Bobbi Thomason.  They write:

Although reaching agreement on pay and benefits is important, failure to think more broadly about your career could mean losing valuable opportunities for advancement. For instance, women are increasingly urged to negotiate for higher pay as a way to close the gender wage gap. However, studies have shown that women’s “80 cents on the dollar” is explained more by differences in men’s and women’s career trajectories than by differential pay for doing the exact same job. Our research and our work coaching executives suggest that negotiating your role (the scope of your authority and your developmental opportunities) is likely to benefit your career more than negotiating your pay and benefits does. And at times of work-life conflict, negotiating your workload and the conditions that affect it (including your responsibilities, your location, and travel requirements) may be critical to remaining gainfully employed and moving forward professionally.

They offer terrific advice for job-seekers.  Step back from your focus on the job offer that presents itself at the moment.  Start instead by considering your long-term career goals and aspirations.  How can this job help you achieve those longer term objectives?  What will it take to achieve those goals?  How can you craft the opportunity in front of you to help fulfill those aspirations?  Work backward from this focus on career goals to the more immediate issue of the potential job you are considering.  Most importantly, think broadly about all aspects of the opportunity, rather than simply about compensation.  I find this last point so important, particularly for new graduates.  An extra $5,000 may sound enticing to a student with very little remaining in their bank account at the end of college.  However, taking the long view is so critical in that situation.  Investments in growth and development, with ample opportunities to learn, will provide a long-term payoff that far exceeds that extra compensation here and now.  

What Can We Learn From Olympic Fencing Stars?

Source: Sports Illustrated

As you watch the Olympics this week, take note of a few of the sports that receive much less attention.  For example, consider the sport of fencing.  You might notice something rather odd.  An unusually high number of athletes in the sport are left-handed.  Or, consider trap shooting.  As author David Epstein points out, "Half of the women in the final were left-handed, while fewer than ten percent of women in general are lefties."  Epstein cites fencing as an example of frequency dependent advantage.  Scholars use the term to describe the advantage left-handers may have in certain competitions because right-handers aren't well-equipped to face lefties and do not compete against them often at earlier points in their careers.  (The advantage in fencing seems obvious, but Epstein is not quite sure why such an advantage may exist in trap shooting).  

Jeff Haden, writing for Inc.com, points out that there's a lesson for all of us from these Olympic fencing competitors. He argues that we can CREATE a frequency dependent advantage in our careers. He writes, "Want to build a business? Be willing to do a few things your competition will not. Want to build a career? Be willing to do a few things the people you work with will not."  What terrific advice!  Haden has identified a key source of career success.  You can bet on your ability to do the same thing others are doing, but just better.  You might be successful, but that could be challenging.  Or, you could do things others aren't willing to do, or haven't chosen to invest time and effort into mastering to this point.  That might be a more fruitful way to propel your career forward at times.  

Victim of Layoffs? Don't Burn Bridges, Focus on Development

Source: Flexjobs

Eleanor Pringle has written a good column for Fortune titled, "Do’s and don’ts of layoffs: These are the things you should never post on LinkedIn if you lose your job."   

Pringle has some sound advice.  Naturally, she appropriately recommends "leaving well" - that means no burning bridges, no calling out companies or colleagues who you believe may have mistreated you.  She stresses that posting while upset is a recipe for disaster. Pringle has some other sound recommendations, including advice about leaning into professional development opportunities, such as short courses.  She writes:

DON’T waste time while you’re not working.  Not got a job? Prove you’re proactive and post about it. Alistair Stirling, adviser at Stirling Careers Consultancy, said he always encourages his clients to do volunteer work and short courses while they’re on the hunt for their next role.  He explained that not only does it give people something to talk about –either on interviews or on platforms like LinkedIn– it shows you’re not just sitting around at home.

I agree with the recommendation regarding development.  I would stress, however, that everyone should be developing a plan for lifelong learning, if they do not have one.  It's not something that should wait for the unfortunate circumstance of a layoff.   Each person should be thinking about a stream of development activities, above and beyond the training provided by one's company.  Many of these development activities don't cost much money, if at all, these days.  Others do require an investment.  These opportunities should sometimes be about practical skill building ("I'm going to learn how to code...").  However, other opportunities should be just about stretching your perspective and stimulating your thinking on an important subject ("I'm going to read this book about motivation...")   

Owning Your Job

Source: Verywell Mind

Adam Bryant has written a thought-provoking piece for Strategy+Business this week. The article is titled, "Want to set yourself apart? Own your job."  Bryant argues that people who exhibite a strong sense of accountability and truly own their jobs are much more likely to achieve professional success.  Here's an excerpt from his article:

People with these qualities figure out how to get something done, even if the path to success is unclear. When things get tough, they don’t point fingers or throw up their hands in frustration or complain that something isn’t fair or is too hard. Ownership is not just about having a strong work ethic—it’s about having a sense of responsibility to follow through and deliver.

Bryant stresses that the highest performing individuals don't dwell on the reasons why something is challenging, nor do they focus on the situational factors that inhibit expected performance.  Instead, they focus on how they can still accomplish key goals despite these obvious obstacles.  

The article might prove unsettling to some readers. Undoubtedly, some people will label it "old school" and dismiss the logic as out-of-step with today's workforce.  On the other hand, Bryant's comments do remind me of the academic literature on locus of control.  Individuals can exhibit more of an external or internal locus of control.  Those with an external locus tend to explain their performance by focusing on situational or enviromental factors. Those with an internal locus tend to explain their performance by focusing on their personal action and behaviors.  What did I do that caused this particular outcome?  In research on academic achievement, scholars generally find that students perform better in their courses if they exhibit an internal locus of control.  In a sense, Bryant is making an argument consistent with those research findings.  He's arguing for the benefits of an internal locus of control.  

The Right Connections to Make in Your Job Search

Source: www.reliantsproject.com/

Imagine that you are searching for a new job, and you are leveraging LinkedIn as a resource in your search.  You are trying to make the right connections to facilitate the process.  What types of connections are most useful?  First and foremost, you should be building that network LONG BEFORE you are actively in need of new employment.  Don't wait.   Second, you need to consider the types of connections that are most impactful.   For a long time, scholars have argued that connecting with others with whom you have "weak ties" can be more useful than leveraging those with whom you have "strong" ties.   Why?  People with whom you have weak ties enable you to access opportunities, information, and resources that are not readily available to you already.  They help you discover options not known to your close friends and immediate co-workers.  Branching out can be powerful and effective.  

Professors Iavor Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Sinan Aral collaborated with two researchers at LinkedIn to test the theory of weak vs. strong ties.  They examined two experiments conducted in 2015 and 2019 involving millions of LinkedIn members and the "People You May Know" algorithm on the social media site.  They discovered that connections with "moderately weak ties" tended to be most effective in the job search process.  These folks tend to be a bit more junior or senior than you, but not extremely distant in terms of stage of their careers.  

Moderately weak ties tend to be most useful for those working in fast-moving industries, or fields such as research and development.  Staying on top of new trends and discoveries outside your narrow domain turn out to be critical in those fields.  Finally, people engaged in remote work tend to benefit a great deal from moderately weak ties, in part because they need those connections to discover novel information they might not otherwise uncover due to the sometimes socially isolating aspects of working from home.  In sum, don't just focus on people you know well when building your network, but consider the diminishing returns of making connections with folks very distant from you.  Finally, the researchers stress that hiring managers need to think about building moderately weak ties as well, because those connections can help them discover talented candidates outside of their smaller group of people with whom they have collaborated closely in the past.  

Ingredients of a Career "Hot Streak"

Director Peter Jackson
Source: Indiewire

Under what conditions do people experience a burst of unprecdented success in their careers? Scholars have been studying the ingredients of career "hot streaks" for some time. At first, scholars thought that such unusual periods of success occurred randomly. However, new research methods have capitalized on artificial intelligence to advance our understanding of such hot streaks. Scholars Lu Liu, Nima Dehmamy, Jillian Chown, C. Lee Giles, and Dashun Wang developed an AI system to study the work of 2,128 artists, 4,337 directors, and 20,040 scientists.  They found that hot streaks emerged when these artists, directors, and scientists first engaged in a period of broad exploration of creative options and then shifted to an exploitation phase in which they focused intensely in a particular domain.  Kellogg Insight summarized their findings:

The results make clear the “recipe” for a hot streak: exploration of creative options followed by exploitation of a specific “lane” of work ultimately leading to greater success. This held true across all three domains studied.  For example, director Peter Jackson made films that fell into horror, comedy, drama, and other genres (reflecting a period of exploration) before hitting it much bigger with the Lord of the Rings fantasy franchise. Analysis of painter Jackson Pollock’s work, similarly, showed exploration of a wide range of styles before the focused “drip period” (1946–1950) that elevated him to global fame.

The research found, further, that exploration or exploitation by itself is not enough for a hot streak. That is, only the specific exploration-exploitation sequence led to the highest increase in likelihood of a hot streak: hot streaks following that sequence were 20.5 percent, 13.8 percent, and 19.2 percent more likely for artists, directors, and scientists, respectively, versus after a random point in a given career. Exploration and exploitation alone were associated with no such increase.

“If you just do one or the other, you don’t get the full impact,” Chown says. “It has to be the combination of exploration followed by exploitation: experimenting in different areas, learning different domains and approaches, then really hunkering down and developing that body of high-impact work.”  Wang agrees: “Our work shows that people experiment and likely gain new skills from work in different subfields, and then help find the best one to exploit, which seem crucial for hot streak.”

As I read this study, I was reminded of a terrific book I read several years ago by David Epstein.  In that book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, Epstein argues that we should not specialize early and narrowly in our lives.  Instead, we should explore and develop competence in multiple areas.  He argues that these generalists ultimately create more innovation than people who specalize narrowly.   This AI-driven study of scientists, directors, and artists takes Epstein's argument one step further.  It confirms the value of being a generalist, though it emphasizes the benefits of a shift from broad competence to specific expertise over time.  Either way, both Epstein's book and this study provide a compelling argument for not restricting yourself too early in your career.  Unfortunately, in many professions, the pressure to specialize can be very powerful.  Take my profession, for instance.  In management academia, the path to early career success seems to emphasize mastery of a narrow domain - and too often, that entails a quite esoteric focus.  Broadening the mind has many benefits, and we should not forget that as we coach and mentor young people in their careers.  

The Most Common Career Advice Given to Your 20-Year Old Self

What advice would you give your 20 year old self?  That's the key question LinkedIn asked people recently.  Jessica Stillman of Inc.com reported on the results.   She described the most common theme to emerge from the responses:

What do all of these replies have in common? Each focuses on action, experimentation, and course correction rather than pre-planning and rigid goals. The right way to make the most of your career, commentator after commentator insisted, isn't to have a grand blueprint or follow a pre-arranged path. Instead it's to just get started, learn along the way, and keep moving forward. Action beats endless deliberation any day.

Stillman quotes several of the folks who responded to LinkedIn's question:

Executive coachTracy Wilk. "Careers are long.  There's no need for a mad rush to find the ideal job. The first part (i.e., 10+ years) of your career is about testing multiple jobs and understanding what you like/dislike and are good and bad at."

Hireproof co-founder Max Korpinen:  "Don't spend so much time planning and researching the perfect career path -- you don't know what 'work' is yet anyway. Aggressively explore all options that seem interesting, learn, iterate, and you'll arrive to the 'perfect path' much faster," he advises his younger self.

Terrific advice.  It reminds me of the terrific book, Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.  They too argue that we should take action, experiment, and learn... rather than sitting in our room pondering what we want to do with our lives.  

What Factors Might Derail Your Career?

Source: Career Advancement Blog

Elena Lytkina Botelho and Katie Semmer Creagh have published an HBR article titled, "What to Do if Your Career is Stalled and You Don't Know Why."   In this piece, they describe research on what has derailed the careers of successful managers as they try to reach the C-suite.  Botelho and Creagh analyzed the circumstances regarding 113 talented individuals rejected during the final round of the selection process for C-suite roles at their companies.  They found three sometimes misunderstood factors that explained the derailing of many successful careers: 

• Executive presence: "This is an ill-defined catchall for a multitude of issues from the seemingly trivial but career damaging body odor, to deeper challenges, such as when someone doesn’t carry herself/himself in a way consistent with company culture. Often executives who fail to appear confident get comments about lackluster executive presence."
• Communication style:  Candidates stalled if they seemed too academic or cerebal, appeared to be too long-winded, failed to engage people with effective storytelling, or if they used "I" instead of "We" too often.  Sadly, some also stumbled because they spoke with a significant accent.  
• Peer-level relationships:  Some candidates received stellar reviews from their managers, but failed to connect well with their peers.  They were perceived as too competitive, or perhaps too interested in personal vs. team success.   The best candidates demonstrated a more effective ability to persuade and influence their peers. 

What's the lesson for individuals trying to protect against a future career derailment?  Be sure to gather feedback on these issues, not just your ability to deliver results or accomplish important tasks.  Don't assume that silence on these issues from your boss means you are performing well along these important dimensions.  Ask about these factors, seek out advice from mentors, and find ways to work on your personal development in these areas.  Be proactive, rather than being vulnerable to a surprise derailment in the future.  

Early Career Failures: Do They Make You Stronger?

Source: Osan Air Base

We all have heard the old adage: What doesn't kill you will make you stronger. Researchers at Kellogg School of Management have tested whether that is indeed true when it comes to early career failures. They did so by examining a very unique dataset. Dashun Wang, Benjamin Jones, and Yang Wang have examined research grants provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  The paper, published recently in Nature Communications, is titled, "Early Career Setback and Future Career Impact."  The scholars compared scientists awarded grants early in their career to those who narrowly missed out on achieving a grant.  Here is what they found, as summarized by Kellogg Insight:

To figure out just how much of a difference these early successes or setbacks made to a scientific career, the researchers traced the careers of 623 near-miss and 561 narrow-win scientists.  Notably, it turned out that the two groups published at similar rates over the next 10 years—not what you’d expect, given that narrow winners got an early leg up from their NIH grant funding. Even more surprising, scientists in the near-miss group were actually more likely to have “hit” papers (that is, papers that cracked the top-five percent of citations in a particular field and year). In the five years after they applied for NIH funding, 16.1 percent of papers produced by scientists in the near-miss group were hits, compared to 13.3 percent for the narrow-win group.

The researchers went on to rule out some of the possible explanations for this finding.  For instance, they demonstrated that the finding is not attributable to attrition by the "near-miss" scientists... i.e., it is not explained by quitting on the part of some of the researchers who did not receive grants early in their career.  They conclude that the career paths of these "near-miss" scientists suggests that they indeed did become stronger through adversity.  Somehow, the early career failure inspired them to persevere, led to key learnings, and/or helped them understand their own strengths and weaknesses.   As a result, they overcame the failure and went on to achieve considerable success.  What an uplifting finding for all of us... the old adage is not just a cliche...there is real truth there apparently! 

Optimal Networks for Women & Men

Source: Wikimedia

Yang Yang, Nitesh Chawla, and Brian Uzzi have published a fascinating new article titled, "A network’s gender composition and communication pattern predict women’s leadership success."   The scholars examined the differences in social  networks of recent graduates from a top MBA program.  They sought to understand how network composition might affect the career opportunities and progression of these young graduates.  Yang, Chawla, and Uzzi discovered an important gender difference.  Kellogg Insight recently wrote an article about this research.  Here is an excerpt from that article describing the key findings from this study:  

They found an important gender difference: for men, the most significant factor affecting job status after graduation was how “central” they were in their networks—that is, how many highly connected people they have relationships with.  Successful women also tended to be more central, but that alone was not enough to land them a top job. The most successful women often had a tight-knit circle of female colleagues as well.

The reason for this difference may come down to the types of information that men versus women need to succeed. Presumably, having numerous connections provides ready access to what the researchers call “public information,” such as which companies are hiring and which types of candidates they’re seeking. For men, that alone may be enough to land a good job. “Men really need a network that’s going to maximize their access and exposure to market information,” says study coauthor Brian Uzzi, a professor of management and organizations at Kellogg.

Women, however, “need the same thing men need and one thing more,” Uzzi says. Specifically, women need “private information,” which may include insider tips about a company’s leadership culture and politics, or hints about how to make an impression in a male-dominated industry, for example.  However, women are only likely to put faith in such private information when it comes from trusted contacts with whom they have established relationships. Furthermore, only fellow women can provide the sensitive, gender-specific information that will be useful in a career context—hence the benefit of having connections who are both close and are women.

But there is a caveat, the researchers warn: if the contacts in a woman’s network do not have sufficiently diverse networks of their own, she may find herself in an echo chamber, hurting her chances of success.

Great Mentoring: Let the Protégé Lead

Source: Max Pixel

Diane Brink, IBM's former Chief Marketing Officer for Global Technology Services, shared her thougths recently with Kellogg Insights regarding the mentor-protégé relationship. How do you make this relationships as mutually beneficial as possible? She offers a number of good recommendations in an article titled, "5 Ways to Get the Most out of a Mentor–Protégé Relationship."  My favorite suggestion is: "Let the Protégé Lead."  Here is Brink's advice, as summarized by Kellogg Insights:

For protégés, commitment means more than sitting back and nodding in agreement with every suggestion the mentor makes. Mentees need to own the relationship.  Brink describes a protégé who would always send an agenda for their mentoring meeting a week beforehand: “I thought ‘Oh, my gosh. This guy is really thinking about not only how he can use my time effectively, but how he can really move the relationship to something that is going to be beneficial for him.’ That was pretty impressive.”

In any mentoring situation, it should be the protégé who sets the priorities. Brink likes to remind mentees that they really drive their own careers.  “You’re going to have a lot of people providing their point of view on what you should be doing with your career,” she says, “and it’s not their decision.”  Agreeing to make the mentee’s agenda a priority keeps him or her from being swayed towards a career path he or she may not be interested in following. And it takes pressure off the mentor to act as an all-knowing guru.  

Stop Telling People to Find Their Passion

Source: Public Domain Pictures

Paul O’Keefe, Carol Dweck, and Gregory Walton have written a forthcoming article in Psychological Science titled, "Implicit Theories of Interest: Finding Your Passion or Developing It?"  In this paper, they draw upon Dweck's work on growth vs. fixed mindsets, and they apply this framework to the topic of people's passions and interests.   In this paper, they contrast individuals with a fixed theory of personal interests to those with a growth theory.   Those with a fixed theory believe that they possess a passion for certain types of work, and they simply must discover those interests.  Individuals with a growth theory believe that interests must be "cultivated through investment and persistence."  

The scholars conduct a series of studies to examine the impact that these different theories have on motivation and behavior.   They discovered that, "A fixed theory was more likely to dampen interest in areas outside people's existing interests."  Moreover, they found that people with a fixed theory believed that they would be highly motivated once they discovered their passion.  In a sense, they foresee an easy path once their underlying interests and passions are revealed/discovered.  Those with a growth theory of interests tend to adopt a more realistic outlook, namely that they will encounter difficulties as they pursue a passion.  

Finally, perhaps most importnatly, in their final experimental study, the scholars discover an important relationship between a growth theory and persistence in the pursuit of an area of interest:

Inducing a fixed theory led students to discount a newfound interest more definitively upon exposure to challenging content. Difficulty may have signaled that it was not their interest after all. Taken together, those endorsing a growth theory may have more realistic beliefs about the pursuit of interests, which may help them sustain engagement as material becomes more complex and challenging.

This new research strongly complements earlier work at Stanford by Bill Barnett and Dave Evans. In their book, "Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life," Barnett and Evans apply deisgn thinking principles to the process of discovering and building a career.   They argue that one does not find his or her passion by sitting in a dorm room pondering life's big quesitons.  Instead, they argue that one should adopt a learn by doing approach, much like a design thinker.  You prototoype as a design thinker, and you can do the same with regard to building a career.  In short, you try various things, by shadowing an alumnus for a day, taking an internship, meeting with mentors in various fields, attending a professional conference, or trying a course in a different field.  Through these actions, you learn about what interests you and what does not.  In many ways, Barnett and Evans are arguing that you must cultvate and develop your interets through action, rather than waiting for a passion to be revealed through some "aha" moment.  Now, O'Keefe, Dweck, and Walton provided sound psychological research that complements the practical guide to designing a career offered by Barnett and Evans in their terrific book.  

Lifelong Learning: Think Deep AND Broad

The most successful leaders are lifelong learners.   As their career progresses, they master new skills and seek out experiences that will build their capabilities in key areas.  For many people, career development efforts focus on building expertise in a particular area.  They want to develop specialized knowledge of high importance to their organization, and hopefully, of high value to other firms in the marketplace.  Becoming an expert in a valued domain is certainly a good career strategy.  However, it's not enough.  Lifelong learning should involve broadening efforts, as well as deep dives in your area of specialization.   

You should ask yourself:  What adjacent domains should I be exploring?  What societal and technological trends should I be learning about right now?  Beyond that, you should seek out interesting topics, even if they don't seem directly relevant at the moment.   Become a bit of a polymath.  Such learning will stretch your mind and expose you to new ways of thinking.   Moroever, broadening your knowledge to new areas will help you in conversations and networking opportunities.  Being able to carry on a conversation on a variety of topics is a very useful skill as your career progresses.  

Imagine that you have an opportunity, as a young employee, to spend tim at dinner seated next to the CEO.   Could you carry on a conversation on a range of topics?  Would you be able to speak intelligently about issues outside of your specialization?   Answering these questions affirmatively proves to be very important if you hope to advance successfully in your career. 

Blind Spots that Derail Careers

Fast Company's Stephanie Vozza writes this week about the need for accurate self-assessment.  She argues that being blind about our weaknesses can derail our careers.  She cites a new book by Kellogg School of Management Professor Carter Cast.   In his book, Cast describes five blind spots that impede our careers:

1. A me-first attitude that leads to poor listening skills
2. Micromanaging others, hindering your ability to build and lead a team
3. Being too comfortable with routines and resisting change
4. Having narrow perspectives on business that undermine your ability to be strategic
5. Not following through on promises due to poor organization or task management skill

Meg Whitman: The Right Approach Early in Your Career

Design Your Way to a Better Life

Dave Evans and Bill Burnett have written a terrific new book titled, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life.  Evans and Burnett discuss how people are often encouraged to find their passion and pursue that vocation in their life.  They point out that it can be very difficult to discover one's passion simply by sitting in a dorm room or apartment dreaming up potential visions of the future.  Introspection and reflection alone do not allow for this discovery to occur.  

What's the alternative mechanism for discovering what you want to do in your life?  They argue that individuals should apply the principles of design thinking.  They should prototype and experiment early and often.  They should try a variety of things, expose themselves to different domains, pursuits, and professions.  Then they should reflect on these experiences and consider what makes them happy, what motivates and inspires them, and what they consider rewarding.   Moreover, individuals should consider the circumstances in which they feel intellectually challenged and highly engaged.  

How does one experiment and prototype?  They take internships in different industries or companies, shadow someone in a particular profession, work on course projects in different domains, network with people in various roles, volunteer in various organizations, etc.   In short, they design different ways to test whether they, in fact, are passionate about a particular job, role, industry, etc.