It All Comes Down To One Thing

I was speaking to a class of Executive MBA students. The approach I took was to give them a "career walk" of my career from my days as a Management Trainee at APL to running my own company now. At each point of my career walk, I gave perspectives of key lessons learned and key decisions made. They fell into a few key themes.

1. We reinvent ourselves constantly. Sometimes we create the opportunity and other times it is imposed on us. But we are reinventing ourselves constantly. Knowing that is important. When we focus on what is important to us, the values we stand for, and when we look to understand our controllables, then we control our path, our reinvention.

2. Go wide and not deep - When I started my career i was focused on gaining as much experience in my first years as I could. I wanted to become a good leader/general manager and the advice I received early was to jump at opportunities that gave me diverse functional and geographic experience. My career developed , after my training program, through sales, operations, Logistics and Customer Service, preparing me well for my General Management positions.

3. Not everyone is happy to see you. Not everyone will trust your good intentions. You have to earn that. Many times, with a new job, came a new team to lead, a new organization to lead. Your credentials get you only so far. It is the integrity and consistency of your actions that win their hearts.

4. Understand that your high and low performers are the outliers. The core of your company, of your products and services are the quietly consistent masses - your customer service and sales people, your mechanics, your finance department, the drivers and warehouse operators. In talent management, we spend most of our time to the right and left of the bell curve (the high and low performers) when the culture, the DNA of your business lies with the middle of the bell curve.

5. Great leaders go to bat for people; they have faith and take risks with their people so that they gain experience and confidence. Often a little thing we do for others can have a huge impact to them. I had several instances where a leader stuck up for me, went to bat for me. I never forgot it.

6. Pick the leader , not the job. Especially as our career progresses, we have more control over what that next job will be. I learned that working for a great leader is more important than the job itself. A great job working for a boor is nowhere as good as a good job working for an amazing leader.

7. Rumor and innuendo are more destructive than the truth. Nip rumor in the bud. Communicate openly to avoid mistaken assumptions. And when you hear about rumors, address them head on. Productive organizations are about clear communication and quick resolution of ambiguity.

8. Influence trumps authority - We spend many years trying to get the authority we need to accomplish what we accomplish - By the time we get the authority, we have learned that it is all about influence. People follow leaders because of the trust and motivation that they inspire. This is what drives influence. Authority will get you a result or a behavior, one or two times. Influence delivers systemic results, because people believe in what they are doing.

When you look at it, it all comes down to one thing.
It always comes down to one thing:

At the end of the day, it is all about people.
How we interact with people
How we respect people
How we empathize with people
How we care for people
How we support people

It is all about people!