In his
book, The Monk and the Riddle, Randy Komisar makes the point
that the reason to be an entrepreneur is to avoid the stultification
of companies without a soul. I tend to agree.
I believe the main
reason you should consider being an entrepreneur is so you can reach your fullest potential. A few years ago former Harvard
Professor, Robert Steven Kaplan, wrote an article, for the Harvard
Business Review, titled, “Reaching Your Potential.”
I
thought it was a pretty good article. So, I have reproduced the
article, below, in its entirety. The rest of this post are the words
of Mr. Kaplan:
Ambitious
professionals often spend a substantial amount of time thinking about
strategies that will help them achieve greater levels of success.
They strive for a more impressive job title, higher compensation, and
responsibility for more sizable revenues, profits, and numbers of
employees. Their definitions of success are often heavily influenced
by family, friends, and colleagues.
Yet
many ultimately find that, despite their efforts and accomplishments,
they lack a true sense of professional satisfaction and fulfillment.
During my career with Goldman Sachs, as well as over the past few
years of teaching and coaching managers and MBA students at Harvard
Business School, I have met a surprisingly large number of impressive
executives who expressed deep frustration with their careers. They
looked back and felt that they should have achieved more or even
wished that they had chosen a different career altogether.
Consider
a very successful research analyst at a large securities firm who
came to see me because he was discouraged with his career progress.
This was particularly ironic because he was well known, highly
regarded (ranked number one in his industry sector), and well
compensated. He told me that, after 10 years, he was tired of his
job, disliked his boss, and felt he had no potential for further
upward mobility. Most of all, he had always wanted to be an
investment manager, but he had started out as an analyst and never
really reassessed his career path. He felt trapped. He feared losing
his stature and didn’t want to let anyone down, but at the same
time he didn’t want to keep doing what he was doing.
As
we talked, he wondered if he’d been so busy trying to reach
specific milestones and impress other people that he’d lost sight
of what he really enjoyed doing. The truth was that he loved
analyzing stocks and assessing management teams, but he also wanted
to have the responsibility for making the actual investment decisions
and then be held accountable for the results. I encouraged him to
take action and speak to a number of investment firms (including his
current employer) about a career change. After doing this, he
ultimately was offered and accepted a portfolio manager position in
the asset management division of his current firm. He learned that
his firm’s leaders wanted to retain him regardless of job
description and that they were quite surprised to find out he wanted
to be on the investment side of the business. He has since become a
superb investment manager, and although he wishes he’d stepped back
and reexamined his career years earlier, he’s thrilled that he made
the switch while there was “still time.”
If
you are experiencing similar feelings of frustration or even regret
about the direction of your career, this article is intended to help
you examine the question, “Am I reaching my potential?” This is
not the same as asking, “How do I rise to the top?” or “How can
I be successful in my career?” Rather, it’s about taking a very
personal look at how you define success in your heart of hearts and
then finding your path to get there.
To
do that, you must step back and reassess your career—starting with
the recognition that managing it is your responsibility. Too many
people feel like victims in their careers, when in fact they have a
substantial degree of control. Seizing control requires you to take a
fresh look at your behavior in three main areas: knowing yourself,
excelling at critical tasks, and demonstrating character and
leadership.
Knowing
Yourself
Taking
responsibility for your career starts with an accurate assessment of
your current skills and performance. Can you write down your two or
three greatest strengths and your two or three most significant
weaknesses? While most people can detail their strengths, they often
struggle to identify key weaknesses. This exercise involves
meaningful reflection and, almost always, requires soliciting the
views of people who will tell you the brutal truth. Unfortunately,
you often can’t count on your boss to accurately assess your
strengths or to be willing to confront you with what you’re doing
wrong. It’s up to you to take control of this process by seeking
coaching, asking for very specific feedback, and being receptive to
input from a wide variety of people at various levels within your
organization. This gathering of feedback needs to be an ongoing
process because, as your career progresses, you will face new
challenges and demands.
Recently
I met with a division head of a large professional services firm.
Though he’d been a rising star for several years, he felt he’d
begun to stagnate. His direct reports and his CEO no longer seemed
engaged and enthusiastic in their dealings with him, and he didn’t
know why. In our discussions, he was able to specifically describe
his strengths, but when I asked about his weaknesses, he gave me
fairly generic responses, such as “Maybe I’m too impatient” and
“I need to raise my profile.” When I pressed him about feedback
from his boss he still struggled to identify even one specific
weakness. I sent him off on an assignment: Interview at least five
colleagues and subordinates.
He
returned a few weeks later with several “surprises.” He’d
heard, for example, that while he was detail-oriented and decisive,
he micromanaged, had a dictatorial style, and failed to listen. Armed
with these insights, he sought coaching, started working on his
flaws, and began regularly soliciting feedback from his colleagues
and subordinates. A year later he reported that his effectiveness had
improved as a result of these ongoing efforts, and he was once again
feeling confident and optimistic about his career.
This
type of initiative takes time, humility, and a willingness to
confront weaknesses, fears, and blind spots that many of us would
rather ignore. But I never cease to be impressed by the capacity of
people to change and improve once they recognize their shortcomings
as well as their strengths.
Of
course, getting others to tell you where you’re falling short isn’t
easy—particularly if they’re your subordinates. It must be done
in one-on-one conversations, and you need to give potential coaches
time to learn that you’re sincere. When your employees see you
actually act on their feedback, they are likely to become more
proactive in offering advice, because they know you value their
input. Your subordinates and colleagues will also feel they have a
stake in your success and that of your unit—which will make them
more likely to enjoy working with you.
Once
you have a grip on your strengths and weaknesses, your next challenge
is to figure out what you truly enjoy doing. What’s your dream job?
How well does it match what you currently do? Many people either
don’t know what their passions are or are so focused on the views
of their peers that they drift into the wrong career. I was recently
approached by an MBA student who wanted advice on whether to go work
for a hedge fund, a private equity firm, or an investment bank. When
asked whether he had an interest in financial markets, he quickly
said no. He wasn’t even sure about the key tasks that each of those
jobs would entail. When asked what he would do if he had $10 million
in the bank, however, his answer was very clear: pursue a career in
the music industry. He was a concert-level musician and loved the
music business. Once he recognized how much he had been swayed by his
fellow students’ bias toward the lucrative financial services
industry, he realized he needed to rethink his choices.
The
conventional wisdom about the attractiveness of various careers
changes constantly. Twenty-five years ago the medical and legal
professions were considered financially rewarding and socially
desirable. Today, a number of doctors and lawyers are frustrated in
their jobs and realize that they might have based their career
choices excessively on the views of their peers and popular opinion,
instead of on whether they would actually love the work. Hedge funds
and private equity are today’s hot fields, but people who go into
them without a strong enthusiasm for the actual tasks may find
themselves starting from scratch a few years down the line. Loving
what you do gives you the strength to weather personal setbacks,
overcome adversity, face and address your weaknesses, and work the
long hours typically needed to reach your full potential.
Excelling
at Critical Tasks
It's
very difficult to succeed if you don’t excel at the tasks that are
central to your chosen enterprise. That sounds painfully simple, but
many executives fail to identify the three or four most important
activities that lead to success in their job or business. If you’re
a medical researcher, the three keys are likely to be conducting
cutting-edge research, getting published, and fund-raising. If you
manage a large sales force, the crucial tasks might be attracting,
retaining, and developing outstanding salespeople; customer
segmentation; and client relationship management. If you’re
assessing a potential job move, you need to know what will drive
success in the new position and, then, ask yourself whether you enjoy
those key tasks. In your current job, identifying critical tasks
helps you determine how to spend your time and develop your skills.
Promising
leaders sometimes lose sight of this connection. Not long ago, a new
division head at a large industrial company told me that he was
struggling to grow sales and profits. He complained that he was
spending too much time fighting fires and didn’t have enough hours
in the day. When I asked him to identify the three main drivers of
success in his business, he realized that he wasn’t sure. He spent
the next several weeks interviewing staff and customers, and
concluded that success in his business depended on developing close
relationships with the purchasing managers at each of his top 25
customers, putting the right people in critical sales and
manufacturing leadership positions, and staying at the cutting edge
of product innovation. He also realized that his division was
performing poorly in all three areas.
He
proceeded to clear his calendar, force himself to delegate tasks that
were less central to success, and focus on raising the bar in each of
these areas. Six months later he reported that he had replaced a
number of executives—including the sales manager and head of
product development—and created an executive committee that met
weekly to discuss critical business issues. He also reported that
he’d become much more disciplined in matching his priorities (and
those of his leadership team) with the keys to success for the
business. Sales and profits began to improve, and he felt confident
that he would resume his upward career trajectory.
Demonstrating
Character and Leadership
While
seemingly amorphous, character and leadership often make the
difference between good performance and great performance. One
measure of character is the degree to which you put the interests of
your company and colleagues ahead of your own. Excellent leaders are
willing to do things for others without regard to what’s in it for
them. They coach and mentor. They have the mindset of an owner and
figure out what they would do if they were the ultimate decision
maker. They’re willing to make a recommendation that would benefit
the organization’s overall performance, possibly to the detriment
of their own unit. They have the courage to trust that they will
eventually be rewarded, even if their actions may not be in their own
short-term interest.
Being
a leader also means being willing to speak up, even when you’re
expressing an unpopular view. CEOs’ proposals often generate head
nodding, even from people who secretly harbor serious reservations.
In reality, most chief executives desperately want dissenting
opinions so they can make better choices. While emerging leaders must
use good judgment regarding the tone and timing of their dissent,
they also need to be aware that they can hit a plateau by playing it
safe when they should be asserting their heartfelt opinions.
One
CEO recounted to me his regrets over a recent key hire. His top three
reports had each interviewed the various job candidates and expressed
no major concerns about the final choice. After the new hire was on
board—and had begun to struggle—it came to light that two of the
three senior managers had privately held significant reservations but
concluded that the CEO’s mind was made up and that speaking out was
unwise. The CEO was furious. Though he recognized his own role in the
mess (he vowed to more actively encourage dissent), he also lowered
his opinion of the two executives who failed to express their views.
Otherwise
confident executives sometimes overestimate the career risk of
speaking up and meaningfully underestimate the risk of staying
silent. I encourage people to develop various approaches to help them
overcome this hesitancy: For example, I’ve counseled emerging
executives to save their money to build financial security and to
avoid getting too emotionally attached to their jobs. Though it may
seem that you’ll never find another great job, you have to have
faith that there are many attractive opportunities outside your
firms.
In
some cases, I advise people to become experts in some specific
business area in order to build their confidence. I also encourage
people to spend more time deciding what they truly believe versus
trying to guess what the boss might want to hear. At work, as in
competitive sports, you must play with confidence and even a little
abandon. I’ve talked to several executives whose finest moments
came when they gathered their courage and confidently expressed
disagreement with their boss and peers. To their surprise, they found
that they were treated with more respect after these episodes.
Most
outstanding CEOs value emerging executives who assert themselves out
of genuine concern for what is best for the company. Doing the right
thing is a reward in itself—psychologically in the short run and
professionally in the longer run. Of course, this approach requires
that you have some reasonable level of faith that justice will
prevail. I have seldom seen people hurt their careers by speaking up
and appropriately articulating a well-thought-out contrary position
(even when it was unpopular). However, I have seen many bitter and
confused people who stalled their careers by playing it safe.
Every
rewarding career will bring ups and downs, bad days, bad weeks, and
bad months. Everyone will face setbacks and discouraging situations.
Some people abandon their plans when they hit one of these bumps.
They lose their way and ultimately undermine their own
performance—and the wound is all the more painful because it is
self-inflicted. The advice in this article is intended to help you
avoid such self-inflicted wounds. There’s nothing anyone can do to
prevent you from reaching your potential; the challenge is for you to
identify your dream, develop the skills to get there, and exhibit
character and leadership. Then, you need to have the courage to
periodically reassess, make adjustments, and pursue a course that
reflects who you truly are.
