Winning (22 page)

You may be thinking that I am writing off small companies with this advice. Not true. Some small companies offer experiences and exposure that cannot be beat. You get a chance to manage people earlier in your career, run projects or units sooner, not to mention negotiate acquisitions and work more closely with the CEO and the board. When you’re ready to move on, you won’t have the credential of a prestigious company, but you will have a lot of mileage. That really counts at all kinds of places—especially other small companies, venture capital firms, and entrepreneurial start-ups.

There is a second part of the options signal.

Some companies open—or close—doors for you because of their reputation. Others do that because of their industry.

Back in the 1960s, being in plastics was a ticket to the future. The industry was booming, with new applications being developed every day. In the ’70s, because of the energy crisis, you had job offers coming out of your ears if you had a degree or work experience in geology. And of course, people who got involved in high technology and finance in the late ’80s and ’90s had a good, long run of it.
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At speaking engagements, I am often asked what industries I would recommend to college grads and MBAs today. I tell them to look into companies doing business at the intersection of biology and information technology. And I suggest they learn everything they can about China because it will permeate every aspect of business in their lifetimes.

This reminds me of something said by a very successful executive I know of who served in the air force before he began his business career. He is frequently contacted by headhunters, and he says his first questions about a potential job are just like those he asked as a fighter pilot assessing situational awareness.

“When I was on a mission, I would always ask, ‘What’s our altitude? What are the weather conditions ahead? Where is the enemy?’ I think it’s the same thing in business,” he says. “You need to know the same kinds of things about a job or an industry. Are you getting yourself into a turnaround situation? Are the economics fatal? How tough is the competition? Has the industry peaked, or is it just getting off the ground? Are the expectations of me reasonable or am I walking into a time bomb?”

Now, you can ask these questions and find that the job you like has a problematic future. The airline industry has very tough economics and relatively low pay, especially for managerial positions. The hospitality and publishing industries are likewise not very flush.

Still, some people just love the romance of air travel, the adventure of the hotel business, and the excitement of creating books. If you are one of them, of course you should enter these fields; just do so with your eyes open. Every job you take is a gamble that could increase your options or shut them down.

OWNERSHIP

A few years ago, a manager I know was visited in her office by the son of a business acquaintance. He was about to graduate from Harvard, and he needed career advice about two worlds she was very familiar with—investment banking and management consulting.

The student, hair combed neatly and dutifully dressed in a suit, came prepared with a list of questions. What was the difference, he asked, between the major consulting firms? What kind of assignments could he expect during his first year on Wall Street? And so on.

The manager had worked in consulting before joining a consumer goods company and had many acquaintances in investment banking, and so she answered each question thoroughly. She watched as the senior took careful notes, but she could tell he wasn’t particularly curious about anything she said.

In fact, after a half hour or so, he thanked her politely and stood to leave.

As he was doing so, he tucked his pad inside a folder, which the manager noticed was completely covered with intricate drawings of cars.

“Wow, those are amazing! Who did them?” she asked.

Suddenly, the senior was filled with energy. “I did—I’m always drawing cars,” he said. “My dorm room is covered with posters and paintings of cars—I subscribe to
every
car magazine! I’ve been obsessed with cars since I was five years old. My whole life, I’ve wanted to be a car designer. That’s why I’m always going to car shows and NASCAR races. I went to Indianapolis last year—I drove there!”

The manager shook her head in disbelief.

“You’ve got to go work in Detroit,” she said. “Why in the world are you thinking about consulting or banking?”

The senior deflated as quickly as he had come to life. “My dad says the car business is not what I went to Harvard for.”

For the next few minutes, the manager tried to change the student’s mind, but she quickly realized she was getting drawn into family dynamics that were none of her business. She was not surprised a few months later when she bumped into the young man’s father and he proudly told her that his son was working eighty-hour weeks at a Wall Street firm.

Look, over the course of our careers, we all take jobs to meet the needs or dreams of other people—parents, spouses, teachers, or classmates.

That’s not necessarily wrong, unless you don’t realize you’re doing it. Because working to fulfill someone else’s needs or dreams almost always catches up with you. I know someone who literally became a doctor because his entire childhood his mother—a Polish immigrant who loved the American Dream—introduced him by saying, “And here’s my doctor!” He didn’t hate the profession, but you’ve never met anyone more eager to retire.

Similarly, there are countless stories of people who take jobs because their spouses want them to travel less. Then what invariably happens is that the compromising partner loses out on a promotion because of curtailed mobility. Sometimes, blame gets flung everywhere. Other times, it just sits there and simmers.

The hard reality is that there is no foolproof way out of the ownership bind. Especially as you get older, life and relationships can be complicated. Very few people have the total freedom and independence to take a job just for themselves. There are tuitions to pay, spouses with their own careers, and yes, inner voices saying what you should do with your life, even when you’re long past being a college senior.
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That is why the only real defense against job ownership back-firing is to be explicit with yourself about the person (or people) for whom you are taking your job.

Over the course of your career, your Detroit will surely call you at one point or another. If you can go, that’s great. If you can’t, make peace with the reasons why.

WORK CONTENT

This signal comes last in our chart, but it could just as easily come first.

Every job has bad days or rough periods, and yes, there will be times when you work mainly to make ends meet. But in the very best job scenario, you love the work—at least
something
about it. It just excites you. The customers, the travel, the camaraderie at the Tuesday morning sales meeting, whatever—something about the job makes you want to come back day after day. Sometimes it is the sheer challenge of the job that turns your crank.

Take the case of Joel Klein, the chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. (I’ve gotten to know Joel through my work with the school system’s Leadership Academy for new principals.) It is no exaggeration to say that Joel could have any number of prestigious, high-paying jobs as a corporate general counsel or CEO. As the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division in the 1990s, he took on Microsoft in a highly publicized battle, and later was chairman and CEO of the U.S. division of Bertelsmann, the global media company.
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There is no glamour and very limited glory in the school reform job Joel accepted in 2002. It goes without saying he took a massive pay cut to become chancellor, but in taking the job, Joel also agreed to deconstruct an insanely bureaucratic system with about a million students in more than 1,300 schools and a $15 billion budget. He immediately encountered entrenched interests, including fierce union leaders who were hell-bent on keeping the status quo, but in the face of that, he remained steadfast. Virtually every day, Joel appears in one of the New York papers, and because everyone has an opinion on education, he is often the subject of editorials, both laudatory and critical.

Joel could not love his work more.

“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘What am I doing here? I could be eating a very nice, civilized lunch in a corporate dining room right now, and instead I’m in a high-crime school trying to get staff to work together to enforce our discipline code,’” Joel once told me. “But I grew up in public housing in Queens, and I’m a product of inner city New York public schools. I owe a lot to the principals and teachers who invested their lives in the system and changed my life and the vision of my opportunities. I’m lucky enough to be in a position to give something back. I don’t want to sound pompous, but this work feels more important than anything I’ve ever done.”

On a much smaller scale, I know what he means about a job feeling meaningful. My work always felt really significant, even when (in retrospect) it was hardly that. I’ll never forget when I was a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois and I was asked to present my PhD thesis on dropwise condensation to an international conference on heat transfer that was being held in Boulder, Colorado. You would have thought I was in the running for the Nobel Prize. I was a nervous wreck before my lecture and practiced for weeks. When the big day arrived, I spoke—and received the polite applause I deserved. That didn’t stop me from rushing to the phone to call my mother in a state of complete exhilaration.

To tell you the truth, I still remember the excitement of that day!

Luckily, finding a job that touches your core is not hard. Such jobs are everywhere—every piece of work has the potential, since it only has to feel important
to you.
Shortly after I retired from GE, we were in Montreal, eating dinner at a small French restaurant, where we fell into conversation with a fellow tourist. Within a few minutes, we learned that this fellow was “the first mercury-free dentist in Quechee, Vermont.” You could feel the pride bursting out of his chest. I didn’t want to suddenly start a second career as a dentist, but his enthusiasm sure was infectious.

As I said before, every job has its ups and downs. But if a job doesn’t excite you on some level—just because of the
stuff
of it—don’t settle. And don’t worry either about knowing when you find a job with meaning.

You’ll feel it.

THOSE SPECIAL CASES

The job fit signals can be applied across pretty much all job situations, but a couple of special cases call for more specific discussion.

The first is finding your first real job.
For a few lucky people, this process is relatively straightforward. They’ve got great grades from a quality school and some impressive work experience along the way. These new graduates, out of college or recent MBAs, usually have plenty of options, and I hope the signals in this chapter will be helpful in choosing wisely.
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Many people, however, do not get their pick of first job assignments. Their school record is only OK, their job experience not particularly special. That puts them in a position where they have to sell themselves to an audience that ranges from skeptical to downright negative.

If you’re in that category, my strong advice is just be real and come clean.

There is nothing less appealing than an applicant with a so-so record overselling himself with a lot of bravado or overeagerness. It’s just so phony, and experienced managers can smell the fakery a mile away.

The best thing you can do is tell your true story. “OK, I know my grades aren’t that great,” you might say. “I spent a lot of time playing intramural sports and, to be honest, a lot of time with my friends. I definitely could have studied more, but I had other priorities, which probably weren’t the best ones. The reason you should still hire me is because I never give up on a challenge, I work hard, I believe in your product, and I admire your company, and I know I can contribute here.”

While you’re telling your true story, act like your true self. If you are generally outspoken and funny, don’t act stiff and serious during your interviews. If you are a nerd, don’t try to act slick. The company should know what it’s getting, and you should show them, so you see how they react. I know of an MBA who tripped over a doorjamb on her way into an interview with three executives at a prestigious consulting firm. After scrambling back to her feet, she shook hands with her interviewers, saying, “And I’m Grace, the ballet teacher.”

None of them cracked a smile, nor did they try to put her at ease after what was obviously an embarrassing moment. She ended up being offered the job; she declined.

“They saw the real me, and I saw the real them,” she recalls.

My main point is, when going after your first job, live in your own skin and be comfortable there. Authenticity may be the best selling point you’ve got.

The second special job situation is when you are stuck in a position and see no way out.
There are a slew of ways to get stuck in a job. There is nowhere to move up, since your boss isn’t going anywhere, and he has no interest in pushing you for a job in another division. You’ve been passed over for a promotion, and you’ve been told you are fine where you are, but you’re not moving on anytime soon. Your company promotes people only after a certain period of time—which is a long way off. You love your job but the money is bad, or the money is great but your job is lousy.

This list alone could make you want to scream.