Best Advice: What got you here won't get you there

One of my favorite pieces of advice that I've received is "what got you here, won't get you there." This means that the skills and experiences that made you great and helped you to get your current job, role, position, or recent promotion, will not be the skills that differentiate you for the future.

This advice was a central element of one of my favorite training classes that I've ever taken, Cornerstone (hi Wayne!), which focused on the divergence from being a leader of people to being a leader of leaders -- and how you have to think differently and have different expectations, measurements, and ways of engaging than you did previously. Interestingly, most of the people taking the class felt that they were "known for" being detail-oriented, fact based, and subject matter experts - and the class challenged us that the expectation for the next level was in fact not about being the SME - but trusting your team of SME's to deliver for you.

However, this advice is consistent no matter the level.

As I have taken on my new role leading our DS&IX practice, one of the things that I've tried to more consistently communicate is what the expectations are at each level in the organization across five dimensions - and what changes level by level.

As we enter the end of year process, it's often a good time for self-reflection on accomplishments for the year, what went well, and what our goals are for next year. One of the things that I really encourage my team to do is not set their goals based on where they are linearly -- essentially, don't set your goals to just meet whatever level you are in the organization. Instead, do a self-assessment of where you stand across the dimensions - maybe you are one or two levels higher in one area or one level behind in another, and set your goals dynamically recognizing that no matter where you are in your career, what got you here won't get you there.

Some examples of this that jump into my mind based on recent career conversations I have had:

• New college hires - you arrive into the working world from a school world where everything is about the next immediate attainment, goal, or decision. Take your SAT, apply to college, decide where to go to college, figure out what your major is, figure out jobs, apply to jobs, etc. You are now in a ~50 (+?) year career. That's not to say that there won't be interim decisions throughout your career, but the timelines are just a bit different at work than they are coming out of school. So, #1 - you do not need to decide "what you want to focus on" in your first month, six month, or year (or years!!) of your career. In fact, in general, I think a career is about building a "dream job" of things that you love doing, and very rarely does a "dream job" fall into your lap already perfectly created. #2, as a recent college graduate, you should focus on building core skills in your job, recognizing that you may have a lot of the building blocks, but there are likely a lot of gaps from what you were doing in school to what you are doing at work.
• New managers - you go from being an individual contributor where what matters the most are your work products to being measured by the success of your team. Too often, when the team is over burdened, the new manager will take on more work because it's easier, faster, they trust themselves to get it done, they can control the work getting done, etc. However, ultimately, the success of a manager is the success of a team. I think that the key piece here is "dumping" on your team appropriately, and spreading the wealth of work; otherwise the manager gets burnt out, and feels very unappreciated by the team. In the consulting world, I think one of the marks of a good manager is someone who manages themselves out of the role because they have pushed their team to take on so much that the team is ready to step into their position.
• Sr. Managers / Associate Partners - moving from an entirely delivery-oriented role to a hybrid role where you are responsible for client relationships, new work, as well as managing a portfolio of delivery projects is a hard transition in a lot of ways. In my view, one of the most important pieces of this is around focusing on listening / asking questions vs. trying to be the most polished presenter or perfectly articulate how smart you are / how much experience you have. Likewise, in shifting into this role, the minutiae of "how hard" delivering is doesn't really matter but rather understanding pain points and responding constructively of how to address them is what differentiates people in this type of role.

As I work on my own goals for 2019, I fully recognize that what got me here won't get me there - and that my role is about setting a vision for my portion of the business that others can grasp enough to take it into the marketplace. My role is also about developing an awesome, incredible talent pool who can delight our clients and become trusted advisors as our clients tackle their biggest business challenges. These concepts are similar to what I was trying to achieve individually, I had my own clients and my own team, albeit smaller. However, what got me here, won't get me there.