In November 2016 the company I worked for was acquired, injected with cash, and told to 'go faster'. Over the next six months I led a recruitment drive that saw the engineering team (more than) triple. This is a 5-part blog series on that massive recruitment process; starting with the background story that led us to need to scale at such a pace.
For the past 10+ years I've seen a wide range of projects, products, teams, and companies and every one of them worked differently. The key to success of any product, or company, depends on how the product and engineering teams work together but this relationship is often ignored.
Read MoreI’ve tried - oh how I’ve tried – to fit in to the general expectation of society for the concept of working. I’ve tried to enjoy my job, I’ve tried to believe that we’re all supposed to turn up and do the same repetitive tasks every day, and I’ve tried to accept that this is simply just how life works. I’ve tried and I’ve failed.
Read MoreMy February started in a sad way with the passing of my grandfather. Throughout my life he has always been there not only as my grandfather but also acting as a father figure, a role model, and a great mate. I loved him dearly and I will miss him greatly but I am not one to dwell on negativity, even in times like these. Instead I like to focus on the positives, to laugh at the good times spent with granddad and to remember the lessons he taught me...
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You don’t know everything. It’s as simple as that and more importantly everyone else around you knows that you don’t know everything. This very thought should be liberating. It allows you to be wrong sometimes, it allows you to make mistakes, and it allows you be honest and upfront when you don’t know something. At least that is how a strong leader sees it. But not a weak leader. A weak leader tries to paint themselves as an expert in everything without realising that they are just setting themselves up for significant and embarrassing failure. By not accepting that they do not know everything (or even just accepting that no-one else believes them when they pretend to know everything) they are forced into an uncomfortable position of always having to give an answer. Even if they have no idea what they are talking about.
The better solution is to accept that everyone has holes in their knowledge and just be honest about it. Saying “I don’t know” is a much stronger option but alas, not many people like to admit they don’t know something. The feel insecure about admitting to a lack of knowledge, even though doing so actually gives off a strong impression of confidence and self awareness.
But admitting to a lack of knowledge is only half the problem. Not only do people pretend to have knowledge in areas they know nothing about but they also tend to drastically overestimate the accuracy of their knowledge.
You could say that these people have no idea that they have no idea. Put in a nicer way – these people don’t know what they don’t know.
This has been proven in many psychological studies but a prime example is the work conducted by Alpert and Raiffa. They tested a set of Harvard MBA students by asking them to make range-based predictions of an unknown variable and to ensure they achieved 98% accuracy. The test was not to measure their actual knowledge but their individual evaluation of their own knowledge.
If we assume that everyone can accurately estimate their own knowledge then the expectation is that we would only find 2 errors per 100 people surveyed. The results, however, were vastly different.
These “experts” over-estimated their own knowledge by so much that the actual error rate was a mammoth 45%! That is to say that nearly half of the test population failed to accurately understand the difference between what they actually knew and what they thought they knew.
This problem isn’t limited to just highly-educated professionals. Similar studies have been repeated with all sorts of cross-sections of society (different race, religion, socioeconomic status etc) and the results are all undeniable. The average error rate is in the 15-30% range (not the expected 2%) and this occurs for all groups tested regardless of the makeup of the individuals within the group.
This has important consequences for those diligently (or desperately?) trying to look like an expert so they can climb the corporate ladder. Put simply: don’t bother.
Don’t pretend to be an expert if you aren’t one, don’t try to seem like you know everything, and don’t try to bluster your way through work (or life) with bullshit and lies. It just doesn’t make sense.
Instead, have enough courage to admit what you don’t know. Be honest and accept the holes in your knowledge. There are many benefits to doing so.
Firstly, by being honest to yourself about your level of knowledge you allow yourself to be continually learning and growing. If you admit that you do not know everything then you can actually ask questions of the real experts and start learning more. That’s right; you can actually get smarter when you don’t care about looking smart.
Another benefit to be gained from not being a know-it-all is that people won’t treat you like one. This is a good thing as it means people will actually listen to what you say. When you always have an answer (even if you’re just making one up on the spot) people will give your ideas and comments less credence. But when you are honourable enough to say “I don’t know” it changes the way you are seen. People give you more respect and are more willing to listen when you speak up later on.
Finally, the biggest and most important part of being a good leader is that your job is to manage and motivate other people to grow. A good leader is someone who knows that their main responsibility is to get the best out of the real experts. A good leader is uninterested in showing off or appearing smarter than they actually are – they only care about delivering the best possible outcomes and they do this by leveraging the knowledge of the experts around them.
A good leader is not an expert in everything. A good leader is an expert at knowing what they don't know and an expert at motivating others. Are you a good a leader?
The message for today is simple: Never be a suck-up. Ever.
I am sure we have all known a suck-up or two (like the guy in the cheesy picture above). These are the people that run around trying to make themselves look and feel good by getting approval from their peers, and particularly from their mangers. They might even try to call it "networking" or "making connections" but most of the time these actions are just sucking up in disguise. They are especially prevalent in the workplace where individuals mistakenly think that being a suck up (brown-noser, ass-kisser, whatever you want to call it) will propel them further and faster up the chain.
Sadly for the suckups this kind of thinking is completely wrong. Sucking up does not get you anywhere good, and it actually has a very negative impact on your career and on your life in general. In fact, the more you suckup the more detrimental it is to your life. Here are five good reasons why sucking up is stupid.
..because you are!
No matter how good you are at sucking up, everyone else around you will notice it. And when people notice sucking up they immediately label that person as insincere and fake. Even those you are sucking up to will think this.
Sucking up sends a very clear message about yourself:
My own ideas, thoughts, and actions are worthless and I will blindly say and do whatever I need to to get approval from others.
People will get this message loud and clear and they will see all of your actions as insincere, even if you do manage to 'grow a pair' and actually decide to have your own opinion.
Consider the situation from the perspective of a manager working with a suck up subordinate. If that person is constantly acting as a "yes man" and always trying to be on the manager's side would that manager feel like they are able to trust them? Would the manager be comfortable leaving them to handle an emergency? Would that manager have confidence that the suck up would be a strong leader without the manager around?
No-sucking-way! (sorry, that was bad)
Nobody trusts a suck-up because they spend too much of their time and energy trying to impress others, rather than just getting stuck into the work and being productive.
Sadly there are some managers who enjoy having people suck up to them and sometimes they even encourage it. But have a think about the kind of manager that would do this.
A manager who is swayed by sucking up is not a good manager. They obviously lack confidence in their ability to lead, and thus receive a small burst of positive reinforcement whenever a suck up comes along. So what do they do? They encourage the sucking up! After all we all like to feel good about ourselves don't we?
The suckup might see this as a wonderful opportunity but it is actually very limiting. A poor manager that feels like they need ass-kissers will also feel like they need to sabotage their career progression in order to always keep them one step below. They will use the suck-up to make themselves look (and feel) good but never allow them to grow to their potential.
A manager without confidence will forever be a negative and reactive manager. They will feel like they are fighting against everyone else to make themselves look good, and when it comes to the crunch time, the suck-up will not be well looked after.
The irony of all this is that a manager that encourages sucking up, or is not skilled enough to even spot it, is not a good manager to work with in the first place. Instead of wasting your time with these people, move on and find a good manager that will help you grow.
A good manager values integrity and honesty above all other traits. They respect the opinions of those around them and are open to, and willing to listen to, new ideas and even feedback on their own performance. This is the difference between being a manager and being a leader.
A good leader knows that their role is about guiding and supporting the team below them. A good leader knows that the people below them are the experts and the leader is there to ensure they get the best possible environment to thrive and develop their skills. And it is this thinking that means a good leader does not like sucking up.
These good leaders want a team of smart individuals that work cohesively as a team. A suckup breaks this team dynamic by attempting to make everything all about themselves - something a good leader will not stand for.
The result is that the suck-up does not last in a team with a good leaders. They will move on to another position where they hope that their brown-nosing skills will be more respected. As I've already described, the only manager that will respect such behavior is a bad manager and the suck-up ends up doing more harm than good to their career. Especially when they could have stayed and grown so much under the guidance of the good leader.
The final reason for not to be a suckup is that suckups do not make many friends. We spend a lot of our lives at work so it makes sense that we form close connections and friendships with our colleagues. But no-one wants to be friends with a suck-up.
Sure a suck-up might make many "connections" in the sense that they know a lot of people in the business world, but rarely will they develop close friendships. The suck-up is more likely to have 500+ connections on LinkedIn but less than a handful of true friends in real life.
Friendship is a massively important part of our lives. Having great friends brings so much happiness and positivity to our lives. When you have truly close friends they become like a second family that you can share your life with. I know I am blessed with an amazing bunch of friends and funnily enough I met most of them in at work.
Sucking up does not get you anywhere in life. It results in nothing but negative outcomes, both in professional and personal contexts. It is time to stop sucking up and start being honest in your life.
He has the energy of 20 year old and the looks of a 40 year old, but is actually 60. Everywhere he goes people are won over with his down-to-earth charm, no-fuss style, and the sheer exuberance with which he tackles life. Everyone likes him. No, everyone loves him. In his earlier years he surfed and rode motocross bikes for a living before transitioning into a business career where he quickly established himself as a leader – running his own software company and eventually becoming CIO for a local mining company.
His personal life has the same successful theme - happily married for nearly 30 years with two adult children who, from all accounts, are top of their class both mentally and physically.
It’s fair to say that this man has had a very successful life. It's a life that many people dream of, and strive for, and he has a pretty simple motto which has underpinned everything he has ever done:
"Attitude is everything."
This form of thinking says that our attitude is a critical component of our lives – our attitude dictates and controls our lives, influencing how we see and interact with the surrounding world.
When we have a good attitude, our lives are filled with happiness. Good things happen to good people, and great things happen to good people with great attitudes. Similarly, bad attitudes attract bad outcomes. Negative thoughts manifest themselves as negative actions which cause negative results. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By making a conscious decision about our everyday attitude we can define the happiness in our lives. We can define the quality of the life we live just by choosing to have a better attitude. Happiness occurs by choice not by accident.
Friends are an important part of our lives. They listen to us, support us, and encourage us. At least that’s what they should do.
The quality of friends we have in our lives is a direct result of our attitude. That is, we attract certain types of people to be friends with based on our attitude. If we have a positive attitude then we attract positive friends. Likewise, a negative attitude attracts negative friends.
For example, previously in my life when I had a negative outlook and a low self esteem, I found it very hard to connect with people and establish good friendships. Fast forward a few years, and armed with my extremely happy and positive attitude toward life, I now have an amazingly close group of fantastic friends. They are all great people with wonderful attitudes and I love spending time with them.
In friendship, attitude is everything.
Just like finding friends, finding love is heavily influenced by our attitude. A positive attitude will foster relationships built on happiness, fun, passion, and love but a negative attitude will create relationships filled with mistrust, anger, resentment, jealousy, and depression. Or no relationships at all.
Before I met Sophie I had endured some bad relationships. I had been cheated on, manipulated, and taken for granted. Don't get me wrong, these relationships also had some great times but overall I'd say my experiences in the world of love were quite negative. But then I changed my attitude. I decided to love myself instead of hating myself for these relationships and my whole world shifted. I started believing that I deserved a great relationship with a beautiful, intelligent, and funny woman and...well it's pretty obvious how that turned out. ;)
In love, attitude is everything.
If ever there was a place in our lives that needs an attitude boost it is at our work. Most people I've met do not enjoy their job. They are not following their passion but merely working a boring job just to pay the bills and get by in life. Instead of turning up to work with a smile and a positive attitude, these people turn up armed with a sarcastic tone, angry scowl, and a negative attitude.
The result is that work becomes a festering hole of negativity. Just thinking of the building itself conjures up strong feelings of hate and despair, and don't even start on the people you have to work with...this is definitely the wrong attitude for work.
Early in my working life I was in one of these jobs and I hated it! The work was boring (and massively under utilising me), the people were mostly incompetent and negative, and I had a daily struggle to hold back my urge to slap people around me. But then I changed my attitude. I accepted that the job was a shitty one but instead of hating it I focused on the skills I had gained, looking toward the future and what sort of work I wanted to do. I set some goals, crafted my CV, and got myself out of there. Now, less than two years later I've doubled my salary, tripled my experience, met some wonderful people, and have a pretty good job that I enjoy (and actually working for the guy from the intro).
In work, attitude is everything.
I could go on but the point has been made. In life, attitude really is everything. It shapes who we are, who we meet, and what we do in our lives. It can hold you back and prevent you from being successful or it can give you wings and open up your life to endless possibilities. The choice is yours.
All business meetings are a waste of time. Got your attention? Good. Now ok I admit that maybe there is the odd rare occasion that a meeting is well executed, achieves a set purpose, and utilises time effectively but sadly that is the exception rather than the rule. All too often meetings drone on and on, seemingly without direction, and serve no real purpose other than to allow a few people the opportunity to hear themselves talk. If you need to be convinced just how much of a waste of time most meeting are all you need to do is just consider those professions that charge clients based on a set time limit of work – doctors, lawyers and so on.
Do you think that the doctors at your local clinic have time for all day meetings? Hell no, they are busy trying to see as many patients as they can. What about lawyers? Do they sit around discussing the finer points of law in great detail every day? Nope, they are busy doing research and advisory work for their clients. These professions actually try to have the fewest number of meetings they can.
The reasons are pretty obvious – they make money based on the time spent doing certain activities that the client considers useful. This includes things like performing a health check-up or advising on your will and definitely does not include sitting around talking all day.
These professions are not measured on how long they sit at work but on how much useful work they can achieve in a single day. They need to ensure they are maximising their productivity in order to achieve more (and thus earn more). As a result these professions have become very clever at weeding out the useless rubbish from their workday and wasteful meetings are public enemy number one.
I like to be positive so it’s only fair I digress here to talk about how to actually have a productive meeting – an endangered and rare species that is very hard to find in its natural cube farm habitat.
Contrary to my earlier broad statement, meetings actually can be very productive if we follow a few simple rules:
It’s not hard – it’s just common sense. I bet most office-based workers reading that list would not have been too shocked by it, so it begs the questions: why do people insist on breaking these rules and having wasteful meetings?
Beware the informal chat or the quick catch-up as these are just time-wasting meetings in disguise. If you hear these words I recommend you look at your watch, screw up your face and make a series of non-committal “umms “and “ahhhs” until they leave you alone. Failing that, run.
These meetings are the ones that just drag on forever because they break all the rules listed above. They are just an excuse for people to get together in a room and be boring. These meetings have a tendency to drag on well past what represents a valid definition of “quick” and are often nothing more than an ad-hoc forum for attention hogs to get in the spotlight.
Next time you are stuck in a meeting that seems like it has been going for eternity cast your eye around and make a mental note on who is doing all the talking. Chances are it is the same two or three people always espousing their opinions. These are attention hogs and they love a captive audience.
Humans tend to trust and believe those who talk the most at meetings. The willingness to talk first and loudest sends a not-so-subtle message of confidence and bravado which is interpreted as competency. This was proven a few years ago in a study by Cameron Anderson and Gavin J.Kilduff (and thanks to the guys at Freakonomics who pointed this out to me), which examined how people evaluate each other in meetings. The outcome (as reported by Time) was very interesting:
Repeatedly, the ones who emerged as leaders and were rated the highest in competence were not the ones who offered the greatest number of correct answers. Nor were they the ones whose SAT scores suggested they’d even be able to. What they did do was offer the most answers — period.
“Dominant individuals behaved in ways that made them appear competent, above and beyond their actual competence.” Troublingly, group members seemed only too willing to follow these underqualified bosses. An overwhelming 94% of the time, the teams used the first answer anyone shouted out — often giving only perfunctory consideration to others that were offered.
So all people need to do to appear competent in meetings is talk lots. Are all those long boring meetings starting to make sense now? Are you suddenly identifying who is an attention hog at your work?
Next time you have a meeting try enforcing some rules to make it more productive and see if you can limit the time those attention hogs get. Otherwise your life will be spent walking from one meeting to the next and never actually working. It's hard to be passionate at your job if you never get to achieve anything.