PODCAST EP.35: The Permission to Seek the Career You Deserve

Episode Summary: In this insightful episode, Tim responds to the most compelling questions submitted by listeners over the past year. A major theme explores permitting yourself to make big changes. Tim dives deep into topics such as recognizing and navigating career slumps, the evolving nature of skill sets in rapidly changing industries, and how to pursue passion in your career. For those balancing leadership roles with creative ambitions, Tim offers guidance on re-engaging with your passions without sacrificing your career progress.

Episode Notes
In this insightful episode, Tim responds to the most compelling questions submitted by listeners over the past year. A major theme explores permitting yourself to make big changes. Tim dives deep into topics such as recognizing and navigating career slumps, the evolving nature of skill sets in rapidly changing industries, and how to pursue passion in your career. For those balancing leadership roles with creative ambitions, Tim offers guidance on re-engaging with your passions without sacrificing your career progress.
Tim shares practical advice on determining whether it's time for a career shift or if you're just in a temporary slump. He also tackles the challenges of feeling obsolete in an automated world and provides strategies for reassessing your career path. Lastly, he discusses the complex interplay between career progression and family life, providing ideas for maintaining balance and fulfillment in both areas.

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Transcript
Tim 00:34
Do you rely on others to set a vision and then give them what they need so that they can achieve something they never would be able to do on their own? Whether or not you formally lead a team. If this sounds like you, then you, my friend, are the definition of a leader. And this show is all about bringing you new insights from real people that you've never been exposed to. So, you can grow and increase your impact on the world and feel more fulfilled while you're doing it. I'm Tim Sweet and I want to welcome you to the Sweet on Leadership podcast. This is episode 35. 

Tim 01:10
Hey, thanks for joining me, this week, it's going to be just you and me, we're going to be flying solo, somebody had come to me and said that they really liked the direction that the podcast is heading. And one of the things that they noticed is that everybody that's been on, it seems to have this really clear sense of who they are and what they do. And they have been able to take a big bold step, and change their life up. And they encouraged me to do an episode where we talk about giving yourself permission to make big change. What is it we need to do in order to shake ourselves up and to seek something better? So, what I've done is I've gone through some of the best questions that I've received over the last year, and there are dozens of them, and I narrowed it down to 10. And I'm hoping to get through five, maybe more today, if we can. Give you a bit of the response that I would have provided the person writing, and then build on those. So, if you're one of the people that have contributed these questions you're going to know, and thank you very much for listening. Thank you to all of you. Without listeners, this podcast doesn't have much of a purpose, does it? So, I'm really happy to find out that you're getting value from it, that you're enjoying the eclectic mix of leadership experts, and insightful visionaries that we've got joining us every week, and I can't wait to bring you the next 30 episodes. So, let me start off by saying, my goal in life has always been to not have people struggle. Nothing bothers me more than when I come into a relationship with a person and I understand that they've got something in their life that just really is, not just hard, but it's routinely hard. It's this pattern of struggle that they've got. When I work with teams, I look for the same thing. Where do we have patterns of unnecessary struggle? Work should be challenging, work should be hard, we should be applying ourselves and we should be enjoying taking our skills to difficult problems and projects and making them better. But working with people shouldn't be hard. And being a fit for a job shouldn't be hard. We spend so many hours of our lives in a profession that we deserve, to really feel like that profession is bowing us up. So, whether you're a leader, and you're used to talking to me or listening to the podcast with ears of a person that's leading a team, or you're somebody who's involved in a profession, or a pursuit, where they're really a subject matter expert, or they want to leave a legacy, I'd encourage you to listen to these questions. Each one of them I think builds on an aspect of that finding permission to seek out more, it doesn't always mean leaving a job either. Sometimes it can be reengineering the job that you've got, and looking very specifically for those elements of the job that you are struggling with. It's such a huge part of my profession now to work with executives who are climbing ladders of success or are getting more and more passionate about the areas that they operate in, whether that's leading people, or organizations, or ideas. So, let's dive right into it. And I'm going to just take the first five of these questions, and we'll see how we get on. Heck, it’s my podcasts, so if we don't get through all of them, and you like this, make sure that you give us a follow, tell your friends and drop me a line, find me on LinkedIn and say, hey, you know, do more of that. 

Tim 04:50
So, this person was writing, and they came to us from Ireland. And the question reads like this, feeling stuck in my current marketing role, what are some of the signs that I should be looking for telling me it's time for a change? I've been in this position for several years, and I'm torn, I'm not sure if I'm just experiencing a slump, that's gonna pass. Or if it's really time to move on. I also feel guilty, because I'm leaving colleagues that I've built relationships with and a product that I'm really proud to develop and bring to market. So, you know, when I encounter people like this, that are at this tipping point, and they need to decide if this is something that's going to pass, or if they're just in some sort of a temporary negative phase, or if it really is something deeper? Well, first of all, we'll try to identify the source of discomfort. I remember back in 2012, helping a particular executive through this and drawing a cartoon on a whiteboard to do it. And it's funny, I tell the story quite a bit when I open this whiteboard, and I seem to open it every week. I took a snapshot of it, later on, I coloured it using an app on my phone, and I can't seem to get away from this particular cartoon. Anyway, in the cartoon, we'll see this person that's sitting there in the doldrums. So, the first question that I ask is, is getting the work done frustrating? Or is the work no longer a fit? Is it no longer a good match for you? When we're looking at what could be the sources of frustration, they tend to be things that provide operational ambiguity, right? If you want to think of it that way? Do you have goals? Are they clear? Do you understand what's next? Is the team that you have, the right team? Is it large enough? Does it have enough capacity? And does that team possess the right skills? Do you have the right skills for the work that you're being asked to do? And when all of those are true, can you be appreciated for the work you're doing? Just this morning, I talked to somebody who was telling me that one of the concerns that they have constantly is that they will put in a great deal of effort. And I don't know if it's being appreciated, or if people are seeing it as progress. This is a particular issue that came up during COVID, as we had teams rallying together, and trying to just make it through. And that all-hands-on-deck mentality, we had people that were really going above and beyond. But when the danger passed, and we were all going through it, it was like organizations were almost too fatigued to acknowledge just how much work had been done. Because there was always another crisis right around the corner. As we've come through COVID, we are much more sensitive about how we spend our time and our money, and where our lives are headed. So, it's increasingly important that we feel that our contributions are valuable. And for no small percentage of the population, they have to be able to see their progress or be acknowledged for what they're providing. Okay, all of those things can create frustration. When we look at fit, we have a few other things to deal with. You know, one is, are we really happy with the style, the interactive style of the people that we work with? Do we enjoy their language? Do we enjoy their energy? Do we enjoy how they communicate? Do we enjoy how they raise problems? Is it something that fits with us that we can respond to? Or does it raise our hackles? Or does it bore us senseless? So, do we fit with the style of communication that's going on in the team that we're with? And if it's not the interactive style of people, it could be the task type that we don't fit with. Is it overly routine? Is it troubleshooting? Is it scheduling? Is it pure head-down, execution? Is it strategic? Some people love strategic work, and some people loathe it. Some people love tactical work, and some people loathe it. And many people love crossing tasks off a list. And some people loathe it. Is the task type of the work that you're doing currently something that you fit with? And then perhaps one of the largest ones, which likely warrants its own category, but it doesn't seem to be a problem with our friend from Dublin here. Do you have a connection with the values on the team? And if there's disconnect, is it small or large? Unless it's a big values disconnect, we can pretty much overcome any of these through good planning. And so to my friend here in Dublin, the advice was and remains that they should get very clear on exactly where do they feel this slump. Because likely, it's not a general malaise, it's a feeling of an expenditure of energy in the form of bad fit or frustration, which is causing them to not feel one with the team, one with the work, or like they're progressing. Once we can get that out in the open, then we can take very, very defined steps to go and get it. So, if you find yourself in a position where you're in a slump, get granular, ask yourself those questions. Is it fit, or is it frustration? And then take a look at if you see some answers, because usually those will give you a roadmap that you can approach with your team, or your leader, and talk about how we can shift some of the work. 

Tim 10:48
Alright, the second question that came to me this read, you highlight a lot of people who have found their passion, similar to the person I talked to last week, but I don't feel like my skill set is relevant anymore. I work in market research, and the industry is automating quickly. And I'm assuming they mean the AI or something. And I'm worried about being able to compete using my current skill set, as a Gen X. Hey, welcome to The Club. It's frustrating for me to feel like my experience might not be enough this late in life, what steps can I take, as I'm starting to feel obsolete? Okay, this is a very, very common problem, especially as we're seeing people arrive late in their careers, there's a couple of options. I mean, one option is that you can try to find a place that's not using technology, that's a possibility. But let's just take that one off the table, because frankly, that means that you're having to settle. And I'd never think that it's a great idea to go and find a substandard industry to just hope you can sort of survive in it. But you do have a lot to consider. It's important to break down your experiences, not simply looking at the industry, how they've been applied. But what are you actually gifted at? Market research, as an example, has several transferable skills that can be brought into other forms of analysis, other forms of investigation, and all sorts of things. And this is going to be different for many different market researchers, these skills will not be consistent across the entire group, because each one of them will have gravitated to slightly different mixes of skills. And so in this case, it's really taking a look at you're not starting from zero here, you have skills, and passions, and interests, and habits, and a style all your own, that can be very, very conducive to success elsewhere. And it's just about finding where that elsewhere might be. The other thing to think about in this particular case is that you know, often people discount their skills or their worth because they begin to use the metrics that they're given at work. They're seeing themselves first through their role, or through an annual assessment that the company creates. We have to remember just how myopic that is, that is not a real-life expression of just how much is there. But if you tend to be in the same company for quite a while, that same industry for quite a while, you start to feel pigeon-holed. Really important to get out and take a look at what you really like doing and where else can that be applied. And you'd be surprised how successful people can be. I remember that in 2015, right in through COVID for some people, we had layoffs in the geotechnical space. Geologists are amazing at understanding the unknown, and really taking calculated guesses of where we're going to find value. And it doesn't have to be downhole looking for gold or oil or anything like this. They can be doing interesting searches for possibilities in all sorts of areas. Market research would be among them. But of course, we don't want to saturate that market any longer. Engineers said the same thing, engineers who realize just how artistic they are can jump all over the place. So, don't get too crammed into the idea that you're only one thing that you are your industry, if I can say it that way. 

Tim 14:31
Hi from South Africa. I recently graduated from Limpopo Turfoop Graduate School, and I'm exploring different career paths. It's exciting but also overwhelming. There seems to be so many possibilities. I want to make sure I choose a path that aligns with me and my interests. You seem to talk to people who are so happy. How can I make the best decision? Martha. Okay, Martha, you know if you are coming out of school, maybe for the first time, maybe you're a returning student and upgrading or something. The typical advice is that you need to research all of your possible career options and make a plan. But, you know, we have to be careful what criteria we put against these. And that's one of the most important things when we're giving ourselves permission to look elsewhere, is make sure that we have become very, very precise in the criteria that we're looking at. You can't necessarily just look at what's the most prestigious first step or what has the biggest paycheck? Or which company wooes you to join them with all sorts of promises? And you need to be very, very precise. Well, how do you do that if you're not part of a company? The answer is kind of, we have to flip it, you don't want to look necessarily at the company first, you want to look at being fluid, becoming fluent in what aspects of your work fit, your workstyle, the type of work that you are performing in any given day, what brings you the most amount of joy. And then we look where others with a similar mix to you are also experiencing joy, we try to find our people somewhere, they don't have to be precisely like you, but they have to be in compatible spaces. If we always focus on that, if we focus on first looking at finding the best, the best choice among options that we've predetermined, already have a very high probability of fitting us, then we are going to be much more successful when it comes to choosing something that we can try out and really experience enjoying work in a certain industry. Enjoying a certain industry will never compensate for not enjoying the actual work you're doing in that industry. I help a lot of people 10 years down the road, that find out they really dislike the industry they originally chose. And they could have been choosing it for really wrong reasons. Just check out the last episode we put out with Julie Freedman Smith. I mean, we talked about exactly this right, getting stuck in the wrong place. One important note here is it's not about personality fit, you don't want to just look for people that have the same personality as you. Personalities are somewhat fluid as we grow and as we mature. Know, these things that we're going to try to understand and measure are much longer lasting, you can look for hints in what you find the most amount of fulfillment in or the type of work and contributions you find the most amount of energy and joy in. Things that you've experienced up to this point in your life and I promise you that if you focus on those things that make you feel the most productive, you will make a good decision. Alright, let's move right along. 

Tim 17:51
So, we're on to our fourth question here. Let's see. So, let's do this one, feeling stuck in my career. It's not what I signed up for. I used to love the creative process. But over the years, I have been put in the lead of bigger and bigger teams. And I know leadership is your thing, Tim, but I'm much more interested in getting back to actually creating stuff. I'm jealous of my staff's freedom. And well, I like working with strategy. I just don't feel like I'm contributing. What strategies would you recommend for reassessing my career, possibly making significant change? I'm passionate about design. I wanted my legacy to be about design and not managing, my idols used to be Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry, how can I evaluate, I got to figure out who those people are? I know Frank Lloyd Wright is but Frank Gehry, I'm gonna research. How can I evaluate my options, and move to something that reignites my passion and puts me ahead again? Okay, so ahead, we'll assume, I'll assume you mean your legacy. Okay. Yeah. And that's what, how I would answer this question. Well, when I think about a person that's in your position, and I mean, the previous answers will still fit. I mean, let's take a look at, you know, what's frustrating, etc. But this is more of a career path discussion. You're already somewhere and you found yourself in a leadership position. And you miss being on the tools, so to speak, not uncommon, not uncommon at all. Primarily, and let me talk about why for a minute, primarily, because in a lot of organizations, the only way up is taking on management positions. Unless the organization is very large, and can handle more than one expert. There's less room to move up as a technical specialist, or a subject matter expert, or really a visionary in a certain idea space, that's much less common. But for all of you who run big corporations out there, it's absolutely essential that you have that pathway for people, otherwise you're going to really miss out on a lot of talent. The interesting thing here is when we think about being again, stuck in a sense of having taken the wrong off-ramp. And now we've got to, we've probably got to get back on to our main road, you're in a leadership position, you have leverage, you have choices you can make, you can decide perhaps, in your own strategy, maybe without even asking anybody that you're going to take a portion of the work, you're going to have a small portfolio of things that you directly contribute to, this is not a bad idea. It's not a bad idea for a couple of reasons. One, is, at least in the short term, while your staff perhaps need to be prepared for you to go somewhere, you could fill your boots with your own project, that is something that you could really, you could really do. So, we want to look at what leverage we have. And in a leadership position, you got a fair amount, and then what choices are you not currently making that you could be making, that could be, take on a portion of the work, there's nothing wrong to going where the work is done, and getting your hands dirty for a little bit. Not to mention, it frees up some leadership opportunities for others. It's not unheard of to have people demote themselves, or become a visionary subject matter expert, being sponsored by their business. The other thing, and this is not something that when I responded to this individual, this is not something that I would take lightly. But if you have this passion, and you really are concerned with legacy, understanding that being part of a. when you look at Frank Lloyd Wright, or you'll look at okay, standby. So, Frank Gehry, I just looked it up, he designed the Guggenheim and a few other things. So, these are, you know, both architects, they had teams that were underneath them, by all means, but they were the visionaries within this this organization. Does your organization have a visionary at the top? Or does it have a finance professional or something like that running it, I don't know your your specific situation. But in this kind of a case, well, why not take a shot for the top seat, or alternatively, why not decide to start your own show, and go out there and take all of the business knowledge that you have, and hire the right people that can do it, and open your own design house. I would say that talent is not a small consideration here. So, selling the farm and banking on the fact that you can be at the level of this, probably you should be making sure that you have a marketable style, and those kinds of things. There is a pathway here. And that's why I think, you know, taking some side projects, or working within the system that you're currently in could be an excellent way to do that. But at a certain point, if you decide that you are the big cheese, and you are the selling feature, embrace that, become that creator with the team in behind them, not somebody managing a team that's producing it in more of a commercial organization. Lots of choices there, always take a good look at just how much leverage you've got and just where you are making choices. Before you do, you've got to be very, very fluent in who you are, and where you want to work. You also want to be really sure that you've got something to sell that people will buy. But that being said, it is a wonderful life, to feel fully in charge of bringing what you're best at into the world. 

Tim 23:40
Number five. Now, this is the type of question when I get makes me really happy. Like I talked about the person that inspired all of this is a similar question. As a mom returning to work, I need tips on balancing career progression with family life. Before I had kids, I was very aggressive and had set big aspirations. But how can I now manage both, effectively? It's tough to juggle my responsibilities at home with my work and still try to excel. I feel guilty for not being able to give my all to either space, what strategies can help me find a better balance and ensure that I can progress in my career without neglecting my family? Okay, there's a lot to break down here. The first is there's always going to be a struggle between vital and moral courage. Vital courage is the ability to do what's most important for you, that you can stand up for yourself, and your values, and your health, and all of these things. And then the next thing is you have to stand up for the moral courage of any structure that you're part of. One of those structures is going to be your family. Another is going to be your work and you might have others. In our family, we have the dance studio, that we’re part of, we have the schools that were involved in, and we have other structures that were part of. I sit on boards and things like this. Okay. So, the first thing I'd like you to realize here is this balance is actually three ways, it's you, and your family, and your job. Your career aspirations are separate from the job. And your family responsibilities are separate from that job, or you. So, imagine trying to balance a set of scales, thinking that there's two baskets to add weight to, when there's actually three. And then you're not dealing with a, you know, straight across two-dimensional scale, you're dealing with a three-dimensional scale. No wonder we have difficulty finding a balance. The second thing is just the notion of balance, although we use it, it's more about an appropriate blend between these things. Because balancing something assumes that they are on two opposing ends, or in this case, three opposing ends of an equation. We need to think much differently than that. There's a lot of work that I do with people to have breakthrough structural sessions around understanding just what these decisions and what these opposing tensions are in their lives, and when they're in conflict and how we can resolve them. But the Coles notes is that it's very difficult to keep them in the opposition. And instead, we have to make a decision and design an approach that really properly prioritizes what we do first and second, and everything else becomes features of the priority. So, getting clear, in this particular, it is a false dichotomy. Because there's other things at play here. But when we think about balancing home versus career, being at peace with what comes first is really important. Because am I going to be fulfilling all of my responsibilities of the home and achieving my career aspirations when I can? Or am I going to achieve my career aspirations, and ensure that I am compensating or filling the responsibilities in some way that I have at home? Sounds like I'm being cute. But if you think about having a blend, where that future, where everything is properly blended, and serves each other, as part of a design, you now have one thing pulling you forward, one massive well-working thing, you're not torn between two things, or three things, right, so we have to get back into what I like to call work-life design, which is, what is the design behind care for ourselves and our family and our work and all of the areas that we choose to, I like to say lead, I really do. Because it doesn't matter if you're managing a team or something, you're taking on responsibility greater than yourself, you're really not passive in this, you are being really active and caring, both for yourself and others and people you've never met, right? So, my advice, in this case, is to stop first with trying to balance stuff, make some hard choices, make them well, and once you make those choices, you're going to find that you're in a much greater state of flow. Flow, structures, tensions, all of these things are very important to understand that it's part of a larger effort that I think is so important for all of you listening. And that is to become very, very fluent in your life, and what you care about and what you're out for, and to focus on those things that matter most. And to begin to cut away a lot of the rest. 

Tim 28:47
So, whether or not you see yourself inside these examples, I’d encourage you to just ponder some of these questions and consider for yourself, do you have the job that you deserve right now? Do you have the work-life blend that you deserve? We get what we deserve in a lot of spaces. Do we have the car that we deserve, do we have the watch we deserve? Do we wear the clothes we deserve? Sure. But then we suddenly become a lot more passive when it comes to our own well-being. It's very easy to neglect oneself in one's path and to just soldier on and it never works out that well. Whereas, when we spend a little bit of time understanding ourselves and making great decisions that take us forward, and following the amazing advice that we've gotten over the last year for many of the guests that have been on the show, whether it is really focusing in on your passion or finding positivity in the workspace or dealing with your mindset or cutting away the noise or focusing on that true north. There's so many lessons that have taken place over the last 35 episodes that I really hope you take some time if you haven't listened to the back catalogue and find what resonates with you because the answers are there. We just need to love ourselves enough that we listen and are able to articulate them. I'm always available if you'd like to ask questions like this, if you have ideas for future podcasts, or you have other questions you'd like me to add to this list that I did not finish and will not finish tonight, feel free to go ahead and reach out to me and find me on LinkedIn. Or you can reach me at teamworkexcellence.com I really appreciate you taking the time to spend with me. And I really commend you for taking a little bit of time for yourself. Keep doing that. Keep on leading, keep leading the best life that you can. Look for another episode in two weeks. Thanks for joining me.

Tim 30:46
Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes. If like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership. Please give us a positive rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders. And you can spread the word to by sharing this with your friends, teams and colleagues. Thanks again for listening. And be sure to tune in in two weeks time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading.