Your Next Life — Avoiding Some Common Traps
Oct 20 2008
Few people fail in new positions because of insufficient technical skills — the vast majority of job failures are attributable to issues of style, personality, communication, and cultural compatibility. The people most at risk of failure might be those who were long tenured on a previous position or working in small organizations where there are fewer hands available to reorient or reinforce an under-performer.
Consider these reasons for job failure:
• Not learning the technology in a technology company. Know the details of what your company manufacturers and sells and where these products are in their life cycles. Be alert for situations that require sales engineers or technical people to bring customers the right level of detail.
• Failing to adapt to your boss’ preferred methods of communication. Some bosses hate to hear from the office during their commutes. Others resent repeated requests for one-minute get-togethers that instead last 40 minutes. Also, a senior-subordinate relationship that relies too heavily on non-verbal communication might deprive a worker of important feedback. Consider periodically asking your boss what one thing he or she would change about how you’re communicating.
• Not recognizing situations outside your frame of reference. Be watchful for the hidden agendas of coworkers, overly optimistic assumptions, and rituals and relationships that aren’t reflected in the organizational diagram and might not be obvious to an outsider. Displaying a natural curiosity, seeking a range of opinion, avoiding lightening-fast decisions, striving for consistency and evenhandedness, and not being afraid to ask for help are effective techniques to build knowledge, understand customers and competitors, increase your credibility, and lay a foundation for long-term success.
• Failing to add value in a bottom-line driven organization. Successful companies hire two kinds of people: those who can make money and those who can save money. Your contribution will be weighed in terms of revenue produced. At most, you have one to two years to demonstrate your value to the organization.
• Failing to listen intensely. Misunderstandings about goals, priorities, customer needs, and even working hours undermine the effectiveness of many new employees. Displaying a genuine ability to suspend judgment and not discard information that differs from your own previously formed opinions often translates into increased credibility and influence.
Consider advice from Michael Watkins in The First 90 Days (Harvard Business School Press, 2003): Transition failures happen when new people “either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them.” Transitions to any new position are critical times because small differences on your actions can have disproportionate impact on results.
About the author: Jim Carman is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and a retired Navy captain. He writes, lectures, and coaches job candidates on interview skills and career transition topics.
