11 Key Ways to be Successful at Work

The nature of work is changing right before our eyes. Even before the pandemic, our expectations of where, how and even if to work were being altered.  Side hustles and gig work were already replacing primary employment for many people.  That trend seems to have accelerated since 2020.  However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 150 million people (non-farm workers) were still employed in the U.S. as of January 2022.  This is the highest employment has been since early 2020.  That’s a lot of people still earning a living on some form or fashion of a payroll.  Success at work (whatever work looks like for you) is still a critical part of your life journey.

My life journey included working for a Fortune 50 company in supply chain management for nearly 27 years.  I most definitely wasn’t planning on remaining with one company for so long.  The idea of such longevity with one company already seemed farfetched in the mid-nineties when I joined the workforce.  But I found success and fulfillment, so the plan changed.  My idea of a successful career is one that allows for increasing responsibility, rewards, and personal fulfillment.  Before retirement, I put together and shared the following key lessons learned.  With the benefit of a little time and space away from work, I’ve since updated and added to them.

1. Invest your precious time and energy wisely
2. Be a craftsperson, not a robot
3. Withhold your feedback…if you don’t care
4. Set clear expectations
5. Don’t be a Homer
6. Seek out diversity of thought
7. Solve gnarly problems
8. No half measures
9. Life (and work) present a series of tradeoffs
10. Learn from mistakes
11. Know your value

Invest your precious time and energy wisely

When I first started my job, I thought the best way to be successful was to get a lot done and work long hours.  I hadn’t even heard the cliché “work smarter, not harder” – and I certainly didn’t practice it.  One night, a manager in the group I worked in stopped by my cube on their way out.  “What’s keeping you here so late?”, they asked.  When I responded that I just had a lot to do, they gave me some advice.  “I’d recommend not working late simply to get your job done.  If you’re going to invest extra time in work, make it an investment to make your work easier.”  Awesome.  Thanks for the advice on your way out the door. However, upon reflection, the advice was spot on.  Investing “over time” to automate or eliminate work makes a ton of sense.  There will always be periods when extra time investment is required to get the job done.  But if it is all the time, you won’t have the time or energy to create real value….which I believe is the real formula to being successful at work. 

Be a craftsperson, not a robot

I’m a habitual list maker and task ticker.  Nothing satisfies more than being able to make visible progress against a list of stuff that needs to get done.  Even now my retirement “home and yard” list grows and shrinks (slowly).  However, sometimes blasting through a bunch of work like a printing press just isn’t the right thing to do.  Sometimes it will makes more sense to really understand a problem or challenge, develop multiple options and deeply consider questions that may come up.  Good companies want problem solvers who can connect dots and develop solutions that make sense in a broader context.  Maybe this is a good idea place to invest some of that extra discretionary time freed up from automating or eliminating “regular” work?  I have never been told “you have way too much knowledge on this topic – stop bringing us so many good ideas!”  If you work somewhere that doesn’t value this sort of contribution, what do they value?

Withhold your feedback…if you don’t care

As a natural introvert, getting and receiving feedback was not easy for me when I first started working.  I didn’t want to talk about what I was not doing well enough, let alone what someone else wasn’t doing well enough.  Not at all.  I came to understand that when someone gave me feedback, it was because they cared enough to help me get better.  Think about it.  If providing meaningful feedback to someone is hard (and it is), why on earth would we ever do it?  Not many people enjoy having difficult conversations for the sheer enjoyment of it (notwithstanding the odd sociopath).  So, as I started to manage people, I assumed providing feedback was just part of what I needed to do…because I did care that people who worked with me were successful. 

One additional lesson learned on this topic: the way in which you provide and receive feedback matters – a lot.  Direct feedback using straightforward language is best way.  Believe it or not, yelling or exaggerating points is not the best way.  Also, “over caring” by providing feedback all the time on all types of topics is not the best either.  None of us are perfect and none of us particularly want to hear all the ways we aren’t perfect.  Focus on the important stuff that will help you or another person.  If you don’t really care, withhold your feedback.  It is the easy thing to do.

Set clear expectations

“When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.”

Oscar Wilde

You’ve likely heard the above quote before. In my experience, nothing creates a poor working relationship between people easier than misaligned or unspoken expectations. Just as it is difficult to provide someone with feedback, it is difficult for us to set and manage expectations. It can feel very uncomfortable to tell another human being what you want to see happen in the relationship you have with them. And to be honest, if expectation setting is a one-way street, the recipient will probably feel resentment. Setting mutual expectations is the way to go. This includes manager-to-employee, employee-to-manager, and employee-to-employee relationships.

I’ve found that framing a conversation around “hopes and fears” can be a safe way to get the ball rolling when a new work relationship is beginning. What do you hope to accomplish? What do you fear might prevent those accomplishments? Clarity is the goal. Clear expectations enable course correction and adjustment along the way. Nobody wants to get to a point where there are nothing but asses in the room.

Don’t be a Homer

I’m a big fan of The Simpsons TV show (the first 8 seasons at any rate).  In one episode, our hero Homer Simpson writes a scathing letter to his boss.  To his credit, he has second thoughts and decides not to mail it.  Unfortunately, his “dutiful” son Bart mails it without his knowledge.  Hijinx (and bad stuff for Homer) ensue.  I’ve read my fair share of scathing work emails.  As a result, I tried to always ask myself “what do I hope to accomplish with this communication?”  If the honest answer was something like “retribution” or “proving I’m right and they’re wrong” or “to highlight someone’s jack-assery”, then I didn’t send the email.  In most of those cases, a verbal discussion person to person was a much better path forward.  Just like with social media posts, emails can be forwarded, printed, and saved…..forever.  Doh!  And flame emails generally just beget more flame emails…without any reasonable resolution.

Seek out diversity of thought

I’ve learned that diversity encompasses many different aspects of people working with people.  One of the most interesting has been diversity of thought.  Obviously no two of us think or approach work in exactly the same way.  But every so often, you encounter someone with very different ideas.  If you can embrace those differences, they will often lead to surprising options (might be better, might not be) that wouldn’t have come to light if everyone working on a something comes from a fairly narrow band of thinking. 

Some teams even specifically seek out a person who can provide minority report views on a consistent basis.  Initially, it can be frustrating to work with someone who regularly disagrees with the “party line” but in my experience, the benefits of having those diverse ideas outweigh the drawbacks.  Intel has a longstanding tradition of “disagree and commit” so that action moves forward once a decision has been made.  But having some differences of opinion up until that point usually makes for a better outcome.

Solve gnarly problems

I’ve found that if no one wants to tackle a problem, it is probably because it is a hard problem.  Captain Obvious is on the scene.  Only slightly less obvious is the observation that if you can solve a gnarly problem, good things will come to you and your team.  My experience has been that some of the best, coolest opportunities I’ve had come from taking on work nobody else wanted to do.  I’m not talking about tedious work (we all have some of that from time to time).  I’m talking about the kind of problems that give you a headache just thinking about how to tackle it.  The kind of challenge that makes your stomach feel a little uneasy right before you agree to take it on.   And if you can take on something like this with others, it is even more exciting and rewarding.  Nothing is better than being part of a team that has accepted and overcome significant challenge to accomplish something great. 

No half measures

In many ways, the transition from full-time work to full-time retirement felt very abrupt.  For sure my family and I had been planning for and discussing this step.  However, between working and raising a family, more than 100% of my mental capacity and energy reserves were consumed which means I didn’t fully embrace what it meant to be “retired”.  Whether you’re employed by a company or have started your own business, full engagement in work is important. 

On the flip side, full engagement in restoration is equally important.  We breakdown if there isn’t enough time and space to maintain our best lives inside and outside of work.  I used to feel guilty taking time off.  Other people would have to pick things up for me in addition to their own responsibilities and this felt….selfish.  What I’ve come to believe is that taking time away from work is not a privilege…it is a responsibility.  We all need breaks to be at our best.  The pandemic has revealed an ironic plot twist in our modern work life: when we work at home in the 21st century, we run the risk of never taking an actual break from work.  Never, never, ever leave vacation on the table…that would be a selfish thing to do.

Life (and work) present a series of tradeoffs

This one required years to sink in for me.  I’d often use phrases like “I can’t take time off for that __________ (fill in blank with a kid’s school event”) or “I must keep doing what I’m doing because I need to make a living”.  In reality, life is a parade of choosing amongst different paths.  Some paths are clearly better than others while others are less obvious.  My belief is that life seems more in my control if I think about the series of decisions I need to make along the way.  By looking at life (and work) as a series of trade-offs, one can avoid feeling like a victim. 

No doubt, many unexpected events happen in life.  However, I’ve not experienced many circumstances where I truly had no choice to make.  Planning for the long run provides options that create more paths (and choices) than you might think.  I describe a model that can be used to help with life planning in this Simple Planning Model post.

Learn from mistakes

All of us make mistakes.  There is no way around the fact that we will all fail at various endeavors in life.  However, these failures bring the gift of experience and the opportunity to learn.  I read somewhere that the best thing that could happen to a young person would be for them to be fired from a job.  I suppose I was never that “lucky”.  But I know I came close on at least a couple of occasions.  Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be”.  During my career, I participated in multiple post-failure learning sessions.  As long as these sessions are truly aimed at changing for the better (and not as a punitive instrument), they can lead to individual and organizational improvement faster than any other process I have experienced.

Know your value

I like to think about value as the difference between the perceived benefit of something less the actual cost to obtain or make that something.  I say perceived benefit because we can’t always calculate the subjective components of a purchase.  When we eat out at a restaurant, we could roughly calculate the cost of ingredients we didn’t have to buy and our time saved by not cooking & cleaning.  I assume (hope) nobody actually does this in real life.   I’d wager that this type of simple cost vs benefit comparison would suggest we should rarely eat out.  The problem is that we are not able to quantify the happiness we get from eating out: trying a new (or favorite) dish, enjoying a cool atmosphere, or sharing a meal with others. 

Exchanging your time and talent for the benefits of working provides a similar assessment challenge.  We can all quantify how much we’re getting paid.  Other elements of our work environment are more difficult to quantify. These include: the market value of health benefits; the amount of schedule flexibility and time off; the quality of co-workers; the competence and compassion of management; the availability for opportunity and advancement.  A company can be loyal to an employee…as long as the employee is creating value.  An employee should extend loyalty to a company under a similar understanding.  Part of your life plan should include a regular, honest assessment of the full value you’re realizing from whatever work you’re currently doing.  If the time and talent you provide doesn’t stack up with the benefit you’re receiving, perhaps a change is in order.