Work is a lab, not a study hall.
Imagine you are a new graduate walking through the front door of your organization for the first time. You need to be aware of three things right from the beginning: (1) success takes more than just doing your job; (2) you’re getting paid to learn, albeit a different kind of education than you just completed; and (3) you need to buy the mandatory sweatshirt that says, “Official Ladder Climber,” although it could very well have your organization’s name on it instead. Don’t worry if you plan to burn the ladder at some point. Just buy the sweatshirt.
As a first timer, you mission is clear: to demonstrate and earn your value. Every career starts with building expertise and experience. You can’t opt out or use advanced placement credits. Like it or not, you must prove yourself to demonstrate you can achieve the results you’re responsible for. It doesn’t matter whether you majored in electrical engineering or English literature. It doesn’t matter what your IQ is or what you scored on your ACTs. It doesn’t matter whether your boss is a superstar or an idiot, whether you work at home or a modern office, and whether you walk down two flights to use the restroom or use the one in the new workout center down the hall. It doesn’t matter whether your coffee comes from home or from a hard-to-find Italian espresso machine in the break room.
Success has been defined for you. You are expected to hit the ground running, multitask, collaborate, solve problems, think critically, accept some things because “it is what it is,” read minds, exceed customer expectations, pivot, change the paradigm, think on your feet, be proactive, and get results. Don’t worry about the jargon. Just go with the flow, especially with “pivot” and “it is what it is.”
Maybe you thought this would be your opportunity to shine, to use all the knowledge you crammed into your head to get through college or graduate school to stand out in the crowd from the start. Well, join the group! You’ll learn what it means to Climb the Ladder. You’ll find you’re in a horserace. Your organization is betting on you to win, just as they are for everyone else. They will challenge you to do your best by dangling money in front of you and carrots for your horse. Achieve you must. If I had known Emma at this stage in her career, I bet she embraced achievement.
Prepare for routine, sometimes boring assignments. Maybe not with words, you will be told to keep your head down and your eyes on your work. Think short-term results. If there’s a bigger picture, it’s not yet available to you. Occasionally, you’ll get a fun assignment and a chance to work with some good people. Prepare for meetings, lots of meetings, of which you’ll think most are a waste of time. When someone asks you for something, especially if their title is longer than yours, or you don’t know them at all (it could be the CFO), don’t let the first thing out your mouth be, “I’m busy,” or “It’s not in my job description,” or worse, “It’s not my job.” I had a client years ago who some days, as he walked down the hallway to his cube, would announce, “Don’t anybody ask me for anything today. I’m busy.” He told me that in a coaching session. He asked if I thought that was a bad thing. I said, “Yes, it’s a bad thing.”
If you think you’re going to find meaning and purpose in your job immediately, think again. You have a lot of work to do, and it’s not just about achieving results.
Work as the Learning Lab
To the organization, you are a recruit, gearing up for the rest of your career. Your boss will reinforce the message for hard work, performance, and delivering the goods. They want to see if you can prove yourself. If all goes well, you’ll be rewarded for your accomplishments.
Proving yourself, however, is not proving how smart you are. Nobody really cares about that, other than maybe your family. Proving yourself is about a sense of value and worth. When defined for you, it means getting work accomplished. It’s a test, and you’ll be graded.
There’s another perspective for defining your value—and that is your own. What I’m about to tell you they don’t teach in college, and, unless you’re lucky enough to have a great boss somewhere in your career, you most likely won’t learn this in the workplace either. Grab a highlighter. This is important:
Think of yourself as working in a Learning Lab, to learn as much as you can about your job, the people around you, what success looks like, and how things really work inside the workplace. Adopt the attitude and demeanor that proving yourself is part of the lab experience, only this time, you’re getting paid. This mindset will help get you through a lot of everyday “stuff” that you might otherwise question. Learning from great people? Write it down in your lab notes. Working with someone arrogant and letting you know they’re smarter than you? Another journal entry. Wondering why all the red tape, waiting your turn for a promotion, learning how to manage your boss, surviving a restructure—all experiences that should be noted in your journal. Observe closely, compare notes, experiment, and ask for other people’s observations. Work should be a continuous learning process, but a lot of the time it feels like just nailing assignments as told and moving to what’s next. Your goal is not just personal accomplishments. It’s about building a base.
The Birth of the Learning Lab
Kili Alywn
Management Consultant, Engineering and Operations
Several years ago, I met Kili Alwyn, who at the time was an an engineer supporting manufacturing operations in the biotech field. Kili was destined to move into a leadership position. His manager had asked that we work together to better prepare him for that role. Kili played football in college, and I suggested that when the manager slot opened for him, he should think of it as moving off the field as a player into the role of offensive coordinator. He liked that idea. I encouraged him to think about our work together as a lab experience, a place to try things out, experiment, then discuss them. We set up several biweekly lab assignments that he would perform and come back to report on. For me, this is where the concept of the Learning Lab has its roots. It was a huge success for Kili because it fit his style of learning and validated an approach he could use continuously to move his career forward.
Kili is an example for how someone in a Ladder Climbing organization begins to move in a Ladderburning direction. While professionally educated as an engineer, Kili had an interest in professional coaching and talent development. Our work in the Lab was not so much an “aha” moment for him as it was license to think more about how to move into a different discipline, a transformation more than a transition. Moving up was not as important as moving into something meaningful. At a later point, Kili convinced his boss that he should take on the role of a professional development coach, a position he designed and implemented inside the engineering organization. He has since moved to a different company, using both his engineering experience and coaching skills in his role there. Today he also has his own coaching practice, having evolved from player to coach, student to teacher, protégé to mentor.
What you learn in the Lab will be tested, if not now, for sure as you move forward in your career. You need to excel in two broad areas: (1) competence, the depth of knowledge and application of your expertise and experience, and (2) credibility, the extent to which others trust you because you commit and deliver something important to them.
Competence
Competence is at the heart of Achieve and Advance and Climbing the Ladder, easily identified as the key requirement for success. Competence also plays an important role in Ladderburning as a starting point and part of the foundation you’ll need to move in any direction you choose. Just go with it and realize that it’s not the only requirement you’ll need. Competence is not just about acquiring knowledge. It’s about mastery, critical thinking, initiative, and curiosity.
Mastery
We touched on the concept of mastery in an earlier discussion of Dr. Carol Dweck’s research.1 Is mastery a fixed mindset with a defined level of achievement, experience, and knowledge? Or is mastery a growth mindset, an incremental process that improves with learning? Ladderburners embrace the growth mindset. What’s the purpose of the Learning Lab? It’s a continuous learning process where effort counts. As author Daniel Pink explains:
Effort is one of the things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you, and you are willing to work for it. It would be an impoverished existence if you were not willing to value things and commit yourself to working toward them.2
Critical Thinking
In the Gallup-Bates study, employers cited critical thinking as one of the more important characteristics for college graduates.3 Critical thinking is a more complex approach to problem solving than applying past knowledge and experience to a current situation. It brings in outside information and generates alternative options for solutions. Take predicting the weather, a favorite pastime for both lay people and professionals. My friend, Larry Lee, was a meteorologist for more than 40 years. He described how critical thinking was an ongoing expectation of the job because of the need to make decisions based on impact and immediacy. Tornado alerts, for example, require different thinking than predicting the track of a future snowstorm or researching a trend from several years of data. That’s a bit of knowledge for you to digest the next time you question the accuracy of the weather forecast. I admit I’m biased and protective of my friend. Please be kind to your meteorologist. They are among a select group of critical thinkers.
Critical thinkers understand complex issues and demonstrate their ability to make informed decisions because of their thinking capacity, not just their technical knowledge.
Initiative
In its rawest form, initiative is the will and persistence to make things happen, the drive to get results. It’s reenforced with rewards like feedback and crossing items off your to-do list. Initiative turbocharges what you do when working on something personally important.
Curiosity can be a career maker. Curiosity is a defining quality in children, who build a whole vocabulary around “why.” Research shows that curiosity tends to peak at ages 4 to 5.4 Over time the ferocity to get results strips out questions and demands answers. Curiosity challenges authority and takes risks, but these are tamped down in a Ladder Climbing culture.
When unleashed, curiosity is a not-so-secret multipurpose tool for success. In her book, Rebel Talent, Francesca Gino describes:
My own research finds that curious people end up being star performers in their organizations for several reasons: they have larger networks, they’re more comfortable asking questions; and they more easily create and nurture ties with others at work—ties that are critical to their career development and success.5
Questions and curiosity are good things. Gino continues:
The way that we typically think about the effect of asking questions—especially when we are in leadership positions—is just plain wrong. We fear that others will judge us negatively for not having all the answers, when in truth it’s just the opposite. When we interact with others by asking questions, our relationships grow stronger, because we are showing genuine interest in learning about them.6
Find a curious child and you’ll see a world built on imagination. Find a child that retains her curiosity and asks lots of questions as an adult, and you may be looking at a Nobel prize winner.
Lacey’s Learning Lab
Lacey Sadoff
President, Badger Liquor
As President of Badger Liquor, Lacey Sadoff describes her job as “instigating a higher level of accountability.” You might not expect “instigating” in her repertoire. You can feel the high level of emotional intelligence when you’re in her presence. Does that mean she’s a “pushover?” Quite the opposite. She explains that her job is not a list of duties. It is a responsibility she has to the family business, the employees and their families, customers, and the community. It’s serious business and a big commitment.
One of Lacey’s most defining qualities is how she approaches her responsibilities, particularly in areas of the business she continues to understand in more depth. Early in her career, things took an abrupt turn for her when her father’s brother, a partner at Badger Liquor, suddenly died. Her father asked her to join the business, and the rest, as they say, is the history she’s created. Lacey could be a poster child for the Learning Lab. She started off by locating and copying information, reports, and articles and piling them on her desk, making it look messy so that she looked busy, as she described it to me. Slowly she sifted through the material and used the knowledge to create a role for herself, asked as many questions as she could, learned as much as she could, looked for the gaps, and came up with actions to better align the organization.
Lacey describes her approach as using common sense, but I would characterize it more as inquisitive and intentional. In her growth as a business leader, common sense evolved into creating impact, and impact into meaning: “I want to make it [Badger Liquor] as great a workplace as I can for the people and families we’re supporting …. How do we make the business better? How do make employees better? How can we make the business better for our employees? ... Having impact is meaningful.” This is indicative of how effective leaders like Lacey think about their role—from learning to creating impact. It starts with the Learning Lab approach. When I later talked to her about the concept, she responded, “Lacey’s Learning Lab. I like the sound of it!”7
Credibility
Credibility is the second component needed to build a base. Credibility, unlike competence, is not about your level of expertise and how much experience you have. Credibility is how others experience your capability to help them work through something important to them.
Competence is getting smart about your stuff, your specialty, your area of expertise. Credibility is getting smart about people. Kelly Norton is a good example of what this looks like. When I interviewed her, she described herself as “a studier of people,” and that she’s “probably learned more what not to do from poor leaders” she’s observed. When she works with people who don’t think like her, she takes the time to understand what’s important to them. Getting smart about people is a different type of curiosity, geared to understanding someone’s perspective and motivation rather than solving a problem.
Many technical professionals think that credibility is an automatic benefit of having additional expertise. One more time—people don’t care if you’re smart, have advanced degrees, or discovered the fountain of youth—well maybe they do care about that one. Competence without credibility just means that you’re smart, not necessarily valued.
When you are credible, other people trust you. They have confidence that when you commit, you deliver. That’s a big deal. Credibility enables you to participate in the daily give and take of convincing, persuading, and selling your point of view to others. In the bigger picture, credibility is the basis for relationships, some instrumental in getting work out the door, and others more enduring, with long-term impact for a meaningful career.
Visibility and Availability
Visibility is an essential credibility-building component. Face-to-face communication is still the best, but it’s at a premium. Moving forward in a postpandemic, virtual world does not negate the need to be “visible.” It just means you must be more creative and intentional. Availability is about receptivity and presence, being in the moment. It doesn’t matter whether it’s spending a few minutes in a spontaneous conversation or making time for an important discussion. Both require giving someone your full, undivided attention. Physical availability without mental presence qualifies as a waste of time, not to mention a credibility killer.
When Credibility Is Missing in Action
My experience with clients who fail to build credibility is they top out in their careers at a relatively early stage. Some see building credibility as taking too much time, not wanting to engage in politics, or “sucking up.” Others claim they are more interested in the work itself and have no desire to manage people. Credibility is about connection, not managing others. Those who fail or refuse to build credibility can stagnate in their roles, get passed over for promotions, become cynical and bitter, or worse yet, walled off as arrogant, clueless, and hard to work with. The paradox inside organizations that put a premium on competence is they promote people because of their technical expertise, with less consideration for their emotional intelligence and ability to build relationships. These managers can be hell to work with and worse to work for, even before they reach their level of incompetence.
Food for Thought
1. A base of personal competence takes (1) building knowledge and experience, and (2) building credibility and trust.
2. Credibility is not optional.
3. Competence makes you smart. Competence and credibility make you smarter.
4. To build a base, focus on the job and the results you’re expected to achieve. You don’t have to love it. Just remember that everybody starts somewhere.
5. Think of your experience as being in a Learning Lab, a place to learn, experiment, and try things out. Don’t forget this is a period of reconnaissance and exploration. And you’re getting paid.
6. Adopt a growth mindset.
Gaining experience and knowledge are great reasons to reach out to co-workers, contacts in other organizations, and senior leaders to get their perspectives. Asking dumb questions makes you smart. Asking for help and advice is a strength, not a weakness. It shows you care about what you’re doing.
7. Study people and figure out what’s important to them.
You won’t find a better opportunity, even a psychology class or daytime soap opera, to see what you see every day from a front row seat in your organization. It could be the best show in town.
8. Keep in mind that credibility is based on how others value you, not how you value yourself.
9. Curiosity opens doors, even though you may be told that you’re not getting paid to be curious. How will you learn more about what’s going on around you? How else are you going to learn about people? Get comfortable asking questions. If others think you’re a nuisance now, just wait.
10. Study the organization. You’ll use this knowledge moving forward, guaranteed.
Activity
Your First Job
A first job is a first job. It’s probably a more joyous occasion when you’ve had a choice of several jobs and landed the one you want. In any case, you were chosen for a reason, and that reason is to get results. So, achieve away. It’s not unusual when the honeymoon period is over that you realize this is not as exciting as you hoped. The best case is you will have a great manager and work with a great team and a great organization. Worst case is none of the above, that you must grin and bear it. This is about getting established. This is not your life’s work. You’re here to achieve results. You’re also here to build credibility and trust. Learn about what’s important to people and get a lay of the land for what the workplace looks like from the inside.
1. Set the stage with your manager.
• Make sure you know what tasks and assignments are expected of you.
• If your manager has not asked to meet with you, take the initiative to meet with them.
• Don’t expect that a job description will tell you everything you need to know.
• Ask, “I’ve studied the job description. What I would like to understand is your take on this. What are your expectations for me?”
• Be sure to ask this question. It’s very important: “From your perspective, what does success look like?”
• Ask, “What’s the best way to communicate with you if I have questions? Will we meet routinely?”
• Listening is more important than taking notes. Sometimes taking notes, especially if you’re using your computer, looks like you’re not listening or that you could be documenting the meeting for some sinister purpose. If you need to take notes, bring in a copy of your job description to use. That looks official.
2. Get to work.
You have your boss’s expectations. Now go deliver on them.
3. Ask for help and feedback when you need it.
• Sometimes people are concerned that asking for help or feedback are signs of weakness. No. It’s just the opposite.
• Get the clarity you need. If you have a regularly scheduled meeting with your manager, most of the time it is a progress report. It’s also a good opportunity to ask for help or guidance in a specific area.
• Periodically you can ask, “Here’s the way I’m approaching this assignment. Any suggestions? Any recommendations moving forward?” These questions project confidence, even though you may think they show vulnerability. You are also empowering your manager to help you.
4. Learn the ropes.
Learning the ropes is an observational study and understanding of what’s really going on. This is the Learning Lab mentality. Your instructions are to keep you head down. I’m suggesting you keep your head up. I’m confident you can do both without sacrificing the quality of your work. If you don’t naturally look for the bigger picture, this is the time to start. Don’t fall into the trap that Emma and many others do by just focusing on the work. This is the beginning of educating yourself about people and organizations, something you’ll only do more of in the future. Your lab book should contain these notes:
• Processes and procedures you need to follow. Take note of when they work, don’t work, or don’t exist.
• The people around you. How well do you understand what’s critical and important to them, even if you don’t agree?
• The influencers and decision makers, the people that others look to, even if they are thousands of miles away.
• Observe what is acceptable behavior, how people treat each other, how information and decisions are communicated, and if possible, how decisions are made. I understand you have a lot of work to do. Your firsthand observations here are also important, and they will tell you a lot about the culture, regardless how people describe it or what’s posted on the wall or web page.
5. Find two to three people you trust to join you in the Lab.
• Compare notes and observations.
• Compare observations and learn from each other. Don’t complain for more than 5 minutes. Identify issues and problems, strengths and screw-ups. Everyone can complain, but not everyone wants to learn. This is how you distinguish yourself, even if you’re the only one to know it.
• Consider your partners as part of your network you will expand and grow into relationships in the future, regardless of where you all end up.
6. Stay in touch with your boss.
Take the initiative to schedule an ongoing conversation even if they don’t. Don’t believe that any day is “business as usual.” And there’s no truth to “no news is good news.” Communication trumps the absence of communication every time.
