Your Career Success Formula

Kate Matsudaira, Principal / Urban Influence / @katemats

TECHKNOWLEDGE - JANUARY 2016

Y O U R C A R E E R S U C C E S S F O R M U L A and the conundrum of technical leadership

What happened to merit?

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

The new world of tech

STRATEGY

Choose the right game to play

Following your passion is for suckers

Craftsman Mindset*

* For more on this topic you should read So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

Deliberate practice

…chess players at the highest skill level (i.e. grandmasters) expended about 5000 hours on serious study alone during their first decade of serious chess play — nearly five times the average amount reported by intermediate-level players. Published in 2005 in Applied Cognitive Psychology Journal

Do you have a target?

MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU

• Make a list of the skills you have (or could have) that are rare and valuable.

• What would it take for you be the best in the world at your job? These are your GOALS.

• Carve out time for deliberate practice and learning.

RESULTS

Work on the right things

Fill in the gaps

Manage your manager

Not all bosses are good ones

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?

Send your status in email

Deliver on your commitment

Be on time

Make the most of your time

• Manage your manager - have regular meetings and ask good questions.

• Share your status. Make your work known.

• Be on time.

• Work hard and make the most of your time.

MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU

INFLUENCE

Influence comes from power

what is power?

3 SOURCES OF POWER

Expertise

Charisma

Relationships

Trust

Hours? Features?

Documentation

MentoringOperations

Maintainability

Innovation & new ideas

Quality

Recruiting

Collaboration

HOW DO YOU ASSESS PERFORMANCE?

HOW DO YOU JUDGE PERFORMANCE?

What is trust?

Build trust

Relationship Architecture

Reputation

Contribution

Elements are based on Kay’s framework from the “Foundations of Corporate Success”

Elements of trust

1. Who are the most influential people at your work?

2. Who do you spend the most time with?

MAKE TWO LISTS

Relationships are like filmstrips

Rebuild burned bridges

Reciprocity

Focus on the long term

Where does success come from?

Infinite powerinfluence

• How can you build better relationships?

• Expand your relationship architecture: make connections with influential people outside your team.

MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU

ATTITUDE

YOU AMAZING YOU

• Do they work more hours?

• Do they have more knowledge?

• How are they different?IMAGINE

IT ’S NOT JUST ABOUT WHAT YOU DO, BUT HOW YOU DO IT.

Be someone people want to work with

• Who is the person you admire most at work?

• What do they do differently?

• How do they make you feel?

IMAGINE

Be open

Bring solutions

Empathy with a positive attitude

• Reverse

• Long term

• Chance to growREFRAME

Make others feel important

Authenticity Desire to improve

Humility to take feedback

Be coachable

• How are you coming to work?

• Be present.

• Ask for feedback and then just say thank you instead of explaining.

MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU

Mickey and Oprah eating a chess-themed cake?

STRATEGY + RESULTS + INFLUENCE + ATTITUDE = SUCCESS

Kate Matsudaira, Principal / Urban Influence / @katemats

H O W C A N I H E L P Y O U ?