2 • The Any Person Mindset

CHAPTER ONE

What do you want to accomplish?

So what do you want? To help you answer that question, we’re going

to focus on two things in this chapter: your overall career path and your perfor-

mance at work over the coming year.

Clarify Your Desired Career Path

It’s hard to know whether you’re being effective in the short term if you don’t

know what you’re trying to achieve or to become over the long term. We’ll start

with the big picture of your career and work our way toward your desired perfor-

mance for this year.

We want you to consider these two questions to help you map out the direction

you want your career path to take:

• What is your ideal job that you would love to do and why do you feel

that way?

• What do you need to do to get there?

You can largely determine your whole career path by answering those two

questions. After you establish that career path in your mind, you will be able to

make much more strategic decisions about what industries and organizations to

work in, what roles to go after, which ones to take on and for how long, and which

ones to stay away from.

After you clarify the job you ideally want to have someday, there are two things

that can happen. You get the job, or you don’t. Either way, it’s valuable to visualize

What do you want to accomplish? • 3

your ideal job because in doing so you will have to consciously pull together sev-

eral variables that are important to you and write them down. You may never get

that job, but you may end up moving toward a different job that fits you extremely

well, one in which you can make a significant difference in the organization.

Here are a series of questions for you to consider as you begin to assemble in

your mind the ideal job you want and why you want to do it:

• What do you want to do and why do you want to do it?

• What aspect of the organization do you want to be involved in?

• What responsibilities do you want to be held accountable for doing well?

• What level of compensation do you want?

• Does it matter which industry you work in? If yes, which industry is it?

• What kind of culture do you want to work in?

• What size organization do you want to work in?

• Do you want to work for a privately owned organization, publicly

owned organization, or your own company?

• What kind of people do you want to work with?

• Are you willing to relocate from your current community, and how

often are you willing to relocate?

• Are you willing to go back for more formal education?

• Are you willing to take a lateral move or a step back on the organiza-

tion chart to gain your ideal job?

Take your time and write down your answers as they come to you. In time it

will become clear to you what you ideally want to do in your career. It may seem

far off into the future, but it’s been our experience that when you clearly know the

job you ideally want to do it can become a reality far sooner than you expected.

If that happens, then decide whether this is the job you want for the rest of your

career or whether there is another job you want to step into in the future.

4 • The Any Person Mindset

Now it’s time to focus on the path to get to that ideal job. Think through your

answers to the following questions:

• What tasks do you need to do well to get the job you want?

• What are the prerequisites for each job along this career path?

• What results do you have to deliver?

• What experiences or knowledge do you have to acquire?

• What relationships do you need to build?

• What behaviors do you have to display consistently to attain your

ideal job?

• What do you need to improve?

Once again, we encourage you to invest a reasonable amount of time and effort

into answering these questions. Your answers will be of tremendous value to you

as you determine what you want to accomplish every step along the way in your

career. It really doesn’t matter if you are in your twenties or your fifties. Taking the

time to think about your desired future and what you need to do to actualize that

future will help you clarify what you need to do today.

What made you successful up to this point may or may not be what you need

for future success. Look down the road and see what people have needed to suc-

ceed in the ideal job you want. Become a student of what made different people

successful at each point along the path you want to follow. Do your homework. Set

up conversations with them.

When I (Lee Renz) was the division senior director of operations, I kept a run-

ning list of what I would do when I became a regional vice president-general man-

ager. That was the job I wanted. I assembled it by studying a variety of GMs and

asking them questions and observing their behaviors. I reviewed that list every few

weeks. Sometimes I added things to it and sometimes I took things off of it. Every

time I learned something that was important to being a successful GM I would

make adjustments to my sheet of paper. I kept it with me whenever I was working.

What do you want to accomplish? • 5

When I was the chief restaurant officer responsible for more than 300 people

I was often asked for career advice. Someone would tell me they wanted a certain

job. I would ask each person, “What path did most people take to get to that job?”

Then I would take out a piece of paper and write down the roles that most

people went through to get to the job the person wanted. It might look like this:

manager, senior manager, director, senior director, vice president, and senior vice

president. Then I would say, “Where are you on that list right now? Is it safe to

assume you will need to go through the same steps that others went through to get

to where you want?” The other person usually said yes. Then I would say, “So do

you think it would be a good idea to study what made people successful at each

step along that path, and then build your plan to get those experiences in order

to get the job you want?” Usually that question sent people into motion to better

understand what they had to know and what they had to be able to do to succeed.

Establish the Performance You Want to Deliver This Year

Over the next twelve months what do you want to accomplish at work that will

make you succeed in the short term and that will flow into your long-term career

aspirations? We assume you want to be recognized as a top performer so you are

qualified for more responsibilities. There is more to knowing what you want to

accomplish, however, than simply being recognized as a top performer.

Is it clear to you what you want to achieve in terms of results for this year?

Are you positive that your goals and objectives are aligned with your compa-

ny’s goals?

Have you checked with your boss to make sure that the things you are working

on fit with her objectives and with the overall company objectives?

Are the goals you are working to achieve this year in alignment with the career

path you want to be on?

The benefit of aligning your goals for this year with your boss’s goals, the com-

pany’s goals, and your desired career path is that there is no confusion as to where

you should be spending your time.

6 • The Any Person Mindset

Your boss has expectations of you in terms of your results, relationships, and

behaviors. So does your boss’s boss. Make sure a few times a year you meet with

your boss’s boss. You don’t need a lot of time. Only fifteen minutes or so. Discuss

with your boss what you want to talk about with her boss. Ask for some coaching.

Then let your boss’s boss know what you’re working on and see whether she thinks

you’re on the right path for long-term success. After that, always update your boss

on how the conversation went.

What other results, relationships, and behaviors do you expect from yourself

this year that no one else has mentioned to you? Write those down as well.

Now put it all together on one sheet of paper.

What are the results, relationships, and behaviors to which you will hold your-

self accountable?

In addition to that, over the course of the year what is the significant difference

you want to make in your organization? This is the ultimate area of accountability

for you. This is where you can make a lasting impact beyond simply your own

career success.

Know Your Job – Know Yourself

Now that you have established what you want to accomplish this year, the next

step is a concept I (LR) used in managing people that I call “Know Your Job –

Know Yourself.” You can’t move to the next step on your career path until you’ve

demonstrated that you can do the job you’re in right now.

Know your job. What does it take to do your current job well? That’s a short

question with a lot of implications. What skills, general knowledge, practi-

cal know-how, and habits do you need to do the job you have right now? How

will you find out what is needed to really succeed in your current job? Here are

some suggestions:

• Talk with your current boss.

• Identify three people who have done your job in the past extremely

well and go talk with each of them about what made them successful.

What do you want to accomplish? • 7

• Go to industry-wide meetings and find people who are in your current

job or who have had your job in the past and pick their brains. See what

insights they have to offer.

• Keep a running list of what it takes to be successful in your current job.

In addition to knowing your job, you must know yourself. Make a list of what

you have going for yourself right now that will help you succeed in your current

job. Then make a list of what you don’t have that you need for your current job. Ask

yourself the following questions:

• Of the things needed to do this job well, which ones do I already

do well?

• How can I spend more of my time doing those things?

• Which ones am I not very good at?

• How can I get better at those things?

• Who do I need to talk with?

• What training do I need?

• What experiences do I need to get those skills?

We will dive into this topic in much greater depth in Chapter Two.

Avoid What Can Trip You Up

Imagine you’re walking across a room and you trip over a throw rug that was

wrinkled. Everything was going fine, and suddenly you’re sprawled out on the

ground. The key is to avoid what can trip you up.

The same thing can happen in your career. Your performance may be rolling

steadily along and then something within you trips you up and suddenly you’re

sprawled all over the place. By taking the time to know what can trip you up and

proactively preparing for those situations, you can enable yourself to keep your job

performance strong and your career on track. Here are five beliefs and engrained

habits that can trip you up and disrupt your progress toward what you want to

accomplish this year and in your career:

8 • The Any Person Mindset

First, there is the belief that if you try your best everyone will like you and

support you. If you’re operating on that belief, you are going to run into a lot of

frustration. This is an unrealistic expectation that you are carrying around. Some

people will like you and some will not. You can worsen the problem by changing

your approach to try to get everyone to like you. Working with people is always a

fluid situation. You can’t possibly control every person’s moods, personality types,

family situations, and beliefs.

Second, there is the belief that if you work extremely hard, you will be success-

ful. That’s not at all necessarily the case. You can work unbelievably long and hard

hours and still achieve poor results. Or you might work really hard to achieve great

numbers and still not get promoted or receive a bonus because you were an abso-

lute jerk to work with. Being willing to work hard and long may be an important

factor in achieving success, but it certainly is not sufficient all by itself. If you think

you can demand great results merely because you work long and hard, you will set

yourself up to being massively disappointed.

Third, there is the belief that the past automatically equals the future. This

belief is a double-edged sword that can cut you both ways. If you were successful in

the past and believe that means you automatically will be successful in the future

without having to change or improve in any way, you may very well trip over your

past success.

Remember this mantra: listen, learn, tweak, and apply. Listen to other people

and observe them in action; keep learning what it takes to succeed in the future;

tweak what you learn to fit you; and then apply what you’ve learned. Keep reaching

for improvement all the way through your career. Nobody arrives at a point called,

“I’ve got it all figured out and I can coast from here.” Also, if you have failed in the

past, it doesn’t mean you are going to fail in the future. Your past failure may have

led to a great learning and behavior change that can enable you to achieve tremen-

dous success in the future.

Fourth, there is the habit of allowing certain situations to trigger a behavior in

you that is inappropriate for the situation you are in today. Having fun is one of

my (LR) passions and when things get intense I tend to crack a joke. I also have

What do you want to accomplish? • 9

learned, however, that I have to be aware that the trigger of an intense meeting

could cause me to try to make light of a serious situation when this was not the

appropriate thing to do at that moment.

With other people, we’ve seen triggers where people used inappropriate lan-

guage rather than what’s appropriate in a business meeting with a diverse group.

Another trigger I (Dan Coughlin) have seen was when a person obviously

looked down upon people who were higher up in the organization. This person

was promoted and on his first day in a meeting with his new peer group, his open-

ing comment was, “I know you all think you know more than I do, but I’ll show you

that you don’t.” That immediately ruined several potential relationships. He never

gained any footing in the new group and left the company about nine months later.

And fifth, there is the habit of being inflexible when dealing with people whose

style is different than yours. If you prefer a collaborative approach and you refuse

to interact with people who use more of a command-and-control style, then you

are tripping yourself up. Not everyone is like you, and that’s a good thing. Diversity

in style can make a group more effective.

Control What You Can Control

There are many reasons you may not get the promotion you want that have

nothing to do with your performance. One such reason is FOB, which stands for

Friend of Boss. Sometimes the promotion will go to a friend of the boss even

if your performance record is better than that person’s. To accomplish what you

want requires patience and perseverance. Never lose sight of what you want. You

want to be a candidate for the job. Sometimes it’s a matter of timing and of what

already has been promised to other people. Control what you can control and

stay focused. Stay accountable to your results, relationships, behaviors, and the

difference you can make in your organization. Many times we’ve seen people in

stressful situations obsess over things they couldn’t control while ignoring things

they could control.

10 • The Any Person Mindset

Do Your Job and Behave

One way I (LR) explained it to my employees was to simply say, “Do your job

and behave.” Then I would talk about what those five words meant. I would say,

“Do your job means to do what you are responsible for doing, execute the plan to

which you are accountable, and achieve the desired results. Behave simply means

to do things in a way that matches up with the company’s values. It’s not enough

to get the results. How you behave matters as well. Don’t overcomplicate this. You

will accomplish a great deal of what you want if you do your job and behave as

well as you can.”

Drop the Mic and Other Basic Reminders

Remember the basics. No matter where you are currently on your career path,

there are some basic behaviors to keep in mind. Maintain eye contact with the

person with whom you are talking. It shows respect for the other person. Smile.

It shows you’re enjoying your work. And drop the mic. That means when you’ve

said what you intended to say, stop talking. Don’t repeat yourself eight or ten

more times. Think about what you want to say, say it, and then drop the mic. Stop

talking. Listen. Focus more on being interested in the other person than on being

interesting to that person. The basics are still important no matter where you are

in your career.

Finally, Be Accountable to Yourself! Did You or Didn’t You…

. . . determine your desired career path and make sure your current

role is on that path?

. . . clarify what you want to accomplish this year and ensure that it

fits with your organization’s goals by talking with your boss?

. . . take the time to know yourself and know your job to see what you

need to develop within yourself?

. . . avoid what can trip you up?

. . . control what you can control?

What do you want to accomplish? • 11

. . . do your job and behave?

. . . stick to the basics?

. . . know the difference you can make today and hold yourself ac-

countable to it?

Book Recommendations

In Appendix A, we recommend a total of three chapters from three books to

further explain the ideas in Chapter One.