A number of us at The Jolt now work for ourselves.
Well, technically, we still have people we answer to, they just wear different shoes.
In our journey from employee to, “where is my next paycheck coming from and will it ever actually materialize”, we’ve all had one shared and significant aha.
And it’s this…
…The only way to reach something is to run towards it.
OK, that doesn’t sound particularly epiphany-worthy, but when we looked back at our corporate careers, we wished we’d put this mantra front and center in our everyday work.
By and large, when you’re an employee, as much as you want to be the self-starting initiative taker, you’re often hampered in your ability to run towards something with speed because company spaghetti gets in the way. For example;
Waiting for sign-off from someone you’ve never met.
Needing a task done that isn’t yours to do.
Navigating a process that annoys people when you try to circumvent it.
Getting approval from a boss who is hard to pin down.
Running the same thing past multiple people. Otherwise known as politics.
None of these things are helpful or fun. Combined, they make running feel like crawling and crawling feel like stalling. No wonder people give up. It’s hard to run towards things when your legs are cut off at the knees. As much as you hate doing it, it feels easier to sit and wait while the spaghetti works itself out.
As a consultant, you can’t sit and wait. The stakes are higher. You’re often hired to untangle the spaghetti in the first place.
As an employee though, there are things you can do to speed up your game, value & personal brand, despite all the barriers in your way.
The secret? Mentally employ yourself as a consultant within your own business and see how it changes how you operate and view your world.
Why not try doing it for a week, starting Monday? Here are a few ideas for how you could approach it:
Go and meet the people in your company who you perceive to do a “better, bigger or braver” job than you do - and learn. Be curious about how they approach their day and get results. Consultants have to do this with key stakeholders within the first 7 days of an engagement. It’s how they insert themselves fast.
Try pitching yourself to someone you trust. Can you do it in 60 seconds? Can you get your elevator pitch down to a pithy few lines of the value you bring? Selling your value is essential when you’re a consultant. It’s no different when you’re an employee.
Start with the end in mind. If you think of your company as your client, then the questions to ask are, “What are you trying to achieve? Why? And what’s stopping you from achieving it?” Curiosity and questioning is the hallmark of a consultant; you have to think why, why, why, and then one more why with feeling. Try it within your own team.
No one likes to be or feel vulnerable, but try running towards your weaknesses for a week so you can put a plan in place to shore them up. When you’re a consultant, your day is riddled with things you don’t know, concepts you don’t understand, and org charts that look like a bad Picasso. You have to pull in resources or learn new skills to cover your gaps. But before you do that, you need to quickly uncover what your gaps are.
Finally, be an operator. To us, being a consultant sounds like you lack ownership - even if that’s not true. When we work with clients, we don’t say we’re consultants. We say we’re operators. We get stuff done. Clients like great ideas, but clients LOVE great ideas that can be executed.
We’d like to give you a big hug-of-a-Jolt challenge: Imagine you’ve been parachuted into your business as a consultant for one week. Plus, you have permission from us to play yourself as much as you darn well please.
Take notes and tell us how it went!
Love & Safe Landings,
The Jolt.