5 Lessons on Career Growth From a Google Exec
There is no easy path. The elevator is broken and you need to take the stairs and climb fast.
For the past 10 years, I have been on an accelerated career growth path. I went from Jr. Engineer to Engineering Director, navigated through 2 acquisitions, held over 1000s interviews, and built teams and engineering organizations.
From my own experience and from the experience of helping other people develop their careers, I wanted to share 5 lessons that I found very useful and that will hopefully help you in your pursuit.
This article is based on my Medium Day talk that I held on the 12th of August.
How to choose the right opportunities
Early in my career, I had to choose between staying at a well-paid engineering job with an internationally established company or joining a new risky hardware startup. Everybody was surprised I joined the startup given the fact that I am very risk-averse. But in my mind, it all made sense, as I found an asymmetric opportunity that had a good risk/reward ratio. Let me explain.
My desire at that point was to learn more about startups, so when the opportunity presented I had to weigh the risk/reward balance.
- The downside was that I would be getting a 35% pay cut and I would most likely be out of a job in 1.5 years because most startups are risky.
- The upside was that I would learn 10x more and get exposed to various parts of the business and communities plus not ignoring the slim chance of getting rich.
At that point, I had an asymmetric opportunity on my hands that had a manageable downside and a potentially unlimited upside. In the end, my choice has put me on the path I am today and turned out to be a good choice.
Every time you are presented with an opportunity, look at the risk/reward ratio. If you stumble upon an asymmetric opportunity with unlimited upside and limited downside aligned with what you want, then take it. It may advance your career a lot.
Compete where there is low competition
In every company, there are usually a few projects that everyone wants to do and projects that everybody tries to stay away from.
The big hard projects or the mundane ones that have a lot of value are usually overlooked. That is where you could have a big impact and stand out.
A few areas where there is usually low competition:
Hard work
It goes without saying, but a lot of people want to get rich quickly, lose weight in 5 easy steps, or put in minimum effort and get maximum returns. This kind of offering is very appealing and most of the time not true. Nobody wants to go on the path where there is hard work, even though there are better chances of success.
Hard work comes in multiple forms. It may be something technically difficult with a high risk of blowing up the system or a complex organizational task due to alignment which may mean getting consensus with a lot of stakeholders and having a lot of meetings. Find the things that are impactful for your stakeholders and do them. This way you will stand out, get new skills, and get on an accelerated path.
Innovation
Bring innovation to the company. Usually, everybody is trying to do their day-to-day job and this is forgotten. In my experience innovation does not occur from a manager coming and asking their team to become more innovative.
Innovation emerges from the mix of various perspectives and backgrounds
You can also add on top a deep understanding of how the overall business works and what can be improved. Try to hang out with people from other departments, and get them to talk about their pain points; you will be surprised to discover that you can easily solve some of them.
Making the pie bigger
It touches a bit on the innovation part but it means finding or discovering new opportunities in the company that you can take on. Usually at any company planning there are a couple of projects available and big competition on the cool easy ones. What you can do is discover or come up with new proposals that you and your team can work on. Yes, this will be hard work because you need to identify opportunities and get stakeholder buy-in, but on the flip side, nobody will compete with you on the opportunities you will create.
Remember the previous lesson on asymmetric opportunities? Try as much as possible to create one for yourself. A good opportunity could accelerate your career a lot. It could be a segway into leadership or an area you want to explore. It just has to be aligned with the goals of others so you can get buy-in and paint a win-win proposal.
How to get and keep trust
This is very important.
If somebody new were joining a tribe, the members of that tribe would wonder if they are good hunters (can provide for people in the tribe) and are trustworthy, meaning they will not run away with the tribe’s food and kill everybody in their sleep.
Every time you join a new team, project, or company the question on everyone’s subconscious mind is the same: is that person competent and trustworthy?
While most people focus on competency, trustworthiness is equally essential.
In the age of AI, competence will be more and more accessible.
It will become a commodity, just ask X bot and you will get an expert answer. Becoming somebody trustworthy will be a competitive advantage.
How can you get and maintain trust? It’s a simple 3 step formula that becomes hard because you have to do it over and over again.
- Say what you want to do
- Do it
- Show that you have done it
Miss any of the steps and the formula won’t work. More about trust in my previous article here.
Don’t forget, do all 3 steps for a continuous amount of time and you will become trustworthy. This will give you a strong competitive advantage in a pool of very competent people.
Going through 2 acquisitions and having my stakeholders change frequently, creating and maintaining trust contributed significantly to my growth. Every time things changed I had to prove that I was competent and trustworthy and that I could get things done.
Reverse engineering
This can be applied to multiple areas, so let’s focus right now on career growth and getting to the next level. Most likely in your company there is a formal or informal ladder that has levels with requirements for each one.
What very few do is audit what are the things missing between where they are and where they want to get. This is a good exercise to identify the skills that you need, opportunities and projects that you need to be part of, and what stakeholder buy-in would be required.
The second thing that even fewer people do is once they have this honest audit, they share it with their manager and get their manager to partner on their career.
This usually happens because people shy away from uncomfortable conversations and that is ok. Our brain works that way and wants to protect us but this is hurting a lot of careers. You risk going throughout the years without any sight of the promotion that you want.
I had a friend who was very upset that he was passed for a team lead position by their manager. I was sorry for him but wanted to double-check something: “Did your manager know that you wanted the role”, I asked him. To my surprise, his manager didn’t. He thought that the manager should have noticed that he wanted this role.
Don’t gamble your fate as my friend did and have the conversations. At least you will know where you stand and what is required to get to the next level and you can start actively working from that point.
Coaching yourself
The truth is you already have a good idea of what you need to do to get to the next level.
Imagine you have a best friend, in a similar situation as you are, coming to you for advice on what they need to do. What would you tell them?
Sometimes it is easier for us to advise somebody else than to coach ourselves. When we try to advise ourselves, all of our limiting beliefs can get in front of good advice. If you try to advise a friend you will trick your brain and those beliefs will remain in your subconscious.
Some tricks from coaching for your toolbox:
The flip
If you find yourself in a negative mindset you can switch by asking yourself “What do you want to happen?”, this will focus you on what you want.
The actual want
Another tip from the coaching side is to discover what you actually want. The question for that is simple: “What do you want to happen now?”
You need to ask it a couple of times and uncover what you desire. Usually, for this part, it is better to use a coach who can help you explore and uncover things that may hold you back. The best coaches will hold up a mirror where you will see yourself, with the good and the bad.
If you find yourself struggling to grow your career there may be things that hold you back. You need to discover and try to address them. Once you finish these steps you need an action plan and execution.
I had the same issue when I wanted to grow to a more senior leadership position. I wanted the promotion but somehow all my worries and actions were sending mixed signals. I had a very honest conversation with a coach and they advised me well:
“Look, you will give it your best shot for the next 6 months and if you are unsuccessful, you can try again in 6 months. No harm done but in the meantime, you will have learned a lot and it will put you closer to your goal. Isn’t this what you want?”.
I was hmm… that makes a lot of sense. I was fearing failure and that was paralyzing me in committing and taking action. Once I understood that, I just focused on doing great work and not worrying about “what if”.
Once you know what holds you back you can turn that thing off.
Six months later, after I put everything I had into it, I managed to be recognized at the next level. Sometimes I even knew I could have slowed down a bit but I wanted to not have any doubt that I was operating at the next level.
Figure out the things that hold you back from achieving your goal. Once you set your mind on something and there is nothing to hold you back, you will be amazed by how much you can accomplish.
You can try to coach yourself by having honest conversations, giving advice to “a friend” or reaching out to a professional coach who will help you discover and surpass the things that are holding you back.
These are some of the learnings that have helped me accelerate my career. If you want to go on the career accelerated rollercoaster you have to be aware that it will be hard. Condensing a lot of years into a few will get you a discount for your troubles but it will still be a lot of work and pain.
There is no easy path. The elevator is broken and you need to take the stairs and climb fast.
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