Author: Mary Ila Ward

A key to creating career and personal success is to realize that in order to live your mission, there are many things in which you have to say “no”.

 

If you have worked through the Power of 3 Worksheet, you will notice that there is a section for you to note three things that you need to stop doing in order to live your mission.

 

I think these things we need to say “no” to come in two categories:

 

1. Bad habits- Things like not exercising, eating unhealthy, drinking too much, playing Candy Crush for four hours a day (I haven’t tried it yet, I’m afraid my semi-addictive personality will lead me to end up being one who plays it four hours a day!), etc. These things keep us for being our best selves and distract us at the least and prohibit us at the most from our purpose.
2. Unproductive activities that don’t align with your purpose. These things aren’t “bad” they just don’t align with living out personal missions. They may align with someone else’s mission, but do they align with yours?

 

The best example I have of this is never saying no when you’re asked to be on a committee or serve on a board even when the board has nothing to do with anything that aligns with your purpose. Similarly, accepting a job or work assignment that does not fit with your purpose can be extremely detrimental to living your mission.   Whereas we can participate in things like this in the short-run (especially if we need to put food on the table for a job) committing for the long-term that is counter to your purpose will lead to all things undesirable including unhappiness, feeling overwhelmed, and even resentment. They may be “good” activities, but you participating in them just because you can’t say “no” leads to you to “bad”.

When you say no to things that don’t align with who you are, you end up saying yes to your mission. And when you say yes to your mission, you give light to us all.

Last week, we discussed how leaders might be limiting hiring pools and therefore potential competitive advantage by being too stringent on the hard and fastskills required for a job.

I think one of the main reasons we do this as leaders is because we don’t want to take the time to train people.

We hire people, assume they are up to speed on day one (and we make this assumption because they met our requirement of five years of experience in such and such), and then we throw them into the fire and expect them not to burn.

Want people to succeed long term with your organization? Here are some ideas for doing so:

Set up a training plan for them before they arrive. Connecting them to the people they need to learn from in order to do their job well and communicate to these trainers that their most important responsibility during that period is getting the new hire trained.

Allow time for training. And that doesn’t mean a day.

Document processes and procedures that are critical to the job and share with new hires. Set up a time after they have reviewed them to be able to ask questions.

Use the model: I show you how to do it, you ask questions while I’m doing it, then you show me how to do it. Retained knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge is best assessed by whether or not someone can teach it back to you.

Be available.

Remember, real leaders make more leaders. This can’t be done without a leader taking training and development seriously. Meaning, it is his or her top priority.

How specific are your job postings? You post a job and that job has specific knowledge, skills and/or abilities that the person needs. These things can be acquired in a variety of ways. Some postings are very specific on requirements, while others are vague and open to interpretation. I’ve seen many that require at least five years of experience in a specific role before a candidate will even be considered. And the truth of the matter is, more times than not specific requirements aren’t even validated as needed. It just sounds good.

While I echo Ben Eubank’s advice to job seekers from his post Be Able to Do the Job, especially the emphasis on candidates not lying about their experience or knowledge, I wonder if as leaders we are limiting our hiring pool and potential competitive advantage through people by being too restrictive in the requirements advertised in job postings.

You see, hard and fast skills are much easier to ask for in a job posting. It’s easier to say five years of experience in accounting or a degree in accounting, than it is to ask and assess for things that are “fuzzy” like motivational characteristics or ability to get along with others.

Are we missing out on people who have the will (desire and appropriate personality) to do the job at the sacrifice of just finding people who have the hard and fast skills? In my opinion, will is much harder to assess and quantify, but much more valuable in the long run.

Are your job postings too restrictive?

Check back next week to see the real reason I think most people hiring for skill over will…

 

You may also like:

Selection 101: Skill vs. Will

Call them “ah-ha” moments or moments of clarity, but everyone at some point or another has a great idea pop into their mind. Many of these ideas could be the source of helping you live your mission (see Power of 3 Worksheet), create career satisfaction, and be of source of helping others, but how often do we listen to that voice in our heads?

 

YouTube came about because three college guys wanted a simple way to share videos online with their friends. They sold YouTube to Google for $1.6 billion a year later. Not to mention, it was selected as the invention of the Year by Time magazine.

 

Dave Ramsey has become the go-to name in family financial planning. He writes in his book Entreleadership that he was sitting around one morning writing some goals down and came up with the idea to“Develop a high-touch support group concept that is a seminar and counseling.” This became Financial Peace University which has now helped millions of people live debt free.

A friend of mine was struggling with where to store a ladder in his garage so that it was out of the way. He thought other people might have the same problem too. He came up with a simple device to store a ladder overhead in a garage or on a ceiling that included a simple way to get it down. His idea was patented and is now being sold through a third party company that gets it in big name retailers.

How to Capitalize on Your Ideas?

 

1. Keep a Notebook Handy

The first place to start with these ideas is actually getting them down on paper.

 

2. Find a Need and Fill It

Notice anything in common with all three of the examples? They all were people who saw a need and their idea found a way to meet that need. The focus became on helping others do something easier or live better lives.

 

3. ACT!

I would imagine that on average, most people have about three ideas fleet through their mind in a week. Some may be good, some may be bad, but what’s a shame is that the majority of these ideas are not written down, much less acted upon. They are simply forgotten. After you’ve taken the step to write down you ideas, revisit them weekly and determine where you need to act. Get input from others, do some research, but act on what you feel like can meet a need and help you live your mission.

 

What’s the idea have you been mulling over that you need to act on?