Love What You Do
This is a circuitous, well-worn path. How does one position themselves to find this path? What does it take to choose the right forks in the road to progress? Are these conscious decisions, or more intuitive? Is there a right way, and a wrong way?
For starters, the question is ‘Where do you want to go?’ More than anything, that is the question to be answered. There are others, of course. What is your ambition, where is your passion, who are your allies? When opportunities present themselves, will you be ready? Last, and probably most importantly, why are you pursuing this path? Ego, idealism, power, a desire to serve?
Whenever someone asks me about the path to management and leadership, I caution them. On the path to leadership there is a price to be paid. You will need to commit to your job, probably more than you ever have. You will have people to direct and people to answer to. There’s no time clock – work the hours required to get the job done on time, be available 24/7 to drive projects forward, solve problems, engage with your people. Your time is not your own. Trying to strike a balance between you, your job, your family will be a huge challenge. Not everyone will be happy about your choices, thinking you are sacrificing relationships for status or power. Are you?
Self-honesty requires some real introspective thought. It’s the toughest thing to be honest with ourselves, because our perspective taints and tends to rationalize our process. Keep excuses and rationalizations out of it. Are you doing this for others, for yourself, or both? Once you decide, know there will be those who disagree. Build a vision for yourself, where you want to go, how you want to accomplish it. What will be the consequences. Don’t think there won’t be – there are always consequences. Nothing is accomplished without giving up or giving in to something else. Choices and consequences. Don’t blame or relieve yourself of responsibility when it goes all wrong.
One of my great heroes, auto racing legend Sir Sterling Moss, when referring to his British Racing Driver’s Club awards, wrote the following to his son: “The Stars, to me, symbolise all I ever wanted to achieve. Look at the Stars my son, and know you can do it, too. They will be different Stars, for something quite different, but just as important and precious – to us both – as mine. But take time out, also, to consider the (racing) helmet and be reminded that everything worth achieving comes at a cost. If you are lucky, you might never get the bill. But don’t bank on it. Before you start, be sure you are willing to pay the price. I was, and I did, and I have no regrets.”
Most of us come out of school with a core passion and a related skillset. Transitioning to a leadership role will change all that. Managing and leading pulls us away from that core. Daily tasks will no longer involve the kind of problem solving you loved; it will become the problem solving of motivating and organizing people, managing dollars, creating visions and strategic plans, and directing the execution of tactics to realize them. Your core passion and experience will always be a guiding light for you, a bullshit meter when others are touting a certain solution, but it will never again be what you do for satisfaction. With all the other sacrifices to be made, this is a consequence too few consider. Will I be happy giving up what I now love doing? Is pursuit of directing the bigger picture what I really want?
Be sure you are willing to pay the price.
For me, the reason for moving from designing became much easier when the art and craftsmanship of engineering went from the manual process of ink drawn on mylar and pencil on vellum to the aggravation and myopic vision of Computer Aided Design while being chained to a computer screen. Although I loved creating the best possible visual presentation of my designs and ideas in a finished product to be used by others to build things, I hated the computerization of that and the loss of a tactile connection to creating. So, I decided it was time to position myself for managing and leading, to taking those presentation and simplification skills and transitioning them into leadership skills.
Recounting this reasoning I am reminded of Adrian Newey, the savant aerodynamicist/designer of Formula 1 race cars for Red Bull Racing. To this day, he formulates his designs and sketches by hand on a traditional drafting board with triangles, drafting machine, french curves and pencils. He refuses to give in, and his innate ability to converge the various disciplines to new designs remains inextricably tied to the tactility of feeling and visualizing what’s right. When other’s convert his drawings to 3D CAD models, they find he is invariably within a few thousandths of an inch of the required parameters. There’s a man who knows what he’s about, where his skills are best used, what is best for him. And he became the best in the world at it. Leadership isn’t always where we think it is.
For many of us, particularly in previous generations, the idea of company advancement was the meaning of a successful career. We get recognized for being good at what we do, and somehow that extrapolates into us being qualified to move up the management and leadership ladder. So often that is not the case, as we know the job is completely different. Nevertheless, many of us have more or less been chosen to become managers and leaders. Some of us take to it, buy in, have the persona, gravatas, and communication skills for it. Others simply languish, unhappy with the outcome.
There’s always the opportunity to change that. It’s not easy to change, but either way, leader, manager, or technician, we must be true to ourselves and decide how we are most satisfied contributing. Love what you do. Sometimes we learn to love what we do, or we simply love to learn. It’s a good life that can claim at least one.
