Promote Yourself (25 page)

Now, to give you an idea of how this looks from the managers' side, here's a story told to me by Brian Halligan, the CEO of HubSpot. “Pete Caputa was a young employee who joined our sales organization. Every month we gave him about 200 leads to work and he perpetually ignored them. It turns out that Pete's goal was to start a reseller channel for HubSpot. So instead of bringing in customers himself, he was signing up partners to do the job. Initially, he got plenty of pushback for his idea, but we eventually saw the numbers and ‘fired' him from his job in direct sales and made his reseller project his new day job. Today, Pete has about forty people on his team and accounts for about 40 percent of HubSpot's new revenue.”

If you learn just one thing from my story and Pete's, it's that you should keep doing the things you're passionate about and let others see that passion in action. If they don't know about it and never see it, how can they possibly support you? Having you work on projects you're passionate about is not only good for you, it's good for the company too. You'll put in longer hours, do a better job, and be a more committed, dedicated employee.

 

How to Do It

Unfortunately, because every situation is unique, I can't give you a series of steps that are guaranteed to take you from where you are to where you want to be. Sometimes where you want to be may be a lateral move, meaning a new job at your current company without a new title or a raise. Don't be afraid of lateral moves—people make them all the time. You might make a lateral move to acquire new skills and/or knowledge in other areas that are important to your career and the company you work for. Or you might do it because you see an area of your company that plays more to your strengths and interests than the one you're currently in.

Making a lateral move in a small company is often easier than in a big company (but not always). Sometimes all it takes to make a change is to raise the idea with your manager. Other times you may have to overcome significant resistance. Sometimes the transition can take a week, other times, six months or longer. Sometimes a manager in another department will recruit you, other times you'll have to make the first step. Despite the uncertainty, there are a few guidelines that will help speed up the process:

 

1. Find out what's available.
But be careful—you don't want to give away that you're thinking about moving until you're actually ready to make your move. One easy, low-key (and under-the-radar) way to find out about opportunities is to use your company's internal social networks and job boards. If you need more information, ask around, but keep your conversations as informal as possible.

 

2. Make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.
Speak to people who are doing what you want to do. Network with them so you know exactly what their job entails before you jump. Really analyze the opportunity. What problems does the organization you want to join have? What openings do they have? How do you see your strengths helping your target organization solve its problems? And be sure you've really looked into what life would be like in your new position. What kinds of projects are they working on? Is the manager someone you can work for? Are your prospective teammates people you can work with? Will the new job truly allow you to use more of your talents and skills than you are using in your current job? Making a switch before you've answered these questions could turn out to be a disaster.

 

3. Build a name for yourself.
We've talked about this in previous chapters, but it's worth touching on again. It's essential that you continually demonstrate that you're someone who has high-value solutions. That means putting yourself in positions where you can demonstrate your skills. If, for example, you're interested in transitioning to a Web position within your company, start by doing a critique of the company's Web site focusing not so much on what's wrong, but on what you would do to make it better. The same goes for anything else you see that your company could improve on. Do you see trends in your industry that no one else does? If so, start a blog and brand yourself as the expert.

 

How to Balance Passion-Driven Projects with Your Current Job

Sometimes making a lateral move is as easy as checking a box on a form. And some companies, such as Google, will allow you to spend a certain percentage of your workday (at Google, it's 20 percent) on projects that are outside your current job description but that benefit the company. Most of the time, though, you'll have to pursue your passion on your own time. Between your regular job, taking classes to improve your skills, networking with people you hope to work with soon, and all the hours you'd ordinarily spend pursuing your passion, you could end up putting in the equivalent of two full-time jobs. Consider it a sacrifice you're making today so you'll have a better tomorrow.

If you're lucky, you'll be able to do most of that extra work on the weekends, during lunch, or before and after work. But regardless of your schedule, your goal is the same: to impress your prospective manager so much that he wants to bring you in full-time. The most important thing to remember about balancing a passion-driven project with your current job is that the current job comes first. Always. You were hired to do a job, so do it. And do it well. If you let your current workload (or work quality) slip, no one will have the confidence that you'll be able to perform in your new job.

 

Getting Your Boss in Your Corner

As mentioned above, getting your boss behind you is essential if you're going to be able to make a successful transition to a new, more passion-driven position in your company. At the very least, he or she may be able to help you open doors and get access to people you couldn't reach on your own. Not keeping your manager in the loop could make you seem disloyal and might undermine your security in your current job. Plus, getting the reputation as someone who sneaks around behind managers' backs will keep you from moving to any other job. In our study, 73 percent of the managers we interviewed said they would be willing or extremely willing to support an employee who wants to move to a different position at work. Oddly, though, only 48 percent of young workers said they would be interested in actually making a move. I suspect that number would be a lot higher if those workers knew their managers would be supportive.

So how do you get your boss on board? It starts with letting him know what you're interested in—he can't support you if you keep your aspirations to yourself. The perfect time is during or right after a performance evaluation (I'm assuming you got rave reviews). You could simply say something along the lines of, “I know I'm really good at ____. Do you see any opportunities for me to use those skills on this team?” Hopefully, your manager will say yes. But at the very least, a good manager should say, “That's great. Next time there's a project that can use those skills, I'll keep you in mind.”

Before you approach your boss, be sure to do some research. If you can show your boss that you've looked into specific departments and what their needs are, that you've investigated what positions are open and what the qualifications are, and you can articulate how your skills can benefit the company, it will be very hard for your boss not to support you.

And keep things positive. You'll have a lot more success if you talk with your manager about the things you love about your job and how you'd like to build on your skills, instead of talking about what you hate about your job.

Ryan Benevides, a young Senior Valuation & Financial Analyst at GE, told me a great story about how he landed his dream job—in part by getting his boss behind him. Ryan had been with GE for four years and decided that he wanted to move into underwriting and investment analysis. His managers supported him, but the company had a hiring freeze, and there were no positions available. Of course, he was discouraged. But he had a feeling that the hiring freeze wouldn't last forever. So he started calling all the managers in the department he was hoping to work in and asked each one a single question: “What is something that's important to your business but you're not able to execute because of HR issues?” After a week of interviews he combed through all the feedback and wrote a plan that ended up driving his career in the direction he wanted to go—and would benefit the department he wanted to move to.

Next, he set up a meeting with his manager and presented the plan. Here's how he describes what happened next. “During this meeting I made sure to point out that I would still be able to do my current job, plus I would be able to help meet the needs of an office with resource issues. I hoped that would allow them to create a new role—which, of course, I would be the one to fill. My manager was really supportive, and at the end of the meeting he helped get the proposal up through the appropriate channels to get approved. The result was a four-week resource-sharing initiative where I worked tirelessly to maintain the output of my current job and, at the same time, to help fill the most important gap in the target office's business. About three weeks into the initiative I was offered a job as a permanent member of the target office—in the exact function I wanted. I appreciate that sometimes doors need to be pushed before they can be unlocked and opened.”

He was successful in creating a brand-new position for himself based on his interests, passions, and desired expertise. He saw the opportunity, got his manager to buy into it, and expanded his role temporarily in order to reposition himself for a job he really wanted. You can do the same.

One way to ease into this is to get involved in a few projects that involve the department you think you might want to move to. This will allow you to test the waters and your prospective new team to get a taste of the skills you bring to the table and the kinds of results you're capable of producing. This is going to involve putting in some extra hours, say five to ten per week in addition to the forty you're already working on your original job (if you're okay skipping lunches, you might not even notice much difference). Anything less than five hours you'll have a hard time getting a feel for what working in the new department would actually be like. Much more than ten and you may be too exhausted to do a good job.

 

If You're Passionate About Your Job, You'll Perform Better and Get Ahead Faster

I can't stress enough how important it is to focus on your strengths and passions in the workplace. If you aren't excited about what you're doing, you're not going to put in the necessary effort and you could end up slacking off, getting bored, or not feeling fulfilled. Once you know what you really want to do, start looking for a place within your company where you can do it—someplace you know you can really add value.

Before you commit yourself to making a change, make sure you're completely confident that the position you'd like to move into will actually enable you to put your passions and strengths to work. Next, get your boss on board. Having them behind you will make it easier to transition to a new position when the time is right. Finally, start doing additional work outside your current job to build visibility and show that you can produce results and be successful in the position you'd like to move to. Good companies—and good managers—that see their talent as their greatest asset will want to support you because it's good for you and for the company.

One quick caution: Remember, your current job comes first. Do not rush into this without first proving yourself. If you let your performance slip and you aren't doing what you were originally hired to do, no one will be interested in having you join their team.

Keep in mind: You don't have to move up and get a raise to get ahead in your career. Sometimes a lateral move is just what you need to get into a position where you can learn new skills, gain a better understanding of how your company works, and establish new connections. After you've been at your job long enough to have mastered it—and come to the conclusion that it's not the best use of your strengths and passions, start looking around inside your company for ways to better leverage them. If there's a role that seems a better fit than what you're currently doing, or there's a project that excites the hell out of you, go for it! Getting that new position will make it easier to get noticed and promote yourself because you will be happier (have a better attitude), work harder, and perform better. When you're doing something you enjoy, you naturally will want to be good at it and eventually master it. This will help you get ahead at work and become more successful.

 

10

Start Your Own Business While on the Job

 

Virgin could never have grown into the group of more than 200 companies it is now, were it not for a steady stream of intrapreneurs who looked for and developed opportunities, often leading efforts that went against the grain.

—RICHARD BRANSON

 

Over the past few years, I've noticed two new trends in the corporate world. First, instead of buying start-ups in order to acquire the targets' technology, corporations are beginning to invest in start-ups in exchange for an equity stake. Second, realizing that they have to constantly innovate in order to stay competitive, companies are increasingly turning to their own employees for new ideas—and they're funding these employee-generated projects. In this chapter, I'll show you how you can take advantage of both of these related trends by becoming an
intrapreneur
—someone who acts like an entrepreneur but operates within a large company.

Everything we've touched on in previous chapters—from hard and soft skills to networking—is part of the solid foundation you're building at work. But becoming an intrapreneur is a real game changer. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a better way to stand out at work and promote yourself than to come up with an idea that moves your company forward. When you make a name for yourself as a forward-thinking person who's committed to the company's success and who's helping drive the bottom line in a new way, you'll get ahead a lot faster than your peers. Instead of waiting for a manager to retire or get promoted so you can move into his office, why not create your own role in your company? Becoming an intrapreneur allows you to position yourself as a leader, an innovative thinker and problem solver, and a real mover and shaker. Succeed as an intrapreneur and you'll become so valuable to your company that everyone will want to work with you. At that point, there's no limit to how far you can go in your career.