At this point, many career advice books suggest that you take an inventory of what you bring to the world of work in order to figure out what you have and what is unique to you. Many career coaching books will tell you to list your skills, abilities, the disciplines that you are expert in, the test results measured by leadership, personality, or job strengths surveys, and things about you that differentiate you from other job seekers, such as foreign languages or fine arts creativity.
STOP! That’s putting the cart before the proverbial horse.
As we discussed in Part Four, F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Action is character.” A person’s actions define them far more clearly than anything they say. As we discussed in Lesson 28, the biggest mistake that I see people make is to focus on their inputs when what the world (and companies) care about is outcomes. MBA students’ resumes often get it backwards. They highlight their inputs, such as that they learned finance or strategy. Or they list personal qualities, such as a "good communicator" or a "good motivator" or a "good problem-solver."
They are better advised to state their outcomes, i.e., what they have accomplished or can accomplish, such as selling 20% more product above the quota, reducing machine downtime by 50%, or increasing customer satisfaction by 12%. Saying you have leadership qualities is not nearly as compelling as providing an example of how your leadership helped a group of people accomplish something significant.
And that something significant starts not from your point of view, but from the organization’s point of view. You must think first about what you can actually do that helps that company be more productive and profitable. We’ll start there.
Critical Path Action Items
Do you think consistently think about your work from the organization’s point of view?
What critical path job achievements have you made and can point to?