Three minutes a day can shift your career. Here’s how
For most people, finding success isn’t that hard. Look around you. You’re surrounded by people who have managed to complete a challenging education, get a job in a field they enjoy, and work their way to success. Look at your own resume. By any objective measure, it’s truly remarkable, what you’ve managed to accomplish.
The reason we’re good at this part – at meeting a goal – is because our culture and our workplaces are systems designed to support goal attainment. We have all the support we need, all the incentive we could want, to hit a target. We have lots of opportunity to practice.
Which is to say, maybe we don’t need to keep working so hard at this same skill in order to continue to find success. We know how to do this part.
And maybe there are other areas crying out for our attention.
It / We / I
“It”, “we”, and “I” is an important framework for thinking about where we focus our attention. In this framework, “it” is what we’re focusing on when there’s a target, a goal, a project, an assignment – a clear accomplishment we are working toward. “It” is what most of our jobs are.
“I” is what we’re focusing on when we are learning more about ourselves, our self-awareness, working on personal improvements or behavioral changes. We need to spend a fair amount of time invested in “I”.
“We” is what we’re focusing on when we’re cultivating and nurturing relationships with others. “We” is the most under-invested dimension of the three, while also being disproportionately important to love, fulfillment and achievement at the highest levels.
If you’d like to test whether “it” and “I” takes more of your focus than “we”, do this: Write a list of your accomplishments, a list of your passions and interests, and a list of the people you consider close and trusted colleagues, where your relationship has deepened and elevated to a higher stage. Most people can only manage two or three people on this list of people considered close and trusted colleagues. And here’s the thing – we know for sure that human connections are the key to living a satisfying, fulfilled life. Human connections are key to achievement at the highest level.
In his book A Promised Land, former President Barack Obama notes that when he stopped talking about his accomplishments and plans on the campaign trail in 2008 (his “I” and “it”), and instead started listening to and connecting with people (“we”), everything shifted. Not only did he now understand the needs of the people better, the people felt heard and respected. This moment represented a massive shift for how he approached politics.
What makes “we” so hard?
First, it’s not your fault. Our culture isn’t designed to reward deep people-connecting. We reward focus on “it” and “I”. In our hyper-connected, stimulated world, building relational currency is hard. The rewards take a long time to reveal themselves. It’s easier to focus on short-term gains that we can point to and say, “I did that.”
From an organizational perspective, “we” success is impossible to measure on a quarterly basis or with numbers, whereas “it” has quick evaluation built in. This makes it hard to shift a workplace culture toward deeper support of human connections, though it’s critical for so many reasons. It’s popular for organizations to seek “transformational leaders”. But if the measure of a leader’s success is sales numbers or product delivery or any other “it”, then leaders aren’t being given the support they need to be transformational. Transformation happens in and with people.
What to do?
If you’re a leader at the highest level in an organization, consider the metrics with which you evaluate success for yourself and your staff. While it would be foolish to ignore the numbers entirely, consider whether there are ways of shifting the emphasis a bit. Can you start setting an example that prioritizes human connection? Can you put words to this in a company-wide email or meeting? Can you articulate the value of nurturing relationships, and the direct connection this has to business success?
Three minutes a day for “we”
No matter who you are, the pursuit of “we” isn’t complicated. But it does take deliberate action. To cultivate and nurture deeper relationships with the people around you, commit three minutes a day to the small moves that matter. Here are some examples:
· Email a colleague you haven’t connected with in a while. It doesn’t have to be long. A simple, “I was thinking about you and wanted to see what you’re up to” is sufficient.
· Think about who on your team might need some extra attention. Maybe you’ve noticed someone is smiling less or has been late to a meeting or two. Express your concern by simply asking, “Is everything ok?”
· Make a point of praising someone in your next meeting.
· Send a thank-you to someone who has helped you in some way.
Imagine the bank of connection you can build in just fifteen minutes over the course of a week. The magical thing about shifting your focus to connections is that “it” keeps plodding along on its course as before, but now you have human connection to help power your success. When challenging times come, the strength of those connections will help you move forward.
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