How to Balance Current Responsibilities and Professional Growth

Sometimes people ask me questions like, “How do you balance improving vs. doing your job?” And “How do you personally learn and develop, Chris?” I’ll attempt to answer these questions in this post.

Living in the in between

The tension between focusing all our attention on what needs to be done today vs. developing new skills for the future is the tension between who you are today and who you are becoming.

Often we want to skip over the becoming part and get right to the future state of success. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. The in-between process and struggle is where you pay the price for the future you want to live.

My personal process 

Whenever I want to change something, the first place I start is by studying it. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I believe the process of becoming a student forces a posture of humility and opens one’s mind to learn and grow. 

If you want to become a great leader, study leadership. If you want to become a great public speaker, study the art of public speaking. If you want to be a great manager, study management. This worldview and belief is at the core of Leadr and at the core of my personal approach to growth. I truly believe disciplined and focused study can change your life. And I believe anyone can do it. 

That's my story. I wasn't a great CEO, so I studied the characteristics of great CEOs and methodically worked on improving each one of those characteristics one by one until I had mastered them (or at least become competent). 

Does it work? Does it work for you?

Recently, I've been reading a lot about health and fitness. I've always had a problem with my weight, and I've never really managed to get it under control. A few extra pounds per year over a few decades adds up to be a big problem. 

So, I read a lot of different ideas. One person said to eat lots of carbs, another said to eat lots of protein, and still another said not to eat any carbs at all. 

Of course, the key in all learning is not to simply find truisms but to actually find truth—something that always works. And when it comes to something personal (like a meal plan), the best plan is the one you personally can stick with. 

What works for someone may not work for someone else. I don't mean that eating less carbs doesn't work. It will, if you stick with it. But it will only work if you can stick with it over a long period of time. If you can’t, it doesn’t work for you.

Living outside the box

There was a great New Zealand middle distance runner who died recently called Peter Snell. Peter was one of the best middle distance runners ever. He won three Olympic gold medals and is the only male since 1920 to have won the 800 and 1500 meters at the same Olympics in 1964. 

He wasn't really interested in running until he met his coach, Arthur Lydiard. Arthur Lydiard is known as one of the best coaches ever. But he didn't look around for the best talent available. Rather, he started with a few boys who lived within a few mile radius of his house and turned them into the best middle distance runners in the world. He also created the term jogging. 

His method was both incredibly simple and incredibly controversial. I’ve written about not just thinking outside the box, but living outside it. Well, Arthur Lydiard was one of the best examples of this. This is what he had to say when reflecting on his career: 

You know, New Zealanders are said to be the greatest knockers in the world. If you're a Finn, and you succeed, they'll put you on a pedestal and give you acclaim. In New Zealand, if you get ahead of the other guy, they're going to kick you in the gut every way they can and pull you down to their level. We know this. And, of course, I was criticized. I wasn't one of the elite characters. I was just a guy that would train my athletes, running around the roads, and I got a lot of criticism. But we went on our own program, we ignored these guys. They still say I'm wrong, but it doesn't worry me. It's just how difficult it is in New Zealand. 

What kind of methodology could an athletics coach have that would be so controversial that even after his success, people around the world would attack him and his methods? 

Well, he believed that in order to run fast, you first have to run long. Really, really, really long. Here's Arthur Lydiard describing his methodology:

Well, I got a lot of criticism. People said, "You're coaching a middle distance runner, and he's running 100 miles a week in the evening, and maybe jogging 40 miles a week in the mornings, and the guy has to run around the track just 2 or 4 times." But what they didn't understand was that your performance level is really governed by your aerobic capacity, your ability to assimilate, transport and utilize oxygen, not by your anaerobic development. Your anaerobic development is a limited factor—you can't turn all your blood into lactic acid. But these people didn't realize that if we're going to improve our performance level, we've got to improve our endurance, our ability to withstand higher oxygen debts and not get tired. 

Think about that for a second. Arthur Lydiard was training athletes to run middle distance races: 400m, 800m, or even the mile. To achieve success in those races he got his athletes to run 100-140km each week (60-80 miles). This base level conditioning allowed athletes to have cardio (aerobic fitness) as a base to build their power and strength (anaerobic fitness) on top of.

Connecting the dots

So what does this have to do with the business world and growing and developing while keeping up with your regular responsibilities? Four points come to mind.

First, if you want to grow and develop, you have to start by delivering in your current role and even working to exceed expectations there. So many people want to shortcut the process and just be able to get to the next rung on the ladder without first mastering their current role. But mastering your role now is critical to your future success.

A great scripture says: If you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? 

One application of this could be to look through the eyes of the owner of the company or the customer using the product you built or to think about how it would feel to sit on the other side of your sales call. This will have the inevitable result of lifting your standards about what excellent looks like. 

You should be harder on yourself than your manager is on you. I know it might sound counter-intuitive, but you should have a list of your weaknesses and areas where you're falling short, and you should be discussing them with your manager on a frequent basis. This will make you stand out from the people around you. Having a higher standard for yourself will force you to be better and work harder now so you can get where you eventually want to go faster.

Second, almost certainly this means you need to put in a lot of time. In Arthur Lydiard's analogy, you first have to run long. Really, really, really long. 

In today's world, this is a heresy much like it was back in Arthur Lydiard's time. People promise you that you can have everything you ever wanted and work <40 hours a week. I'm here to tell you those people are lying to you. 

I've never met a single executive, entrepreneur or founder who works social hours and is successful. I'm sure they exist, but they're the exception not the rule. 

Our team at Leadr is marked by its extraordinary work ethic. If there's a problem in front of us, and we can't go around it, over it, or under it, we're going right through it. The old fashioned way. We will brute force our way through a problem if that's what it takes. And this is the kind of determination and dedication you need to adopt if you want to go far. It will not be easy. 

Before becoming their coach, Arthur Lydiard asked his athletes one simple question: "Are you willing to run 80 miles per week every week to achieve your goal?" If they answered no, he wouldn't coach them.

Third, you need to be able to run long distances in your aerobic zone. This means being able to handle a lot of work without starting to go into deficit. One of the best executives I worked with at Pushpay started as a manager. He got his work completed, and he always delivered on what he said he would. 

When things came up, he had the capacity to handle it and never dropped the ball. So he got promoted to a more senior role. He worked his butt off, and within two months had his new responsibilities under control. A few quarters later he was promoted again. 

If you want more responsibility then have the capacity to take on bigger and larger challenges. Senior executives have more great projects than they do great leaders to do them. That means the growth of the organization is limited by this capacity. 

Fourth, look for incremental gains. People want to make large improvements frequently. But the race is won one mile at a time. The question some people might ask successful runners is, “Which one of the tens of thousands of miles you ran in practice made the difference?”. Or sometimes people ask me, “Which one of the millions of decisions you made as a CEO made all the difference?”.

It's crazy to even think that way. Like the pyramid above, success is built one good decision or one mile at a time. It starts with making good decisions in your current role. You can then build your career on top of a foundation of good decisions (and good outputs).

But none of this matters if you have a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset.

The two kinds of mindsets 

Carol Dweck contrasts the two mindsets in her book Mindset:

Fixed Mindset 

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you only have a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character—well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look deficient in these most basic characteristics.

Growth Mindset 

In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and exercise.

Those with a growth mindset believe that you have to work hard in order to achieve success—that it doesn’t just come naturally. They love what they’re doing, regardless of the outcome. 

For growth mindset-oriented folks, their work is meaningful because they’re applying themselves, giving their best, and solving challenging and important problems. It’s about the journey, not just the destination. 

As a result, even if the outcome is not a “success,” they feel the effort was rewarding and worthwhile in itself. People with the growth mindset stretch themselves more, think bigger, take more risks, and learn something new, regardless of the outcome. 

Michael Jordan was one of the hardest working basketball players throughout his schooling and his career. Dweck again, 

At the University of North Carolina, he constantly worked on his weaknesses — his defensive game and his ball handling and shooting. The coach was taken aback by his willingness to work harder than anyone else. Once, after the team lost the last game of the season, Jordan went and practiced his shots for hours. He was preparing for the next year. Even at the height of his success and fame — after he had made himself into an athletic genius — his dogged practice remained legendary. 

Couldn't think of a better example to end on. 

→ Your turn. What’s one takeaway you’re going to apply starting today?