My book club loved Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt and I recently revisited it in preparation for a job interview. This time round I saw some insights that I might apply to personal strategy, in particular my own career. A caveat first – I’d be very cautious about applying this kind of strategic thinking to my work on a day-to-day basis. Corporate strategy is essentially about building competitive advantage over others, and I think our genetics already wire us to pursue status games that are mostly unhelpful at a corporate (and human) level. I don’t want to develop a consciously strategic approach to reinforce my unconscious biases.
However, I wonder if it might be useful in thinking about careers. What career do I want, and how do I go about getting it, especially in competition with other applicants?
Here are three insights I’ve been thinking about:
Play to your strengths
Firms should identify their strengths and play to them – ‘press where you have advantages and sidestep situations where you are weak’. Contrast this with the career development advice that we focus on areas of weakness, indeed that we actively seek out roles and opportunities that use them intensively.
I concede a case for building ‘foundation’ skills that are useful for all jobs, but if you are very good at one set of tasks, why spend time in a role that primarily requires others? Rumelt’s approach seems more sensible to me, for both the individual and the organisation. For example, I know I need some basic project management skills, but I’m pretty sure I’d can add more value in a role that plays more to my analytical and coaching strengths. It’s much more likely to help me deepen my advantages which I can use for future career progression. Moreover, I’m likely to find it more enjoyable.
I think the analogy stretches to job interviews too, where we should find every opportunity to showcase strengths in our answers, not to highlight weaknesses.
So my first conclusion is to seek out jobs that primarily exploit my strengths and develop them, not ones that utilise my weaker areas. Right now this means roles that value analytical thinking and intellectual curiosity, connecting people to ideas, a coaching approach and working creatively with groups.
Be less myopic
Making and benefiting from good strategy doesn’t require a precise forecast of the future, which is just as well given the huge uncertainties in my line of work. Moreover, periods of significant change can often provide the greatest opportunities for building competitive advantage, because relative strengths change and the next move becomes less obvious. The good news from an individual perspective is that most of us are so remiss in looking ahead that we can gain an edge simply by being just a bit less myopic . We don’t need to be right about the future, just more right than others.
Applying this to myself, I don’t know for sure how technological change is going to affect my workplace. But a bit of thought suggests that two areas that might be useful to build expertise in are harnessing intrinsic motivation (since knowledge work is so hard to measure) and working with virtual teams (since technology allows for remote working). And working amidst Brexit probably means I’d benefit from building up some insights in trade economics.
That gives me some development areas that both deepen existing advantages in coaching approach and economic analysis, and strengthen my position relative to others. It is also a reminder to take stock every so often about how the world is changing and what might be a useful way to respond. To steal another idea from the book, when the world is complex and you don’t know what the ‘right’ end point is, the best approach is usually to ‘improve your position and generate options’.
Question your own judgement
When we feel we need to act, it is very easy to jump at the first insight that seems to explain the data, but this is risky. There are usually several plausible explanations for what is happening and we should examine each of them before making a call. Even once we’ve made our strategic choice, we should be prepared to change it as we confront the messy reality of the world. Rumelt urges that we find ways to question our own judgement before deciding, and to revisit whether we right afterwards. We should commit to our judgements so that we can learn when they are proved right or wrong.
I should test my thinking with others (I welcome your comments!) and come back to this blog post to see how valid my strategic judgement has been!
Inner Game Theory 