by Jack Welch
Don’t get us wrong. We’re definitely not discouraging anyone from getting an MBA. It’s a credential with heft—it does help critical thinking and introduce you to important managerial concepts best taught in a classroom by a smart professor and debated by high-powered peers. It does get you a better starting salary and more early visibility. But an MBA’s leg up lasts for only a finite period, after which performance takes precedent.
So, look again. The “automatic winners” you see around you probably aren’t automatic at all. They’re successful not just because of a credential they received graduation day, but because of their performance ever since.
DEAR GRADUATE
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As an ambitious twenty-two-year-old readying to enter the corporate world, how can I quickly distinguish myself as a winner?
—CORVALLIS, OREGON
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First of all, forget some of the most basic habits you learned in school. Once you are in the real world—and it doesn’t make any difference if you are twenty-two or sixty-two, starting your first job or your fifth—the way to get ahead is to overdeliver.
Look, for years, you’ve been taught the virtues of meeting specific expectations. And you’ve been trained that it’s an A-plus performance to fully answer every question the teacher asks.
Those days are over. To get an A-plus in business, you have to expand the organization’s expectations of you and then exceed them, and you have to fully answer every question the “teacher” asks, plus a slew of questions he or she didn’t even think of.
Your goal, in other words, should be to make your bosses smarter, your team more effective, and the whole company more competitive because of your energy, creativity, and insights.
And you thought school was hard!
But don’t panic. Just get in there and start thinking big. If your boss asks you for a report on the outlook for one of your company’s products over the next year, you can be sure she already has a solid sense of the answer. So, go beyond being the grunt assigned to confirm her hunch. Do the extra research, legwork, and data crunching to give her something that really expands her thinking—an analysis, for instance, of how the entire industry might play out over the next three years. What new companies and products might emerge? What technologies could change the game? Could someone, perhaps your own company, move production to China?
In other words, give your boss something that shocks and awes her, something new and interesting that she can report to her bosses. In time, those kinds of ideas will move the company forward and you upward.
But be careful. People who strive to overdeliver can quickly self-destruct if their big, wonderful, exciting suggestions are seen by others as unfettered braggadocio or not-so-subtle ladder scaling—or both.
That’s right—personal ambition can backfire.
Now, we’re not saying to curb yours. In fact, you should have it—have tons. But the minute you wear career lust on your sleeve, you run the risk of alienating people, in particular your peers. They will soon come to doubt the motives of your hard work. They will see any comments you make about, say, how the team could operate better, as political jockeying. And they will eventually see you as a striver, and in the long run, that’s a label that all the A-plus performing in the world can’t overcome.
So, by all means, overdeliver—but keep your desire to distinguish yourself as a winner to yourself. You’ll become one faster.
BIG COMPANY OR START-UP?
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Next spring, I will graduate from a great college, single and basically debt free. Right now, I have two options. I can return to the big company where I had a summer internship doing work I sort of liked with people I sort of liked. Or I can join a start-up with three friends, which is a long shot but could be a blast. What should I do?
—PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA
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At age twenty-one, with not a mortgage or student loan in sight, why would you ever, ever sign up to huddle in a corporate cubicle where you will do work you sort of like? To make your parents happy? To look good to your classmates? Don’t do that! In fact, in your situation, don’t even be worried if the people who love you most hear about your new job and react by saying, “You’re doing what?”
If there was ever a time to take chances, explore options, and swing for the fences, it is now. You can be cautious later, when you have an apartment in the city and a house in the country and two kids’ tuitions to pay. And your spouse loves luxury travel, expensive paintings, or most frightening of all, horses.
Right now, you’re as free as you will ever be. Plus, you’ve got a very nice credential hanging on your wall in your college degree. So take full advantage of what you’ve got: the open-mindedness to experiment, the capacity to live cheaply, and the permission most cultures grant young people to take risks and fail a few times.
These gifts probably won’t come your way again. Enjoy them!
IT STARTS WITH SELF-CONFIDENCE
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I am a young person, not long out of school, filled with ambition, creative ideas, and a burning desire to achieve a lot of things in my life, but one thing holds me back: fear of blowing it. How can I get some nerve?
—JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
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You don’t really need “nerve” exactly—you need self-confidence. Without it, you’re going nowhere, but you seem to know that already.
Look, only you know why and how self-confidence has eluded you so far. Perhaps you weren’t born with much, as there does indeed seem to be a genetic component to it. But by far, self-confidence is a developed trait. Some people get it at their mother’s knee, where they first hear the happy news that their every bright comment qualifies them for the Nobel Prize, or that they’re taller, more clever, and certainly better looking than every other child on the block. Others get it from great grades that set them apart, or sports at school, whether they score goals or get elected captain.
But there are no rules about where self-confidence begins. We know a twenty-seven-year-old entrepreneur from Slovenia who picked up self-confidence by watching his father struggle to launch a little machine tool company in 1991, literally just days after the country won independence from Yugoslavia. Today, this gutsy young man, fresh off an MBA in the United States, is in the midst of launching a global technology company of his own and sees no limits to his future.
We also know a successful New York mutual fund manager who got his first big dose of self-confidence as an adolescent, when he learned to pilot a small boat alone and spent a summer reeling in bluefish and striped bass in the rough seas of Cape Cod Bay. “After that,” he told us, “I thought I could do anything.”
Could he? Absolutely not. Through his long career, this mutual fund manager would tell you he has blown it many times. He started a communications company his senior year in college, grew it to a hundred employees and $40 million in sales, then lost it in a painful, protracted legal battle with a former partner. Several years later, he tried to start a consulting firm, which survived six months. But if those incidents spawned fear, this entrepreneur’s deep reservoir of self-confidence overcame it every time.
You need to start creating that kind of reservoir for yourself, even if it is from scratch.
How? Not with grandiose plans concocted to catapult you to fame and fortune and quash your fear of failure once and for all. Too many people believe that one big, public success will solve their self-confidence problems forever.
That only happens in the movies.
In real life, the opposite strategy is what works. Call it the “small victories” approach.
To begin, set a realistic goal, be it at work or home. Keep this goal attainable and contained; don’t overextend your expectations of yourself the first time out.
Then achieve that goal and feel good. You should.
Next, set a slightly larger goal, something somewhat bolder and enough of a stretch to put you slightly out of yo
ur comfort zone. Achieve that goal and feel even better. And so forth until you’re in a slow and steady forward march, building self-confidence step-by-step.
And it will build. One of us (Jack) delivered his first speech forty-odd years ago. It was a panic-inducing, awkward, heavily rehearsed event, practiced in front of the mirror for weeks in hopes of keeping his stammer in check, and then read from carefully typed sheets with all the ease of a man in a straitjacket. The actual talk took just fifteen minutes; however, they were (reportedly) the longest ever lived.
But there’s nothing more effective than tackling a challenge incrementally, growing and learning each time. After delivering speeches for decades to all kinds of audiences, today, for Jack, answering questions without notes in front of thousands of people is the opposite of nerve-racking; it’s fun.
Now, without doubt, you will screw up along the way as you try to build your self-confidence. Not every one of Jack’s speeches was better than the one before it, and it was a long time before giving them became fully enjoyable. But when your small victory turns out to be a small defeat, do not revert to fear mode. Go deep into that reservoir, understand what went wrong, set another goal, and start again.
The process won’t ever really end. As time goes on, your goals will just keep getting bigger and bigger. And failure, which will also occur on occasion, will come to feel like less and less of a thing to fear.
In time, you will discover that all failing really does is teach you something you needed to know—so you can regroup and stretch again, with ever more…nerve.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MENTORING
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Career development articles always say the same thing: “Find a good mentor.” It makes sense too, since mentors have been pivotal in the lives of so many people, opening up whole worlds of knowledge and experience. So, what advice do you have for getting someone like Bill Clinton or Warren Buffett to meet for even thirty minutes with a twenty-four-year-old?
—NEW YORK, NEW YORK
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Our advice would be that you are barking up the wrong tree. No doubt both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Buffett would give you profound insights into how to succeed in life and work. But a mentor isn’t a luminary with thirty minutes to spare. Frankly, a mentor isn’t even a VIP executive at your own company with an hour alloted just for you every other week.
Or it might be, as long as you have lots of other mentors too. And that’s our point. The single, looming, all-important mentor—as you point out, the Holy Grail of career development advice—is just so limiting! You want everyone you meet along the path of your career to be a mentor in some way or another, teaching you whatever he or she knows that you don’t.
Many companies, of course, don’t exactly approach mentoring with this mind-set. Instead, they sponsor formal mentoring programs in which bright young things are officially linked with older-and-wiser types for regularly scheduled meetings. Too often, such manufactured relationships are good mainly for directions to the lunchroom and tips on how to navigate the company’s benefits system. Devoid of any real chemistry or work-related meaning, they usually devolve into nothingness pretty quickly.
By contrast, the best mentoring relationships are informal, forged not just with random higher-ups, but with peers and subordinates too—that is, with anyone who can expand your knowledge and way of thinking. These relationships, inside your organization and out, within your functional area or not, can last weeks or a lifetime. They can grow into friendships or be purely functional. Either way, they are about learning at every opportunity—from every person willing to teach you.
We’re not saying you shouldn’t try to get on the calendars of the world’s leading lights—more power to you—but we are suggesting there might be a better long-term use of your time. Look for good ideas everywhere. Every time you find one, you’ve got yourself another mentoring experience.
THE BAD BOSS NO-BRAINER
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What’s better: to work for a bad boss at a good company, or a good boss at a weak company?
—CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
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We’ve gotten this question several times while traveling around the world, and we have been amazed at how split audiences seem on the answer. Amazed, because to us this is an absolute no-brainer. If you had to pick between these options, by all means, work for the good company!
Here’s our reasoning. If you truly are at a good company, its leaders will eventually find the bad boss and get him or her out. That can take time—months, or even a year or more. In that case, you might even be rewarded with a promotion for having delivered results during your ordeal. After all, everyone’s been there at some point in his or her career, toiling for someone moody, mean, or just plain incompetent.
But even if you’re not promoted for your “hardship duty,” you will still be better off for having endured. You will be able to stay where you are in the good company with a new and better boss or move sideways to a fresh opportunity. Remember: any experience you get at a good company, around smart people, is worthwhile, and a good company’s reputation gives you an excellent career credential down the road, if you need it.
Now think about the other scenario. Without question, having a good boss is one of life’s best experiences. Good bosses can make work fun, meaningful, and all those warm, fuzzy things. Good bosses can make work feel like a home away from home. They can make your team feel like a family. In some cases, they can even make you feel like you’ve found a long lost friend or finally gotten parental approval.
But the good boss–weak company dynamic is a velvet coffin. All bosses eventually depart—moved up, out, or sideways. And someday your good boss will leave you too. In fact, good bosses in weak companies are especially vulnerable to change, because they have the extra stress of “protecting” their people from the impact of the company’s larger problems. This burden can wear them out or make them political pariahs or both. Either way, in time, they go.
In other words, the great feeling you get from working for a good boss in a weak company is only temporary. Your boss will leave, but the weak company will still be there, and you won’t be able to do a thing about it. You’ll be trapped. Getting a new job after you’ve worked at a company with a mediocre or poor reputation is hard. It’s almost as if you’re tainted.
In some ways, then, this question comes down to a choice between short-and long-term gains. In the short term, working for a bad boss, even in a good company, can be a living hell. But in the long term, when the boss is gone, at least you’ll have opportunity to move on.
Working for a good boss in the short term, of course, can be thoroughly enjoyable, even when the company is collapsing around you. Long-term, however, those happy vibes will come back to bite you. Your boss will be gone, and all you’ll have is a second-rate credential and nice memories.
By all means, do your career a favor and get your memories elsewhere.
WE’VE JUST BEEN ACQUIRED AND I HATE IT
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My small company was recently acquired by a global corporation, and I can’t stand what’s going on. In trying to make us just like them, the new owners are killing what made us worth acquiring in the first place. I love my old company, but I am thinking about getting out of here. Should I?
—ATLANTA, GEORGIA
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Your language says it all—“the new owners,” you say, and “my old company.” You sound just like the bane of every acquiring company in the history of mergers. You’re a resister, and if you don’t change your ways, you probably won’t last anyway.
Now, we definitely don’t want to belittle how hard it is to go through an acquisition. When your company is bought or folded into another entity, even as a “merger of equals,” it can absolutely feel like a death has occurred. Every work relationship you’ve had is ruptured. Every achievement you’ve posted is pretty much forgotten. The future looks very uncertain, and often pretty grim. Overall, for people at the c
ompany being bought, acquisitions usually feel absolutely awful.
But you have to face reality. When good companies do acquisitions, the buyers feel pretty terrific. They’re excited, filled with optimism, and dreaming about all the opportunities that their new purchase will bring. (After all, they’ve usually paid a lot for it!) One of those opportunities is the chance to find great people within the acquired company. In fact, smart acquirers are thinking, “We’ve just landed a whole new pool of players to choose from.”
As the new owners go about picking the best and brightest from the combined teams, they are looking for two things: talent and commitment. But make no mistake—they want those two traits blended in each individual. Talent alone is not enough. In fact, if there is one thing we have learned from working through and watching hundreds of M & A events, it is that companies will always choose to keep and promote people with buy-in over resisters, even if the resisters have more brains. No acquirer in the world wants someone around who is whining and moaning about the “good old days.” It doesn’t make any difference how much they know.
