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Transcript

We Don't Walk Away Empty · The Person behind the Position

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode three. We don't walk away empty. We
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: bring years of life to the position. I just turned
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: forty eight this year, and I can say I've had
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of jobs. I've been a teacher's assistant, I've
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: been a professor, I've been a chief supervisor. I've been
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a retail manager. I've been a copy operator. And that barely.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Scratches the surface.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: When I think about all of those positions, I realized something.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't leave everything I learned behind it when I
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: left the job. I took some of it with me.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Every position taught me something. Some taught me skills, Some
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: taught me how to deal with people. Some taught me
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: what kind of supervisor I wanted to be, and if
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I'm being truthfuls some taught me what kind of supervisor
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to be. Because when we leave a position,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: we don't walk away empty. We take something with us,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and then we carry some of those things to whatever
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: comes next. We know the people behind the titles, but
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the title only tells us what someone does, not who
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: they are.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the person.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Behind the position, where we look beyond the title to
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: discover the person carrying it.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Michael Bismas.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: When I walked into those different positions, I didn't walk
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in and they either. I brought Michael. I brought how
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I was raised. I brought my education, I brought my
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: previous experiences. I brought my successes. I brought my disappointments.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I brought things I was confident about and things I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't so confident about. And I brought things that other
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: positions had already taught me.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I know how to fix a copier.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I know how to spiral bind a two hundred page document.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I know how to manage the schedules of multiple people.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Some of those things probably aren't going to be at
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the top of my resume. Nobody's going to look at
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: my resume and said, Michael knows how to spiral bind
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: a two hundred page document, we've got to hire him.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: But I know how to do it, and I learned
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it somewhere. That's what the years do. We pick up
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: things along the way. Some things are directly related to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the next position we take, and some are and sometimes
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: we don't realize something we learned ten or twenty years ago.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: It's still useful until we need it. Organizations often want
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a certain number of years of experience in a particular
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: discipline five years, ten years, twenty years, and experience matters,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: those years represent more than a number.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Those years contained things.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: We've learned people, We've encountered problems, we've solved mistakes, we've
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: made skills, we've developed successes, we've experienced failures, we've experienced things.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: We've tried, things that work and things that didn't work.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: But here's the other side to that. Not everything we
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: carry from one position to another necessarily helps us in
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the next one. I know that over the years I
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: learned how to work by myself. Managers realized they could
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: trust me. They give me something to do, and most
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: of the time I'm going to figure out how.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: To get it done.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: That was a blessing and a curse, because once managers
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: realized I could work independently, they allowed me to work independently,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and that somehow, over time I got used to it.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Now I know how to work on a team.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: But knowing how to work on a team and being
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: accustomed to working on a team aren't necessarily the same thing.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: So I imagine I walk into an organization where collaboration
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: is a major part of the culture everything's team based.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: People work together, Departments collaborate, decisions are made collectively. Something
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that was considered a strength in one environment, my ability
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: to work independently could become an area where I need.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Development in another.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean independence suddenly became a bad thing. It
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: means the environment changed and I had to recognize that.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So I started asking if I could work with other teams.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I wanted that experience. I needed to know what it
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: felt like to work differently from what I had become
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: accustomed to. Nobody had to tell me I was bad
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: at my job. Nobody had to tell me I was failing.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I simply had to look inward and to recognize, here's
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: an area where I can grow.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And that makes me wonder.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: How many of the things we call weaknesses are actually
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: areas where somebody simply hasn't had enough opportunity to develop.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe they can do it. They made no management. But
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: they don't know your organization. They don't know your culture,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: they don't know your systems. They don't know your people.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: They don't know the history. They don't know how your
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: team communicates. They don't know the unwritten rules. They may
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: not understand why something looks inefficient, it's being done the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: way it's being done, and maybe there's even something they
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: probably should know but they don't. That's possible too, because
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: experience doesn't mean we know everything.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: So now there's this tension.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: On one hand, you hired me because I'm experienced, but
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, I still need you to develop
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: me for this position. And those aren't contradictory statements. Both
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: can be true. I can bring twenty years of experience
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: into the room and still need someone to show me something.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I can be very good at what I do and
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: still need development. I can have degrees and still need development.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I can have titles and still need development. I can
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: have spent years mastering my craft and still encounter something
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I've never seen before. The organization is a responsibility not
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: to assume that experience eliminates the need for development. But
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I have a responsibility too. I have to remain willing
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to learn. I have to remain willing to look inward.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I have to appreciate everything the years have.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Taught me without convincing myself that the years have taught
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: me everything. And sometimes that may mean saying three words
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that become harder to say. The more experienced we become
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I need help, maybe I need
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: some training, Maybe I need somebody to show me. Maybe
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I need another opportunity to practice. And sometimes admitting that
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: can be uncomfortable, because if everybody hired me because of
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: what I know, what happens when I admit there's something
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know. That's another conversation, and I think we'll
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: get there. But for now, I want you to think
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: about the positions you've held, Not just the important ones,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: not just the ones on your resume, think about all
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: What did you learn.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Did you pick up? What did you learn from doing
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: something well? What did you learn from getting something wrong?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: What did somebody teach you that you're still using did
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you learn that you eventually had to unlearn? What are
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you carrying into that position or into the position you're
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: in today, And perhaps most importantly, it's everything you're carrying
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: still helping you because we bring years of life to
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the position, and when one position ends, we don't simply
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: leave everything behind. We take lessons, we take skills, we
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: take memories, we take successes, we take failures. Sometimes we
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: take confidence, sometimes we take fear. Sometimes we take things
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: that prepare us for what's next.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: And sometimes we.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Take things we're eventually going to have to put down.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: But one thing is certain.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: We don't walk away empty, and whatever we carry away
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: becomes part of the person walking into whatever is next.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: So as you think about everything the years have given
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: you and everything you're still learning, I leave you with
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the question at the center of this podcast, who are
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: you behind the position?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: If you've enjoyed this episode, share it with your friends.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Stick pish pickh pish pick