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How to get promoted to the job you want!

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I read an article recently where a “former” Google HR executive shared his wisdom. (editor side note – are all Google HR executives “Former”? Have you ever heard from a “current” Google HR executive? Why does Google have a hard time keeping HR execs?)

The dude’s name is Justin Angsuwat and he’s the current VP of People at Thumbtack, which not ironically does not make thumbtacks but it would awesome if they did. And he give his inside Google advice to Business Insider on how to get promoted. Are you ready?

Why is this promotion important to you?

Justin Angsuwat

Um, what?!

Seriously, that’s your advice Justin?

Okay, I’m sure Justin is brilliant, he’s Australian and worked for PwC and Google, and let’s face it, American’s will hire any idiot with an Australian accent, but I’m sure Justin is not an idiot, but I hate the “I’m going to answer your question with a question” because that’s how ‘real’ leaders do it.

What Justin is saying is most people have no idea why someone wants to be promoted. We just get this idea in our head that’s what we are supposed to do, so as leaders we need to figure out why, because most don’t really care if they get promoted, they just want you to pay attention to them!

Okay, Justin, I’ll agree with that. Now tell me why there are so many former Google HR executives!?

What do you really need to do if you want to get promoted?

  • Tell you current boss you want to get promoted and why.
  • Tell the boss that you’ll be under when you get promoted that you want to get promoted and why. This is a must-do if your current boss is a tool and won’t raise you up to the organization.
  • Get a specific development plan around what the organization needs to see from you to get promoted. If you can, try to get some realistic timing around the plan. Understand, 90 days, is not realistic. 3 years, might be. I find most people who want to get promoted believe they have already put in the work, but those above them don’t see it that way.
  • Do the work and be patient.
  • Be a positive advocate for your boss and for the company. Yes, you might even cheerlead a little. Don’t ever underestimate the power of positivity on your ability to get promoted. Executives hate promoting assholes. Right, Justin?

I teasing Justin, but I actually really like his question. Way too many people chase titles, but don’t really know why they’re chasing it. They get there and it feels unsatisfying because the reality is it’s not what they expect it to be.

Getting promoted because you want more money, probably isn’t the reason you really want. It’s legitimate, but you won’t be happy. Wanting to lead teams or functions is better, wanting to help others reach their goals is even better, wanting to help the company reach its mission and you’re all in on the company is probably the best.

Most of us don’t even think about those things, though.

The Non-Smoker Smoke Break!

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Let’s break down some math on the amount of time smokers take, paid, in smoke breaks daily: 

An average smoker smokes 15 cigarettes per day. I’m going to assume that when awake the smoker smokes about 1 cigarette per hour, so that’s 40 cigarettes per week smoked at work.  It takes about 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette. 

I’m going to assume that it takes probably 5 minutes round trip to get to your designated smoking area, 5 minutes to smoke your cigarette, so 10 minutes per break. I’ll say a good worker only smokes 6 cigarettes on the clock, so 60 minutes per day, one hour, paid to smoke. 5 hours per week paid, to smoke, 255 hours per year to smoke.

Is everyone following me? 

255 hours of paid smoke breaks – or basically taking an in-office vacation for roughly 6 1/2 week per year, on top of their actual away-from-office vacation time. 

So, what I’m trying to get to is how can we/HR build in non-smoker smoke breaks!? We know HR won’t do that! Can you imagine an official policy to take breaks not to smoke!? Does anyone have an official Smoke Break policy in today’s world? 

Here’s my idea: 

  1. If you don’t smoke and you have a co-worker that does smoke, just go out with them every single time they smoke. In fact, get a group of people to go with them and build and strengthen relationships, just don’t try to breath too much! 
  2. Petition to get paid 12.5% more than someone who smokes, because that’s basically how much more your working than the average smoker. 
  3. Take a two-hour lunch break and when HR tells you that you can’t do that, take them into a conference room and run them through the math on a white board! 

I don’t understand smoke breaks. It’s kind of like sexual harassment. For the longest time we thought it was completely normal for a boss to sleep with his secretary and now we know it’s very wrong! 

I’ll be honest. I feel the same way about how it became the norm to offer free coffee at work. No one has every offered me free diet Mt. Dew at work! (I take that back, my friend Jim D’Amico did at Celenese when I went to visit!) 

So, we let people go take smoke breaks, paid, and it’s somehow completely fine. 5 hours per week, paid. Completely fine, to actually for real not do work. Just stand outside and slowly kill yourself and you get paid for it! How great is work!? 

Let’s face it, I’m not actually mad at smokers, I’m super jealous! I can’t tell you how hard it is for me not to start smoking knowing all the great benefits you get! I’ve actually tried hanging outside with smokers, but because I was in HR, and didn’t smoke, I think they thought I was trying to get them in trouble or spying on them. I wasn’t, I just wanted all that free time off! 

I’ve been thinking about starting that meditation, mindfulness crap. That might work. I could just randomly stop working, sit down in the middle of the hall all criss-cross-applesauce and just put on some headphones and close my eyes. Make people walk around me and my mindfulness break! 

I wonder what HR would do? “Hey, Tim, we’re not paying you to relax, get your butt back to work! Now, if you want to get all jacked up on nicotine, that’s fine, get off the floor and go light one up!” 

The 12 Steps of a Recovery Passionate A**hole!

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I wrote a post a while back titled, “The 5 Things HR Leaders Need to Know About Developing Employees“. In that post I had a paragraph:

When I was young in my career, I was very ‘passionate’. That’s what I liked calling it – passionate.  I think the leaders I worked with called it, “career derailer”.  It took a lot for me to understand what I thought was a strength, was really a major weakness.  Some people never will gain this insight.  They’ll continue to believe they’re just passionate when in reality they’re really just an asshole.

I then had a reader send me a message and basically said, “This is me!” And I was like, “That was me too!” And then we kissed. Okay, we didn’t kiss, but it’s great to find another like yourself in the wild!

The reality is, I’m a recovering Passionate Asshole.

What’s a “Passionate Asshole” who are asking yourself? Here’s my definition. A passionate asshole is a person who feels like they are more about the success of the company than anyone else. I mean everyone else. They care more than everyone! And because we care so much, we treat people poorly who we feel don’t care as much as us!

Passionate assholes truly believe in every part of their being they’re great employees. You will not be able to tell us any different. They are usually high performing in their jobs, which also justifies even more that they care more. But, in all of this, they leave a wake of bad feelings and come across like your everyday basic asshole.

You know at least one of these people. They’re usually younger in the 24-35-year-old range. Too early in their career to have had some major setbacks and high in confidence in their abilities.

Here are the 12 Steps of Recovery for Passionate Assholes:

Step 1: Realization that your an Asshole, not the best employee ever hired in the history of the universe. This realization doesn’t actually fix the passionate asshole, but without it, you have no chance.

Step 2: You understand that while being a passionate asshole feels great, this isn’t going to further your career and get you to your ultimate goal.

Step 3: Professionally they have knocked down in a major way. I was fired. Not because I was doing the job, but because I was leaving a wake of bodies and destruction in the path of doing my job. You don’t have to be fired, demotion might also work, but usually, it’s getting canned.

Step 4: Some you truly respect needs to tell you-you’re not a good employee, but an asshole, during a time you’re actually listening.

Step 5: Find a leader and organization that will embrace you for who you’re trying to become, knowing who you truly are. You don’t go from Passionate Asshole to model employee overnight! It’s not a light switch.

Step 6: Time. This is a progression. You begin to realize some of your passionate asshole triggers. You begin to use your powers for good and not to blow people up who you feel aren’t worthy of oxygen. Baby steps. One day at a time.

Step 7: You stop making bad career moves based on the passionate asshole beast inside of you, telling you moving to the ‘next’ role is really the solution to what you’re feeling.

Step 8: We make a list of people we’ve destroyed while being passionate assholes. Yes, even the people you don’t like!

Step 9: Reach out to the people you’ve destroyed and make amends. Many of these people have ended up being my best professional contacts now late in life. Turns out, adults are actually pretty good a forgiving and want to establish relationships with people who are honest and have self-insight.

Step 10: We are able to tell people we’re sorry for being a passionate asshole when find ourselves being a passionate asshole, and not also seeing the passion within them and what they also bring to the organization is a value to not only us but to the organization as a whole.

Step 11: You begin to reflect, instead of reacting as a first response. Passionate assholes love to react quickly! We’re passionate, we’re ready at all times, so our initial thought is not to think, but react decisively. You’ve reached step 11 when your first thought is to no longer react like a crazy person!

Step 12: You begin to reach out to other passionate assholes and help them realize how they’re destroying their careers and don’t even know it. You begin mentoring.

I know I’ll never stop being a Passionate Asshole. It’s a personality flaw, and even when you change, you never fully change. But, I now understand when I’m being that person, can usually stop myself mid-passionate asshole blow up, and realize there are better ways to communicate and act.

Hat tip to: Kyle Brown (a fellow Self-Identified Passionate Asshole)

Snow Days and Employees!

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Look I get it.  I have 3 sons and Snow Days are a big deal…if you’re 10!   So, if you’re an HR Pro, right about this time tomorrow, you’re going to feel like you have an entire organization full of 10-year-olds,  as we begin to see the first signs of Snowmageddon!

I understand people freaking out, that is, if you live in someplace south of the Mason-Dixon line, and you’ve never seen snow before. But, I live in Michigan and it snows here. The snow starts around Halloween and ends around Easter.  What I don’t understand is anyone that lives north of, let’s say, Chicago is even blinking an eye at a snow storm coming.  Let it snow, clear your driveway and get your butt to work.

It’s not a difficult concept! No, I don’t want you to drive to a client if the roads are dangerous, and, no, I don’t want you to drive to work if the roads are dangerous, and, no, I don’t want you to run around the office with scissors and your shoes untied!  But I do expect, we’ll all be adults.

If it looks like there’s going to be a lot of snow tomorrow, you need to make a plan. How about packing some work to do from home, or just plan on watching Lifetime all day, because I completely understand you missing the 3 days’ of warning that the snow was coming! (he screamed to himself in a mocking voice…)

Snow Days are the kind of crap that drives HR and Leadership completely insane!

Why is it, the CEO finds his way into the office, driving his Lexus sedan, but Perry in IT just can’t seem to get his 4X4Chevy Tahoe out of the garage?   If you want a day off that damn bad, take a day off,  but don’t insult the intelligence of all those who found a way to come in.

Be sensible, give your local snow plows some time to clear roads, give yourself extra time to get to work, but at the very least give it a shot. Then, when you get stuck, take a picture with your phone and send it to your boss, they’ll appreciate the effort!

Why are you scared to make HR simple?

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Have you ever wondered why HR Departments continue to make complex processes?  In reality, all of us wants things simple.  But, when you look at our organizations they are filled with complexity.  It seems like the more we try to make things simple, the more complex they get.  You know what?  It’s you – it’s not everyone else.  You are making things complex, and you’re doing this because it makes you feel good.

From Harvard Business Review:

“There are several deep psychological reasons why stopping activities are so hard to do in organizations. First, while people complain about being too busy, they also take a certain amount of satisfaction and pride in being needed at all hours of the day and night. In other words, being busy is a status symbol. In fact a few years ago we asked senior managers in a research organization — all of whom were complaining about being too busy — to voluntarily give up one or two of their committee assignments. Nobody took the bait because being on numerous committees was a source of prestige.

Managers also hesitate to stop things because they don’t want to admit that they are doing low-value or unnecessary work. Particularly at a time of layoffs, high unemployment, and a focus on cost reduction, managers want to believe (and convince others) that what they are doing is absolutely critical and can’t possibly be stopped. So while it’s somewhat easier to identify unnecessary activities that others are doing, it’s risky to volunteer that my own activities aren’t adding value. After all, if I stop doing them, then what would I do?”

That’s the bad news.  You have deep psychological issues.  Your spouse already knew that about you.

The good news is, you can stop it!  How?  Reward people for eliminating worthless work.  Right now we reward people who are working 70 hours per week and always busy and we tell people “Wow! Look at Tim he’s a rock star – always here, always working!”  Then someone in your group goes, “Yeah, but Tim is an idiot, I could do his job in 20 hours per week, if…”  We don’t reward the 20-hour guy, we reward the guy working 70 hours, even if he doesn’t have to.

Somewhere in our society – the ‘working smarter’ analogy got lost or turned into ‘work smarter and longer’.  The reality is most people don’t have the ability to work smarter, so they just work longer and make everything they do look ‘Really’ important!   You just thought of someone in your organization, when you read that, didn’t you!?  We all have them – you can now officially call them ‘psychos’ – since they do actually have a “deep psychological” reasons for doing what they’re doing – Harvard said so!

I love simple.  I love simple HR.  I love simple recruiting.  I hate HR and Talent Pros that make things complex, because I know they have ‘deep psychological’ issues!  Please go make things simple today!

Tim Sackett, Best Life Coach Ever!

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I believe the concept of ‘Life Coach’ is the biggest con anyone has been able to pull off in the history of mankind.  That being said I personally know some folks who love having a life coach (#WhitePeopleProbs).  I do like the concept of ‘Business Coaches’ or ‘Leadership Coaches’, I see those things a bit differently based on what I see in organizations.

Two unique things happen in organizations that make the concept of Business Coach more viable:

1. We promote our best workers to managers.

2. Leaders are put on an island with no one to confide in.

Both ideas above are systematically flawed.  Just because you’re the ‘best’ worker doesn’t make you a good manager.  You might be, but you also might be a colossal failure.  Being in a senior leader’s role, and giving you no one to really be able, to be honest, also has bad consequences.   A business coach can help both sides succeed, where normal organizational training fails.

You can give new managers all kinds of training, but there comes a time when one-on-one, let’s walk through a specific scenario you are having, just works better for learning and development of that person.   Also, a leader needs to get ideas out of their head to someone they trust will give them good and honest feedback about how freaking crazy they are!   Subordinates won’t do this, and peers might use it against them to position themselves for the next move.

I’m a big fan of Business Coaches.  I think organizations underutilize this approach because it seems expensive.  The reality is, it’s usually a billable hour or two per month, to ensure you have well-functioning leadership.  That total cost might be $5000 per year.  I’m really hoping any manager or leader you have brings in exponentially much more profit than $5000 per year!

Which leads me to Tim Sackett, Life Coach.

I could be a life coach.  I have a feeling it would go a little like this:

Mark, Life Coachee: “Hey, Tim great to talk to you, just wanted to dive right into a problem I’m having, is that okay?”

Tim Sackett, Life Coach: “No, it’s not okay. That’s your problem Mark, you’re always thinking about you!  What about me and my freaking problems!”

Mark: “Uh, sorry. But I thought I’m paying you to help me on my stuff.”

Tim: “No, you’re paying me because I’m smart and have my shit together, and you can’t figure out how to manage your own daily simple life.”

Mark: “I don’t think this is what I expected.”

Tim: “Yes it is. That’s your problem Mark, you think too much.  You’re now paying me to do your thinking.”

Mark: “Okay, I’ll play along and see where this is going.”

Tim: “Mark here’s what ‘we’ are going to do. First, you’re getting your butt up each day and you’re going to work. Second, you’re going to stop whining about your life. Third, you’re going to go home and be an active part of your family life, and stop acting like you should be able to have a family and still act like you’re in college, you’re not.”

Mark: “But you don’t understand, I work in a stressful job!”

Tim: “Shut up, you’re an accountant. Stress is not knowing where you’re sleeping tonight because you don’t have a place to live.  You don’t have stress, you have normal.”

I have a strong feeling my ‘Life Coaching’ sessions would only go one session, and everyone would be fixed, so I’m going to have to figure out that pricing model.  If you want to set up an appointment, just hit me in the comments and we can get that set up immediately, I take PayPal!

The Newest Leadership Concept that will take 2019 by Storm: “Sunshining”!

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Have you heard of “Sunshining“? I’m guessing most of us haven’t. I came from Reed Hastings the CEO at Netflix. Netflix has a really transparent work environment and Reed and his executive team has started telling employees exactly why someone has been fired. They call these talks “Sunshining”!

It’s not just about explaining why someone got fired, it could be about almost anything. This radical transparency is part of Netflix’s unique culture and employee experience. If you have a question about anything, you’re encouraged to ask out in the open, and leadership is encouraged to welcome these discussions, even those that might be taboo in most company cultures:

In one “sunshining” scene described by the Journal, former talent chief Tawni Nazario-Cranz was asked by Hastings in front of dozens of executives why she paid for some of her team’s makeup and hair styling ahead of a company launch event. Nazario-Cranz said that if a manager took employees to a golf outing it wouldn’t be questioned, which led to a debate about “gender equity,” one person in attendance told the paper.

Employees are also encouraged to review each other and share feedback with their teams. There are”real-time 360″ lunches and dinners for feedback and criticism, with one former executive saying the pressure to participate was the “hardest part about the culture.”

 

Can you imagine sitting down in front of a department of employees and saying, “Hey, everyone, you all know Tim, your boss, well, I just fired Tim because Tim quite frankly wasn’t getting the results we hired him to get. Tim is right here, right now. Let’s discuss!”

 

Um, what!?! “Yeah, hey guys, let me wipe the tears away from my eyes, I’m still in a bit of shock, I guess I’m most concerned with how I’m going to pay my mortgage and tell my partner I just got fired, but what would you like to know?”

 

Holy crap! That could not happen, ever! Unless you had this culture of ongoing performance feedback and accountability where it was 100% out in the open that this was happening and there was no ill will. Even then, I’m still skeptical! I mean, I’m willing to sit down as a fired employee and talk to the troops if Reed is giving a giant parachute! “Oh, yeah, hey guys, I just lost my job, but I’m fine, I’m thinking of taking a couple of years off to pet puppies or something!”

 

Do you think your company culture could handle this right now?

 

I’m doubtful, primarily because this isn’t something you can just turn on and the next day start doing it. This is a fairly radical cultural shift to even open up and be that transparent across the organization. I think most of us would tell ourselves we would love to work in that type of environment until the mirror is turned on ourselves!

 

That’s a tough leadership environment to be a part of for sure!

 

What didn’t make it through Netflix’s leadership team? 

 

Having employees see each other’s salary! Reed wanted to open this up, the rest of the leadership shot this down:

 

Starting last year, Netflix allowed any executive above the director level to see the salaries of all employees, a decision that, like most of those detailed by the Journal, received mixed reviews from the people interviewed. In the case of employee pay, some said it led to awkwardness, while others said it encouraged people making less money to try and get raises. However, Netflix executives recently shot down an effort by Hastings to allow any employee to see the pay of any colleague, regardless of rank, the paper said.

 

I think that’s a giant step of any organization, but it’s probably the one step that needs to happen to fix gender pay inequality for good!

Using Email Activity as a Performance Metric!

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So, the other day I was reading this article by Josh Bersin. You know Josh, right? Bersin by Deloitte, big time voice in the HR Industry for decades. Josh might be one of the most recognizable thought leaders in our space. He recently left Deloitte and is back on his own. Josh has forgotten more about HR than I’ve ever known.

I’ve probably met Josh personally 15 times. Sat at dinner with him one night, at an industry event, for about 3 hours and had some really good conversation. Just saw him at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect as I was coming off the live stream and he was coming on, went to say “hello” and he looked at me as if I was about to mug him! LOL! I think he legitimately thought I was coming to ask for his autograph! Turns out, I know Josh, way more than Josh knows me! That’s okay, he’s still brilliant.

The article is titled: “What Emails Reveal About Your Performance At Work”:

After analyzing months of communication patterns using messaging metadata (data about the messages, not the messages themselves), the company can now statistically prove that certain types of communication behavior directly correlates to business performance. In fact, using employee communication data with a Deep Learning Model, Genpact can predict “Rockstar” performers with 74% accuracy. (This process works for emails, slack messages, skype messages, etc.)…

What did they find? The highest performing leaders use simpler words to communicate, they respond faster, and they communicate more often. In other words, they are more engaged, more efficient, and more action-oriented.

Now there’s a ton of data science that comes into play to get to this outcome. I’ve written about the power of Microsoft’s Workplace Analytics using data to help organizations and individuals improve their performance by analyzing how we work, and this is basically doing the same thing.

How do you improve your performance through email?

1. Respond quickly to messages.

2. Use language everyone can understand.

Let’s unpack those two things a bit because it sounds way too simple to actually work!

When you respond quickly to any kind of messaging a person has sent you it triggers a couple of things. One, the person who sent the message feels validated that not only did you get the message, but you thought ‘they’ were important enough for a quick response back. Don’t discount the impact that has on your influence at a larger level.

Two, a quick response shows the people you are communicating back to that you’re on top of your stuff. When you get a response to a message you sent from three days ago, I assume that person is way over their head. Look, I asked if you were interested in doing this thing or not. It’s a seven-second response, just respond, it’s not difficult!

Using simple, straightforward language ensures that everyone on the message can be crystal clear about what the message was about. Nothing was vague or left to interpretation. “No, I will not attend this meeting. Instead, Sandy will be coming as she is the one who has the data you need, and my full support on any decisions that need to be made.” Bam! Done. Simple.

Sometimes I think we overcomplicate what really good performance looks like. Turns out if respond quickly and make sure people understand you, you meet a couple of really important qualifications to becoming a strong leader!

Also, go connect with Josh Bersin and tell him Tim said “Hello!”

Teens Feel Speaking In Class is Unreasonable & Discriminatory. What do you think?

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A recent article in The Atlantic brought up is seemingly troubling subject. Teens are voicing their opinion that being forced to speak up in classes is discriminatory:

“in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options. This week, a tweet posted by a 15-year-old high-school student declaring “Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to” garnered more than 130,000 retweets and nearly half a million likes. A similar sentiment tweeted in January also racked up thousands of likes and retweets. And teachers are listening.” 

Hmmm. I’ve got some thoughts…

I was out at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect recruiting conference this past week. Great content, engaged recruiting pros and leaders, and a lot of great data being shared. One of those data points shared by CEO Jeff Weiner was the largest skills gap currently in need by employers. Can you guess which skill was most needed?

  • Tech/IT/coding-type of skills? No, but not a bad guess!
  • Healthcare/Nursing skills? No, but another great guess!

The #1 most sought after skill by employers is Oral Communication!

Turns out that we have a ton of kids coming into the workforce that have a hard time communicating orally! Hmmm…

Yeah, so we should probably not make kids who have anxiety over public speaking not speak in the safe environment of a classroom in front of a trained educator!

You know what, most people have anxiety about public speaking. The answer isn’t let’s try and find ways for these kids not to speak, its let’s find ways to get these kids to begin speaking in small ways where they start to gain confidence and little by little start ramping up how and where they speak.

Education isn’t about making some comfortable. It’s about making you uncomfortable in a safe way. If we know kids need oral communication skills to be successful in the work world, we must demand that our educators help make this happen.

I get we are in a time where kids have a great platform to voice their opinions and desires. Good for them! It’s awesome time to be alive. Also, these are kids. Kids can be super smart, and super short sited. It’s our job as adults to say, “I hear you! Public speaking in front of your peers is hard. That’s why you actually need to do it more, not less.”

So, knowing this is a skill that most adults also struggle with, what do you think? Should we be finding alternatives for kids who don’t want to speak in front of their class, or should we make them stand up and speak?

I’m all for making them uncomfortable and teaching them a skill that will help them the rest of their life. I don’t need them to get on stage and speak in front of an audience, but I do need them to be in a meeting with ten co-workers and be willing and active in that conversation!

“Self-Insight” Might Be the Most Undervalued Personal Core Competency!

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I was having a conversation recently with a peer. We were discussing a company with a dynamic leader. The company seemed like it had every single attribute to make it successful. Smart and dynamic leader, great product, great design, female, minority, but they were having a hard raising capital.

My first reaction was, something isn’t right! Why can’t this company raise capital? I mean VC will give cash to a four-year-old who built something that looked like something out of legos if they think they can make a buck on it! There’s so much VC money flowing into HR tech right now, people are getting money for just having ideas about products!

There’s the obvious VC bias towards both females and minorities. So, it’s easy for me to just go “holy crap” I’m seeing this live right in front of me! But the person I was talking to was a female and a minority, and she was saying, ‘slow down’ that’s not the issue here!

“She’s crazy, Tim!” 

Um, what? She seems super intelligent and the product is solid and I would give my own money to that company right now, it can’t fail. “No, she’s f’ing nuts!” 

Okay, so does she know she’s nuts? “Nope. That’s the problem! Super brilliant, but she has this blind spot where she’ll go off the rails and literally treat potential investors and even customers like crap. If she would just get out of her own way, that’s a potential hundred million dollar company.” 

Sounds like she needs a mentor. “Yeah, she thinks anyone who talks to her is below her, and they might be in terms of intelligence, but she refuses most advice. Anyone else pitching that product would have millions in backing at this point, with others waiting in line to get a piece.”  

After this conversation, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. First, I thought, what if this female was a male and acted crazy like this? Would “he” get the investment dollars? I think he probably would. What if it was me, a white guy up there, acting crazy, would I get the money? Probably, I would. So, I was pained to think this bias is real, regardless, but this person had a real viable product (and God knows I see so many that aren’t!).

I was raised by a very strong, single Mother, who had a tendency to be a bit crazy, so I know a thing or two about strong, aggressive entrepreneurial women. I grew up with one my entire life! The lack of self-insight is both a gift and a curse. With it and you might not go down the path of starting your own business against all odds. Without it, you potentially can’t your ideas out to the world.

When you take a look at the most successful people you know they have found the balance of self-insight in their life. A person with high self-insight knows when to listen to it, and when to ignore it. It’s a super fine line to walk, but it’s critical for success.