Consider Yourself a Lean Startup

Walk into the doors of any venture capitalist on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California, and you will hear a common vocabulary.

“When will your MVP be ready?”

“Is that a vanity metric?”

“I think you need to make a pivot.”

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. A vanity metric measures activity, instead of customer engagement results. Pivot or persevere is a disciplined decision point. Should you course correct on a product—pivot—or continue down the same path and persevere?

The origin of this common language comes from The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries. Every business, product, or service can be a startup, according to Ries. And we argue, so are you.

The appeal of the lean startup is both speed and a data-driven approach to understanding what customers will buy. If you have ever clicked on a website button to find a message of “coming soon,” you’re probably part of a lean startup data-gathering experiment. Rather than building the product you clicked on, the company is trying to find out whether, if they build it, will you be likely to buy it? Your click lets them know the answer is likely yes.

Successful entrepreneurs start with an idea and adjust as they learn what people respond to. If instead they become convinced their idea is what is right for the world in spite of whether customers will buy it, they are on the path to failure. The least successful entrepreneurs are the ones who never test new ideas, and instead remain steadfast on their current track. An example of a job hunting vanity metric might be only measuring how many résumés you’ve sent out. What really matters is whether you receive responses and then an interview. Volume matters, but results matter more.

A career, just like a company, is made up of a lifetime of both big and small decisions. Some of those are clear: “Should I take this job or that job?” Others are not so clear, because we don’t even imagine the possibilities or alternatives. Sometimes we are just in a groove that is working well enough, and moving out of that groove is daunting. The groove might be so comfortable that an opportunity is staring you in the face, and you simply fail to see it.

Thinking of yourself as if you were a lean startup means that you generate and engage the ideas of where you want your career to go, put some of them into play, and test whether those ideas are working. Adapt accordingly. If you think you want to make a career switch and go back to law school, don’t start by applying to law school. Instead, gain insight into the jobs you would be most likely to find by shadowing or interviewing a practicing attorney. Don’t make a huge commitment from both a time and financial perspective only to regret it down the line. “I like to joke that I’m a Jewish kid who didn’t like blood so I couldn’t go to medical school, so I went to law school,” says Casey Berman, a former attorney. “I spent more time thinking about my iPhone purchase than a degree that was expensive and took three years out of my twenties.”

If you adopt a lean startup approach, then you multiply greatly the number of decisions you will be making, because every commitment requires testing to see whether it is working. But just like Silicon Valley startups, by doing your due diligence, you are increasing the odds that your time and money will pay off.

Like lean startups, the rapid cycling between ideas, implementation, testing, learning, and adapting is the most effective approach. You don’t want to give your career choices almost no thought, like Casey, but you also don’t want to be stuck in indecision. People who are slow to decide are ineffective. In a startup, speed is everything in order to seize opportunities. Faced with limitless opportunities, indecisive people can drift and lose identity. Seeking identity in a world where who we are is no longer rigidly defined by what we do, by our place in society, or by the institutions around us is part of the post-modern identity crisis. Am I a futurist or a corporate minion? Am I a blogger or a marketing free agent?

Rather than make a big choice and a long-term commitment, test out small moves like lean startups do, and adapt as the identity fits and as you reach your goals. The good news is that in today’s world, you can pursue multiple approaches at once instead of wasting years like Casey did.

Develop Drone Abilities

In spite of all the controversy around drones, there are some useful analogies that can help you to remain open to job and career development opportunities. You may be a person who tends to see the big picture and operate at a high level, or you may build the big picture by aggregating the details. Rotating between the two views can help achieve the most comprehensive understanding of options and possibilities.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author and Harvard professor, calls this zooming in and zooming out. Every decision lies in a broader context. No matter how tempting a promotion may seem, if you step back to a higher level and look at, for example, your industry, is it in trouble? Would taking the promotion make you feel obligated to the company at a time when you may have more options if you left your industry?

Sherry had just such a career “pivot or persevere” point. Adopting different views helped her be more open to the possibilities and potential difficulties she faced. Sherry had worked for three years in the largest division of her company. When a position opened up in corporate headquarters over a thousand miles away, the manager in that area encouraged her to apply.

In a zoom in mode, some of the factors Sherry considered were:

1. Will my job level change?
2. Will I make more money?
3. How disruptive would a move be to my family?
4. Will I like my new boss and colleagues?
5. Will projects I’m working on now be left in the lurch?
6. Will I fit in at corporate?
7. Will I be seen as committed to the company if I don’t take the job?

Now imagine having a drone’s ability to zoom out to a broader view and reconsider the same opportunity. Sherry might also consider:

1. Would this be a stepping-stone job to a much bigger opportunity?
2. Would the skills I’ll develop in this role help me achieve my career goals? How?
3. Will I have an opportunity to build a stronger network of contacts that will serve me well over the life of my career?
4. How could a relocation help my family build experiences, opportunities, and bonds that will last them a lifetime?
5. What does the company’s future look like, and will a corporate position be a good place to build my future?
6. Where are my industry and global business headed, and if I take this job, will I increase my ability to compete in the future?
7. In what ways is society or public policy changing that might affect me in this job in the future?

All the questions were important to her, so it was not a matter of which was the right one to ask. Rather, it was beneficial to think of the decision openly using different viewpoints. She worked her way through the details of whether and how a move could work and realized there were more options.

Her family was open to the idea of the move and she could imagine taking a new role, so in zoom-in mode, a change was possible. Zooming out, she realized that the company she worked for was largely based in the United States. Additionally, much of its revenue was reliant on large contracts with the government. Convinced that the future of her field and her industry was in the global markets, she realized the corporate role would not give her the experience she would need to stay relevant in the future.

Before she made a final decision, she decided to explore other options. When a recruiter approached her about a role with another company, she pursued it, landed the job, relocated her family, and was able to make significant progress in her career within a short time. Five years later, she was in a senior executive role in yet another Fortune 200 company, well beyond her expectations when she was offered that first move to corporate.

Even if you are not considering a location or role change, thinking about your current role with both high-level (zoom out) and detailed viewpoints (zoom in) can help you advance in your career. How does the work you do connect to other departments? How does your job deliver value to customers, even if you are not in daily contact with them? By understanding this bigger picture, you may make decisions each day just a little differently because you understand the flow and consequences of your actions.

Employees in our survey placed a high priority on getting to know more about their company overall and having access to the big picture. High performers know the power of the big picture and train themselves to seek it out. Big picture thinkers are better able to identify when and how to collaborate with others. People who can step away from the details of their work to see the big picture also demonstrate more creativity in their roles because they can make connections others can’t, and have been shown to be happier. Be sure to handle the details of your job, but remember to adopt a drone’s viewpoint and zoom out once in a while as well.

Creatively Disrupt Yourself

From architect to CEO of one of the world’s most iconic performance sports equipment brands is not a typical career path, but then nothing is typical about Colin Baden of Oakley. Sports superstars from PGA tour player Bubba Watson to Lin “Super” Dan, two-time Chinese Olympian and professional badminton star, swear by Oakley products. The motorcycle sitting prominently in front of Colin’s desk is the first clue he’s not your average executive. Then there are the stories of his epic company pranks: he once arranged for a fire truck to douse employees in the company auditorium when he got wind of their plans to assault him with water guns. For a CEO, or any role for that matter, he is missing the conventionality gene. So does the headquarters building he designed: a tank serves as a lawn ornament, and the facade seems pulled from a Blade Runner post-apocalyptic set.

So it’s not surprising when Colin says, “I like to have a new adventure every day. If there’s not one, the first thing everyone should do when they wake up in the morning is ask: ‘Who am I gonna mess with today?’” And even if you’re the playful, I-welcome-disruption sort, you have to wonder what it’s like to be on the opposite end of Colin’s mission of the day.

Of course, it’s also interesting to think about what it takes to create a culture and management team that drives the innovation Oakley has demonstrated in the marketplace. That very willingness to “mess with” the status quo may be what keeps the company changing so that change isn’t forced upon it. The economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that the only way for organizations to survive was through continuous destruction of existing products, practices, and structures with updates relevant to the age. Out with the old, in with the new. Disrupt or be disrupted.

Colin met the founder of Oakley, James Jannard, while working on a residential architectural project for him. Oakley began to seek Colin’s design expertise for company image and design, and eventually he joined them as director of the design group. Once in the company, his creativity and design skills helped shape a direction for the company, and he progressed to president. How easy it would have been to stay comfortable with his architectural skills and expertise rather than pursue new opportunities. Yet, he chose a new adventure, away from architecture and in a corporate setting, with uncertain outcomes. He was willing to mess with himself, not just others. The same can be said for our personal lives. You must first be open to leaving behind an invested path in order to embrace the new.

Test Your Assumptions

The more successful you become in any field, the more important it is to watch out for narrowed thinking and limitations in viewpoint. Heather experienced this with a mentor at one point. Jerry was a person she admired for his finesse in navigating office politics, so she sought advice from him on how to approach getting buy-in for new equipment that would fall in a capital improvement budget category. “Oh, I’ve tried to get that one through before,” Jerry said. “They will never approve it.”

Disappointed, Heather started to gather her laptop and head back to her office to reconsider her approach. As an afterthought, she asked Jerry, “When was the last time you tried to get it through, and why did they object?”

“Oh,” Jerry pondered. “It must have been about seven years ago.” Heather realized then that her mentor was stuck with a set of rules that served him well in the past, but perhaps weren’t applicable to the present. She suggested to Jerry that if they approached it another way, even though some of the approvers were the same, changing conditions might lead to a different outcome. Eventually her project was approved. Although she continued to use Jerry as a trusted advisor, she realized she needed to test his advice against today’s environment, and not just through his lens of the past.

The people who do the best job of minimizing the risk of becoming obsolete use a few techniques to keep themselves open to change in their environments—something Jerry missed. Here are some mental techniques to determine whether you need to test your assumptions:

Listen to Novices. Once you are on the path to success, your own experiences reinforce a tendency to sort new pieces of information in ways that fit with your established rules. The rules work, and new evidence confirms your rules are right. Or are they? Indeed, it may be that your powers of observation are attuned to evidence that supports your view, a handicap to openness called “confirmation bias.” If you see a person driving way under the speed limit, and then pass the person only to see that, as you suspected, it’s a an elderly person, you might begin to believe that all elderly people are slow drivers. You fail to notice the octogenarians speeding past you.

People who are novices have not yet established their biases, and what rules they do have won’t be identical to yours. Think of the fortunes that have been made by people who dared to enter a field with little experience despite the experts claiming it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done. In 1977 Digital Equipment Corporation CEO Ken Olson could see no reason why someone would need a personal computer in his home, while newcomers Bill Gates and Paul Allen were already two years into designing software to make personal computers a useful reality.

Consider practices such as finding a reverse mentor, especially if you have been in a field longer than ten years or in one where there is rapid change. Offer a mutually beneficial relationship, where you ask the person to mentor you in the latest developments in the field, how people in their demographic are making market decisions, or the use of the latest social tools to keep a pulse on the market. In exchange, help that person make connections to useful people or resources, or offer advice and feedback. Another trick to understand the novice point of view is to hang out online in the same places they do. Most organizations now have private social collaboration sites where newcomers can get to know each other and ask questions. The questions the newcomers ask can be a rich source of data to cause you to view the world differently. Or peruse online resources rich with many different viewpoints, such as TED talks. Even their discussion forums are filled with meaningful ideas.

Assume Anyone Who Disagrees Is Partially Right. Consider how debate teams work in high school. The teams are given a topic, and prepare a good argument. The opposing team presents its argument, and each team provides a rebuttal, aimed for a winning resolution. Unfortunately, those skills won’t work as well in creating a sustainable career because the approach assumes there is one right, winning side to an argument, and one wrong, losing side.

What if, instead, you were to assume that everyone who disagrees with you has some valid points? Perhaps you’ve just made a killer PowerPoint presentation pitching a new project to the executive team, but one person in the room objects to the cost. You suspect it is because the person is concerned about budget being siphoned from his or her project to yours. Instead of defending your position, can you step into that person’s shoes and translate the person’s concerns into ones others might share to open up the discussion? For example, say: “That is a concern I have considered as well, and I suspect others in the room have, too. The ROI you see on slide 18 is, I think, very compelling, and we start to earn back the investment within the fiscal year. What do others think?” What would they be given points for in their arguments? Listen and consider what key points are being raised. Are there issues that indicate you should modify your position in any way?

The answer for a problem you have could be just a few cubicles away, but not widely known. Are there people around you with whom you disagree on most points out of hand, but who still could be seen as resources in considering a situation from a different angle? We tend to avoid working with people who are jerks, even if they are very capable. Can you overcome your aversion to someone in search of the best solution for you and your organization?

Hedge Your Bets. Good corporate financial investment practices typically include a hedging strategy to guard against fluctuations in currency. Likewise, think of a hedging strategy in your career as insurance in case the path you have chosen is wrong.

Malcolm was doing exceptionally well in his career as a safety expert and had been relocated to the United States as part of a high-potential development plan. Once there, he began to suspect the rumors of the company being for sale were for real as delegates of UFOs (unidentified future owners) walked through the building. Not wanting to be seen as disloyal or self-focused, he chose to ignore the signs and focus on his new role. Three months later, he found himself with a repatriation offer and a separation package. His loyalty resulted in great disruption to his family with a second relocation within months of the first and a job search to boot.

Loyalty and long-term commitment are good attributes, and ones our research survey with Oxford Economics told us are some of the most highly valued by executives around the world. However, Malcolm could have benefitted from a hedge plan, because in this case, he was wrong about mutual loyalty, and the costs to his family and his career were extremely high. Since he was new to a role, he didn’t have as many powerful connections to help protect him during buy-out decisions. A hedge strategy could have included conversations with his old boss to discuss “what if” scenarios before the decision to move on was made. He knew there was a strong possibility the company was for sale, so talking openly with his manager early on and developing a plan could have helped him to know what to expect and whether he wanted to stick around for it. Or he might have elected to begin reestablishing his connections and network as soon as the rumors were flying. Testing his marketability by reaching out to a few search firms would also have been a hedging strategy.

Seek Feedback

The higher you go in an organization and the more successful you become, the less likely it is that people will voluntarily offer you feedback. You will receive less feedback, and it may well be so diffused that it’s unrecognizable or unhelpful. The search for genuine feedback becomes more and more your own responsibility over the course of a career, so it’s good to start early. You cannot rely on it to be handed to you wrapped up as a gift, as feedback is sometimes called, prettily packaged and perfectly delivered. Later, in our chapter on Experiences, we will give you tips on how to give others good feedback as part of your own development, but first you must learn how to be gracious at receiving feedback.

Mark was a brilliant strategist, ready with a quick response to almost any relevant question. After graduation from Harvard, he had worked for one of the world’s leading management consulting firms before taking a strategy role inside a company. His office lights were often the last turned off at night as he pored over data and reports, seeking trends that might affect the company’s plans.

Eager to make an impression and succeed in his first corporate role, Mark worked hard and received lots of positive feedback. It was loud and easy to hear:

1. “Brilliant insight.”
2. “Incredible staff work.”
3. “Superb analysis.”

The accolades boosted his efforts and he doubled-down on providing more of the same. However, he missed the subtlety in some of the feedback when his team player performance ratings weren’t as high as his other marks. What Mark didn’t know was that there was feedback of a different nature also circulating:

1. “Doesn’t value the opinions of others.”
2. “Fails to collaborate.”
3. “Doesn’t listen well.”

Sensing that he wasn’t fitting in, he talked to a colleague who also had a tendency to work late. Over a few Chinese takeout dinners, his colleague gently offered Mark advice on how to gain acceptance by those around him. “When Beth wants to collaborate with you, don’t be so quick to dismiss the opportunity. She might be seeing a way your projects connect that you don’t.” And, “If you haven’t gotten feedback from Bob lately, go and ask for a critique on your decks.” What Mark had formerly dismissed out of hand as office politics, his colleague helped him see as part of bringing people along with him and a necessary attribute to get work done.

According to Columbia University neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner, people only apply the feedback they are given 30 percent of the time. What happens to the other 70 percent? Perhaps people have simply decided to ignore it, or perhaps they simply don’t remember it. Therefore, when you are receiving feedback, it’s best to switch to a listening and recording mode, so that you can write down both the positive feedback you receive along with the critical information. It’s important not to react to criticism. Instead, try taking a reflective stance and thank the person giving the criticism. Let him know that you will reflect on what was said.

As researchers of vulnerability understand, our self-confidence takes a plunge when we feel we are being criticized. Since politicians and their families are objects of constant criticism, their experience and advice can be relevant to career professionals who are open to feedback. “Grow skin like a rhinoceros,” was the advice of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Through the challenging years of her husband’s presidency, she became renown for listening to feedback while deflecting personal criticism.

Listening to feedback is not only in person when so much of our communication is digital. Sometimes you’ll receive feedback in an email, and your natural reaction is to send off a defensive reply. Step back and consider whether a phone call response is better. If not possible, be sure to acknowledge the feedback with something like, “Good insight.”

To make it likely that you will receive the feedback you need, one of the most important things you must do is create an environment that is safe for the person to give the feedback. Think about the last time someone asked you for feedback. Likely you delivered a partial truth and started softly, just in case the request was a gambit for ego stroking and not for genuine feedback. Remember that, and make the giver of feedback welcome.

You can safely assume that you are receiving less than 10 percent of the feedback you need to help you tune your career. Your job is to go get the other 90 percent and do something with it. Don’t limit from whom you receive feedback. At one major entertainment company, the executives always asked Virginia, the receptionist, what she had noticed about the candidate. Every behavior counts, so if a candidate interrupted Virginia when she was on a call, that was an indicator he would be equally rude on the job. Or when the candidate held the elevator door open for the mail attendant pushing a cart, Virginia reported that small kindness as well. Showing respect for the opinion of everyone around you can go a long way. What if you approached the receptionist and asked, “I’m here for a job interview, and you probably see a lot of candidates. Any advice on what makes for great fit here?” You might be remembered for that curiosity and respect.

See Opportunity Everywhere

Looking at the man collecting glass bottles from the trash in the central Los Angeles alley, you would never have guessed what lay in front of him. What lay behind for John Paul DeJoria was a string of jobs starting from newspaper boy when he was ten, and hard, door-to-door selling through his teens. Unable to get the funds together for school, he skipped college and soon after found himself a homeless single dad hustling between gigs as a janitor, selling life insurance, or doing whatever he could to pay the bills.

He accidentally discovered the passion that would change his life working yet another job in the hair products industry. However, he lost that job and faced a second brief round of homelessness. Back in a sales position and off the street, he looked around for entrepreneurial opportunities. John Paul knew from his prior experience that the hair products industry was solid and could use a new market player focused on high-quality ingredients. He approached one of his close friends, a well-known local hair stylist, with an idea, and together they developed products and a company on such a slim budget their logo had to be in black and white.

Now it was his early door-to-door selling experience that helped John Paul persist. Accustomed to 30 to 40 rejections before a sale, John Paul and his friend scrimped through two frugal years during which quitting was a daily temptation. Then their sales took a jump and a humble beginning became a global brand with over 90 products. John Paul DeJoria’s partner was Paul Mitchell. John Paul not only was a founder for Paul Mitchell Hair Products, but he has also since successfully founded Patron, a best-selling, high-end tequila.

His story provides a number of insights. John Paul was able to keep himself open to the opportunities that were in front of him while using his skills from the past. He had built core skills in selling, including facing repeated rejection. He understood the industry well enough to know where there was room for a new competitor. Most importantly, he figured out what additional skills were needed to help his idea succeed. He developed a key partnership with someone who shared his vision and then launched the company.

Finding opportunity does not have to mean starting up a new company. Sometimes we just have to reframe how we are looking at a situation. Dana was nominated for a promotion to a senior manager role, but she was worried that another candidate might have the edge. She discussed her concerns with her mentor, saying, “If I don’t get the job, I will have to leave the company because that job won’t open up again for years.”

“You’re thinking about this completely wrong,” he said. “Jobs are fluid. You need to find where the company has an issue or problem and figure out how you can best solve that problem. If you show how you can add value, your career will follow.” Dana did receive the promotion, but her mentor’s advice prompted her to pitch an idea to the company president around a culture change initiative. She was placed in charge of a company-wide change effort, which eventually led to a career shift far beyond the job she once had worried so much about getting.

Both John Paul and Dana became open to ideas beyond the obvious and most immediate choices. In what ways have you framed your options by your current job or by a job you want? If you reframed to consider options that more fully leveraged your talents, what would those options look like? What would a different version of you do in the situation, and why can’t that be you now?

Choose Best, Not Necessarily First

People who continue to learn and grow across their careers also tend to have an outlook that they are a work in process, an experiment underway. The creative design process does not usually have only one right answer or one right approach. Dick Boland learned that first-hand when it came to designing a building.

Boland, a business professor, was working on the design of a new business school for Case Western Reserve University with Frank Gehry, the famed architect of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Because of cost overruns and funding limitations, the square footage needed to be trimmed by 4,000 feet. Boland worked with Gehry and his design team over two intense days to finally fit all the faculty requirements into the space. He reviewed the revised blueprints with the architect, content they had found a solution.

The project lead from the architectural firm acknowledged the solution would work, and then tore up the blueprints in front of Boland.

“What are you doing?” Boland asked with alarm.

“Now that we know we can make the building work, let’s figure how we should make the building work,” the architect said. Boland later acknowledged he was right, because their first solution focused largely on recreating in the new building the same spaces that had been in the old building. When they were able to let go of “this is the way things are done,” they were able to come up with entirely new ways of thinking about the use of space.

The same creative design approach can be used to think about architecting a career. The first choice and the first path might work, but might also leave opportunity on the table. Greg’s last employer was facing increasing competition from overseas manufacturers. He was a numbers guy, working as a financial controller, and from his view, the company’s numbers weren’t going to work. In his estimation, it was only a matter of time before they moved or sold the company, so he elected to take a voluntary exit package. One week later, a bank too big to fail did in fact fail, a front-end sign of a coming global recession. What he thought would be a pretty straightforward job search became far more daunting.

To his relief, Greg was offered a job almost immediately and he was tempted to take it. However, when he stepped back to view the big picture, he felt he could do better. If he had one offer, he figured he would get more, and there seemed to be ample temporary work available. The access to abundant temporary work gave him options. For the next year, and with a little travel and location flexibility, he did contract-based work for a variety of employers. With the economy in an uncertain condition, companies were inclined to offer temporary or contract work instead of permanent jobs. This way he was able to test a few types of roles and places to live. His last contract position seemed to be a good fit, so he renewed his contract for another year. The employer, Apple, offered him a full-time permanent position, with a much better offer than that first job offer two years prior.

Greg’s experience is a preview of the way many people will work in the future. Executives from around the world resoundingly told us they intend to use more contingent, contract, and “flex” workers. Being willing to be flexible, to forego the contract in favor of the opportunity, might make you all the more desirable to hiring departments. Their company can test you out, even as you’re testing them for a fit, and all the while, you are broadening your skillset and, more importantly, your network.

Greg’s decision to not take the first, immediately secure choice paid off for him in the long run. Every time you have a career choice in front of you, ask yourself, “What am I potentially giving up if I take this option?”

Every day is a choice to continue the path you are on, and there are likely more options than you are considering at any given moment. At the end of her first year out of college, a Millennial we know who we’ll call Traci had eleven 1099s to report for her income taxes. Her mother lamented, “It’s not supposed to be like this.”

“But, Mom,” Traci retorted, “how am I supposed to know what I like?”

How are you exploring what you like? And are you weighing too heavily safety and security when you might be in a position where exploration will benefit you more? Even if you are committed to your employer, are there ways you can explore options other than the role you are in? When you do have new opportunities placed on your doorstep, step back and consider whether this is the best that you think will come your way.