Making an Impact at Every Level

Here’s a perfect example of a conversation I had recently, right? So, I had an engineer that is doing job A, right? This is a job superstar, right? This superstar in job A, perceives that their— well, career progression is to jump and do job Z, right? And I was like, hey.

Without touching B in the middle.

Or C, or D, or E, or H, a few other letters in between. But goes from A to Z, and it’s not like Z is necessarily A upwards, it’s just a very different function that they perceive as something that potentially gives them better upper mobility than A, right? And really, if you sit down, if you’re a mentor think, okay, well a person wants Z, okay, let me just give you some advice, you can connect with, suggest some books, maybe connect with somebody that knows that, whatever. You know, that that could be an action plan for a mentor to help that person.
But to me, more important, is that, why do you want to leave A? And why do you want to go to Z? Explain that. Explain it. Well, because you have a perception that people value A, right? And I can assure you, every company is the same way, they value impact. They value people who are making a difference and people who are making an impact. And so you make a tremendous impact on A, but maybe you want to expand, like you said, how about let’s do A and D? A, B and C, right? And we’ll work our way to Z, right? But you may not… you may not even get to Z, and you’d be… you know, it’s like…
So, sometimes I think people have a notion that I don’t think it’s always well thought through, right? It’s just based on the limited information, they see it, “Oh, I see it, you know, people do who Z, seem to get more chances to do whatever I want to do, and so let me do Z.” So, I do think that helping people just think through it. Because I think mentors have such a great experience and broad experience that allows that experience to filter into an individual’s thought process, and say, “Okay, well, do I really want to abandon A, and make a tremendous impact?”