I recently read an article by Julien Smith titled “20 Things I Should Have Known at 20”. I thought it was excellent. Where was he when I was twenty? Looking back at who I was when I was twenty (in my case, at my age I require binoculars, very high power binoculars to look back at myself at the age of twenty) his list of twenty items to know reads like a litany of youthful opportunities. Some I was fortunate enough to have taken advantage of on my own. Some others, not so much. As I read through Julien Smith’s tips I was not only entertained by how well they applied to the world in general, I was also surprised at how well they applied to the business world specifically. This got me to thinking, which as we all know is a dangerous state for me to be in. I’ll provide a few of Julien’s “tips” for twenty year olds and then follow them up with a few of my corollaries for would be leaders in the business world. Hopefully I won’t be reaching too far and Mr. Smith won’t object too much to the way I have chosen to apply his work.
1. “The world is trying to keep you stupid. From bank fees to interest rates to miracle diets, people who are not educated are easier to get money from and easier to lead. Educate yourself as much as possible for wealth, independence, and happiness.”
I am not going to say that corporations want to keep their employees stupid. That is definitely not the case. They definitely do however want to communicate their vision, strategy and spin on the status of things. That is how they attempt to manage you. Listen to them carefully when they communicate. Understand what they are saying and almost as importantly what they are not saying. Bad news or difficult issues are almost always couched in other or less direct terms.
Educating yourself on your markets, competitors and business trends is going to be a key. Read up on what the analysts are saying, both the good reports and the bad ones. Leaders don’t put their faith in any one specific source. It is your career and you are going to be responsible for making decisions that will affect you for years to come.
2. “Do not have faith in institutions to educate you. By the time they build the curriculum, it’s likely that the system is outdated– sometimes utterly broken. You both learn and get respect from people worth getting it from by leading and doing, not by following.”
After having just told you to do your research on not only your company but your competitors and the market in general, it is only fair to tell you not to place all of your faith in that information regardless of the source. Where do you think it came from? The very companies that you were researching. There are very few independent sources of information on businesses. Remember the words of every investment prospectus when it comes to information:
Past performance is no guarantee of future success.
What companies have done in the past is only a guide to their potential future actions. Learn to take input from several sources, including your gut and instincts, triangulate it as best you can, make a decision and get going. Trust yourself. It’s said that eighty percent of life is just showing up, so show up. Once you get things moving you’ll be surprised at how easy it can be to change the course if you find you need to. Leaders don’t wait until a decision is fait accompli or made for them.
3. “Read as much as you can. Learn to speed read with high retention. Emerson Spartz taught me this while I was at a Summit Series event. If he reads 2-3 books a week, you can read one.”
Twitter, Facebook, texting and email are not reading. Read novels. Read books. Read articles. Read Blogs. You will be surprised at how much of what you read you retain and can apply to work and your life in general. I have observed that you are perceived by how you communicate. Content, grammar and diction may not be important in today’s immediate forms of communication, but it is crucial in business. Poorly written communications and correspondence in the business world will hold you back. You learn not only the content but also how to better communicate by reading books.
4. “Connect with everyone, all the time. Be genuine about it. Learn to find something you like in each person, and then speak to that thing.”
Chances are that some time in your career that you are going to have to find a new job. It is the new normal in the business world. It is more effective for a corporation to let people go in one group and hire new or different people in another group at the same time. It may be no comment on your performance or anything else other than the corporate performance. It just happens. Be ready for it.
Learn to retain friends and associates. Be out going. Go to lunch. Maintain a business card catalog and periodically reach out to people. I learned this one much later in my career than I should have. It’s not hard and it does not take much time. When the time comes, and it inevitably will, having an extensive network of contacts and relationships may be crucial to your career. Even if there does not come a time where you need to impose on them, you will be surprised by the opportunities that they can create for you.
5. “Don’t waste time being shy. Shyness is the belief that your emotions should be the arbitrators of your decision making process when the opposite is actually true.”
Leaders have opinions. Good leaders like team members who also have opinions. If you have a studied and knowledgeable solution to a situation or topic, share it. It is not a competition for attention. It is a desire to get the right answers and more importantly get things done. Notice the difference I have noted. Everyone has an opinion. Not everyone has a solution.
Do not allow a fear of being wrong or a shyness to keep you from providing a solution. I think that it probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: If we had more solutions we would probably have fewer problems. Think about it. Good leaders will search for team members with differing opinions and solutions. Differing approaches almost always result in a stronger team solution.
It’s interesting where we can get our inspiration. I think we all have either been, or are going to be twenty years old at one time in our lives. If you ask my wife she would probably say that I still act as if I were still twenty sometimes, usually, okay, a lot. I think Julien Smith put together twenty items I wish I had known. I won’t go through the other fifteen items. You can read the rest of them at http://inoveryourhead.net/20-things-i-should-have-known-at-20/. It is also interesting how things that we should know at the age of twenty are also applicable to business at just about any age in life. I guess that learning truly does never stop, especially in business. I probably should have learned that earlier too. I guess I’ll try to learn the ones I missed and apply them from now on.