Last week I moderated a discussion between Mark Fiske (Former VP Marketing at Credit Karma) and Brittany Bingham (VP Marketing at Guru, Former SurveyMonkey) on making the leap from Senior Marketer to a Marketing Leader. At one point, Mark said something I love:
"You need to be in the driver seat of your career. You need to be a hunter versus a gatherer. Don't go to your manager and say, 'I'm not getting career development.' You need to come to them with ideas – This means being very proactive about networking within your organization. I have always respected the people who ask 'hey, can I grab coffee with you this afternoon? I'd love to understand your function better."
At some point I think we should write a whole series on what it means to be in the driver seat of your career. But a key part of owning your career is not depending on the feedback of others, and instead building your ability to self evaluate. It reminded me of something Henry Ward (Founder/CEO of Carta) wrote:
"Self-evaluation is the most important skill you can teach an employee. I am happy to offer my perspective, but only as feedback on theirs. They can evaluate themselves every day, minute, and second. I am lucky if I see their work once a week. This may seem strange after years of receiving report cards and employee performance reviews. Companies (and schools) have convinced us we should be graded."
This hits home for many reasons. But the primary one is that as I got distance from my prior companies, the more I learned about what I could have done better by self evaluating what I did in those moments. Those learnings have been far more valuable than any type of manager or peer feedback that I've received (despite having had great managers and peers).
How To Build The Ability To Self Evaluate
Building the ability to self-evaluate is like any other ability. You need many purposeful reps. Here are some tips:
Put It On The Calendar - First, carve out time on your calendar. Every couple of months is a good starting point. You need a forcing function to build the habit around this. Eventually you won't need the calendar and you will do it as a natural habit.
Inputs Not Outputs - Self-evaluation isn't about whether or not you hit a goal. That is an outcome. Instead, focus on what helps produce the outcome. Those are the skills, abilities, and behaviors to achieve the outcome. Simply start by asking yourself what did I do well? What didn't I do well? Why? Is there a theme? Which one of these is most important?
Focus On The Good - It's important to identify what you are good at. Being in the top few percent of professionals at something is far more valuable than being generally ok at everything. A good strategy is to double down on what you are good at, and try to improve the things that were or will be major roadblocks.
Supplement + Validate With Outside Feedback - Supplement your own self-evaluation with outside feedback from those involved in the process. You do not need to wait for a company's performance review cycle to do this. Just go to those involved and say "Here is what I think I did well, here is what I think I could have done better. Agree, disagree, why? Anything I'm missing?" The primary purpose of this is to validate. If you are lucky, you'll get something that you missed.
This Is Not An Excuse
Let me be clear. This is not an excuse for companies or managers to have terrible review processes. Providing feedback, clarity, and purpose is critical for any healthy company. But if you don't have that at your company, it is not an excuse for your lack of progression. Your career is just that, yours. Treat it that way.
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