Not sure when to leave your job? A bad day could be just that, or it could signal the breaking point. Over at US News & World Report today, I talk about some good reasons to quit your job, and help you learn the six signs that show you should sever ties – for good. Read it here.
You didn’t get the promotion and are totally bummed. But were you worthy of a promotion in the first place? Over at US News and World Report today, I share the seven reasons you didn’t get the corner office (yet). Read it here.
When you’re passed over for a promotion and your former colleague suddenly becomes your boss, it’s more than a little awkward. But, assuming you want to keep your job, you’re going to have to move forward. Over at The Daily Muse today, I talk about the three conversations you must have to get back on your feet. Read it here.
Bad bosses are pretty common. I don’t think I’ve ever had a truly amazing boss, but get closer with every position. As you learn how you enjoy working, and what you are good at, you become better and better at finding the right people to work with. In the meantime, hop on over to US News and read up on six strategies you can use to manage up. Read it here.
I recently met a young woman who wanted to start a blog from a teacher’s perspective that revealed a teacher’s real and true thoughts. Like how bratty the kids are. How she cusses at them in her head and makes fun of how they dress.
She wasn’t alone; a whole group of her teacher friends were planning to anonymously co-author the venomous expose together. I felt sorry for her students. So very deeply sorry and guilty, but Ryan had left my side and I didn’t know anyone else at the party and I was stuck and uncomfortable and anxious for the future of kids I didn’t know and would never meet.
So we kept talking, and she told me more of what she wanted to do: Get into education administration, lobby reform to politicians, overthrow outdated lesson plans, revolutionize school requirements, change the whole entire educational system.
Turns out? Not so jaded. Just so desperately and achingly unsatisfied.
“Worker satisfaction in the United States is at an all-time low,” reports the New York Times. “Only 45 percent of workers are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61 percent in 1987. The findings show that the decline goes well beyond concerns about job security. Employees are unhappy about the design of their jobs, the health of their organizations and the quality of their managers.”
And it’s not just those people that have settled and resigned their dreams to the attic who are so unhappy, but a large percentage of what the Harvard Business Review calls “high-potentials” – those young rising stars that have the ability to have an enormous impact on how we work and live.
“One in three emerging stars report feeling disengaged from his or her company, and admits not putting all of his effort into his job,” the HBR study reports. These highly disengaged high performers have more than doubled from 8% in 2008 to 21% in 2009. And one-quarter of these highest-potential people intend to jump ship within the year despite the recession.
High-performance workers are being consistently and abhorrently under-utilized. Companies and managers must give motivated and ambitious young employees the ability to perform or risk irrelevance.
“When emerging talent is never truly developed and tested, the firm finds itself with a sizable cadre of middle and senior managers who can’t shoulder the demands of the company’s most challenging (and promising) opportunities,” the researchers warn.
So maybe it’s time to stop making young people pay dues. And stop assigning fluff projects. And maybe managers could stop putting the kind of hold on workers that is so tight that they’ll pop right out of their slippery control.
We are your sick, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free of the industrial age molds that keep us shackled in our desks from nine to five. Your greatest challenges are our greatest thrills. Let us execute, and then execute again. Let us fail, let us win. Let us do. Let us work.
“True leadership development takes place under conditions of real stress – indeed, the very best programs place emerging leaders in ‘live fire’ roles where new capabilities can – or more accurately, must – be acquired,” the researchers report.
Yes, let us work. Stimulating and meaningful work that leads to compelling career paths and the chance to prosper if you do.
We’ll hide the red tape in the breakroom.
There are two ways to approach life. Read about it. Or live it.
I read a lot. I like to synthesize information together, saturate my brain synapses, make connections, and curate the exact pieces that will fit my life. Knowledge is my thing.
But it doesn’t matter how much I read, or attend lectures, or watch TED talks, or troll Twitter for the next most interesting blog post. Most of that learning stuff is useless; there’s no better way to learn than to just do.
Become an expert {Phase 1}
Action is the first step. That’s why I encourage job-hopping. Most people don’t know what they like or what they’re good at. Like you could really want to be a CEO, yearn for it with all the matter in your body and brain, and then regrettably discover that you suck as a CEO.
Or maybe you’re really fabulous. A veritable genius! The point is, without working it out for yourself, you’re stuck on the path that others have already laid out. And yeah, that’s a safe plan, I don’t blame you. Our education system is certainly not set up to handle exploration or deviation from a set course. And entering the real world closes the door all together.
In school and at the workplace we’re told exactly how to do tasks, without learning the full explanation behind it. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of a young woman who is trying to solve a mathematical problem. She’s not told the way others have solved the problem, but instead is problem-solving on her own.
Gladwell recounts that when she figures it out, her face lights up: “Ohhh. Okay. Now I see. The slope of a vertical line is undefined. That means something now. I won’t forget that!”
The young woman is working with a professor who encourages his students to unlearn the mathematical habits they picked up on the way to university. Because it’s not about memorizing the right way to do something, but your ability to try that determines your success.
“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds,” Gladwell reports.
In order to drive innovation, we need time and space to explore, not regurgitate. To become the master of a topic, you need to understand its underbelly, where it came from, where it’s going, not just the flashy exterior.
Become an expert {Phase 2 – quickly}
Most people are stuck in the land of daydreams and don’t actually reach action, so if you’ve mastered that, pat yourself on the back. I just gave myself a little pat. Go on, you too. Now we’re moving into advanced world domination.
Exploring a topic from top to bottom is all good and well, but what if you don’t have 10,000 hours to devote? What if there was a short-cut? A way that actually helped you make more fiery synapses connections?
I realize I’m starting to sound like an infomercial here, so stay with me.
First, let me preface by saying there’s no substitute for action. And what I’m about to propose isn’t something you should do in lieu of cooking every night if you want to be a chef, but it is the way to super-size what you learn from cooking every night. In an Einstein sort of way, not Mickey D’s.
So tell me, how well can you explain what you do? How well do you understand your passion? Could you teach someone else to do it?
When you do something like send a pitch, for example, you’re learning. You’re testing your ideas and theories through the reaction you receive, the resulting outcome. In this paradigm, it’s okay to fail, you discover through trial and error, and through persistence and hard work, you win.
But there’s an entire level of awesomeness missing. And you can only ascend to the next level by then teaching someone what you have learned. Because then you’re testing your values, ideas and theories with another person’s values, ideas and theories. You understand the underlying challenge more by defining it for another. Teaching – good teaching – requires you to exchange knowledge, not simply impart it. Learning is individual. Teaching is collaborative.
“Nobel laureate physicists such as Enrico Fermi and Leon Lederman took pride in teaching bright undergraduates,” reports Michael Schrage in Harvard Business, “because it forced them to keep in touch with the fundamentals of their field and express themselves simply and clearly.”
I had no idea how to write a stellar cover letter and resume until I started teaching others to do theirs. Groups comprised of individuals in different skill sets – say, marketing, design and finance – thrive when they teach each other. Life-coaches may be so prevalent right now because the coaches help themselves as much as they help clients.
Teaching is sharing knowledge, sharing empathy, sharing ideas. It’s pushing you to understand with entirely different lenses. Just like your body needs both cardio and strength training, your mind needs both learning and teaching.
Teaching is the definitive learning experience. And it’s the quickest way to expertise.
By all accounts, the current state of work is good. Flexible schedules are beginning a workplace transformation. Hierarchal structures are being dismantled, replaced with decentralized team-oriented organizations. Rewards are no longer exclusively linked to extrinsic motivations like salary or titles, but to projects that make us feel good and do good for the planet.
Fresh-faced workers are responding in kind with idealism, strong ethics, and bright-eyed expectations to change the world. With energy and impatience to do something that matters. Even in the recession, we shine to thrive.
And it is from such high hopes that we discover such low realities. Where real life makes every effort to shut us down. Cramp the rainbows. Take out the sun. Step on our rose-colored lenses.
One twenty-something likens entering the real world to “a confidence-killing daily assault of petty degradations. All of this is compounded by the fear that it is all for nothing; that you are a useful fool.”
The bully to blame is work politics and its shameful hum in the background of most companies is a deafening precursor to what we know, but ignore: companies that are built on lies, deceit and manipulation fail.
A recent UK study revealed there is a clear gap between dreams and reality. One in three graduates believes their employer has not met expectations, that management stifles innovation, and that their opinions are undervalued.
Workers are spending more time learning a game with unspoken rules and invisible puppeteers than engaging in any real contribution to society. A fashion designer started a once-anonymous blog to expose such humiliations in his own industry, writing his first posts on “designers whose careers he thought had been unduly advanced by the support of fashion’s power brokers, rather than evidence of hard work.”
But most of us are silent on the issue. Many of us just settle, choosing to bow out of the game, and some bow out of the system all together. Others join the dark side, if you will. And still others – a small, but inspirational minority – bring such goodness and dedication to their jobs that you can almost see halos forming above their brow line.
There is a natural learning curve to growing up, of course. And while it’s okay to learn that change is hard, that everything doesn’t work out because you wish it so, that you have to pay dues, and that life is generally not fair, it’s not okay to live a life without integrity.
It’s not okay to engage in power plays. It’s not okay to cheat and form alliances and be exclusionary. It’s not okay to be unethical or gossip or commandeer confidence and ideas and dreams as a buck-toothed swindler. Pirates, we are not.
When did manipulation become the status quo? When did deceit become “just business”? And when, exactly, did we start ignoring such desperation? When did it become a humming that we worked alongside instead of a shrill invasion?
Instead of gorging on control and power and greed like goblins, companies should take note of Netflix and their “Freedom & Responsibility Culture.” A company that doesn’t theft and abuse the self-worth of their employees, but encourages it with great candor.
“The [Netflix] executives trust staffers to make their own decisions on everything – from whether to bring their dog to the office to how much of their salary they want in cash and how much in stock options,” reports BNET.
In their internal presentation on their work policies, Netflix asks what it would be like if every person you worked with was someone you respected and learned from, defining a great workplace as one filled with “stunning colleagues.” Where responsible employees thrive on freedom, are worthy of a culture of innovation and self-discipline, and even brilliant jerks can’t be tolerated.
Netflix argues that “the best managers figure out how to get great outcomes by setting the appropriate context, rather than trying to control people.” They urge their managers to ask themselves when they are tempted to control their people, “Are you articulate and inspiring enough about goals and strategies?”
The result is that the company isn’t bogged down in the policies, rigidity, politics, policies, mediocrity or complacency that infects most organizations. Instead, they are adept, fast and flexible. And they’re honest and human. Incredibly human.
Netflix is just one example. My job at a non-profit that served the poorest of the poor, but kept laughter flowing through the office is another. My current position is still another.
And those examples are the future of work, the next step after company-supplied daycare and work-life balance programs.
A future without work politics. A future with goodness. And probably some rainbows too.
What do you think are some of the problems facing work today? Have work politics been an issue? What are some trends you see for the future?
Having a bad boss doesn’t excuse you from being a good employee. And good employees manage up.
This works because work relationships are all about control. Your boss may be threatened that you’re young and intelligent, may not want to give you more responsibility, could be on a power-trip, or might just be an inexperienced manager. There could be any number of reasons why he’s not so nice.
But if you had more control at your job – if you could be in charge of more or your boss could be in charge of less, things would be better off, right? Managing up allows you to retain your sense of poise and productivity, and requires that you:
1. Perform like you’ve never performed before. It doesn’t matter if your boss told you to wash dishes. If that’s your task, you had better be the best darn dish-washer there ever was. It’s really hard for a boss to complain if you’re doing everything right and smiling about it. And you’ll feel better after accomplishing something instead of complaining.
Besides, no one gets to skip paying dues all together. Sometimes the workplace is dirty, unethical and downright salacious, but you should never be a part of that. By complaining and not doing, you’re being complicit in a negative environment instead of showing your real value and true work ethic.
2. Realize what the real point of working is. Even if you feel like you can run miles around what you’re doing or on the flip side, that your task is too difficult, realize that the opportunity in most jobs is not to learn a specific or creative skill, but to learn people skills, which are far more important at the end of the day.
It’s people skills that differentiate you and help you succeed over anything else. That’s why you’re actually lucky to have a bad boss. There will never be a deficiency of difficult people at your job or in your life. This is a prime opportunity to use that to your advantage.
3. Discover what your boss cares about and learn to care too. For example, I once had a boss that would bully me in private and become my best friend in public. Her main concern was image, mostly hers. Once I understood this, I took less of what she said to heart, and focused mainly on tasks that would increase the positive sentiment of our organization publicly. I never failed to compliment her to others, and so I knew when she said, “I’ve been hearing great things about you,” she really meant “I’ve been hearing great things about myself.”
Your boss could equally care about leaving at 5:00 pm to see his kids, or pushing through her pet project on eco-friendly envelopes, or making sure he never has to write notes at a meeting again. Whatever the push-point is, find it and use it to make your boss look good. Real good.
4. Care like you and your boss are real people. Because you both are. Not all of us are suited to be inspirational leaders, and most of us don’t realize how difficult it really is to be a good manager. And many more don’t even realize that the onus is truly on the employee to bring out the best in a manager. Where would Obama be without the ideas and enthusiasm of the American citizens for change?
Your participation, empathy and respect towards your boss will be reflected in how your boss treats you. Try reverence for a change.
You’re more likely to enjoy your job if you make friends with your coworkers. But if you don’t have any co-workers, the challenge to not only enjoy your job, but to perform successfully in it, becomes immense.
That was one of the first things I noticed as I transitioned from being an employee to running an organization. There wasn’t anyone to talk to.
As many of us are taking the plunge from cubicle prisoner to being the boss, we’re stumbling over the entry gate. Support is the number one desire of newly-minted leaders and entrepreneurs. Who can understand the situations we’re in? Who can empathize and congratulate our failures and successes? Where is the team at?
I often tell my best friend Belle about Guy A who sucks at life, or Situation B that just rocked my week. She empathizes, congratulates, and is a good friend, but she has no idea about the foolishness or magnanimity of either like a co-worker would.
Co-workers have shared experiences that they can talk about and understand, and they support each other. They know exactly who Guy A is and are acutely aware of how important Situation B is. It’s a unique bond that can’t be replaced by even the best mentor or friend.
Here’s how to deal with no co-workers:
1) Manage yourself differently. Being a leader is about making sacrifices. This is one of them. It’s part of the package, so you just have to deal with it. Dealing with no co-workers, however, does not mean relying on Ben & Jerry, my good friends of a few weeks ago. You have to maintain your healthy habits – perhaps journaling and exercise – and create new ones.
For me, this means changing my mindset. It’s letting go of things that would have bothered me in the past. It’s looking at situations differently, and oftentimes strategically. It’s realizing that people will treat me differently, and that’s what I signed up for. Mostly, it’s concentrating on what makes my position exciting and fun.
2) Start a support network. In the upper-echelons of CEOs and Presidents, support groups are quite common. Company leaders often get together for breakfast or lunch roundtables and share the challenges of running an organization. They’ve defined it differently, but really they’re simply building co-worker relationships.
It would be difficult, however, for a young leader to find value from these roundtables outside of a mentor relationship.
Generation Y leaders need to create their own groups, and those groups need to respond to how we work. Being a young leader has its own set of unique challenges. If we’re going to be taking on positions of authority earlier, and creating our own rules, we need to be honest about what those challenges are.
3) Lean on people who know nothing. As is often true, weaknesses are also strengths. While Belle cannot fulfill the role of my co-worker, I am much happier with her as my friend. You need to have people that are outside of the work/life blender to keep perspective.
Belle doesn’t come to any of my organization’s events. She doesn’t know the majority of the people. She leads a completely different life. And while we don’t have those shared experiences, it is for that reason that it’s refreshing to be around her. I’ve known her so long that I’m not defined as a young leader, as a Gen Y Princess, a blogger, or as an Executive Director. I’m just me. And that’s a big deep breath of happiness.
This post was originally published at Employee Evolution.
Update: You can also find the post at The Industry Radar.
It’s a myth that the workplace is turning into one big leaderless state. Just as decisions made by committee often require head banging, life without leaders would be one big headache. Yes, leadership has changed and decentralized organizations are here to stay, but there will always be leaders. We want success. We want to win, and winners have leaders.
Once you’ve tossed aside the crutch of hierarchical authority though, “knowing how to build relationships, use influence and work with others is crucial to achieving the results you seek,” according to Valeria Maltoni, a specialist in connecting ideas and people.
A Generation Y leader inspires by enabling others to be leaders. They know the strengths of those they lead, and exploit those for the success of that person. A Gen-Y leader delegates to help the worker achieve their goals. They are motivated by relationships and have an obsession with seeing others succeed.
By making room for other leaders, “you attract people who aren’t followers, who aren’t looking for the kind of leader who will save them from the anxiety of responsibility,” according to Michael S. Hopkins. And the millennial generation does not follow.
Instead, we create our own content, build our own businesses, do things our way. Be an entrepreneur or die, says Sam Davidson at Cool People Care. For the Gen-Y leader, it isn’t about ego, but about sharing ownership and building a community of ideas. An effective Gen-Y leader helps our generation to embrace entrepreneurship at every level.
A Gen-Y leader is inclusive and collaborative, and not just within their sphere of influence. An isolated organization will perish. Successful organizations are defining themselves as the gateway expert in their field. On the playing field, in this instance, companies must pick the competitor to be a part of their team for bigger and better results. It’s not enough to have a quality product; you must reach out and promote others. Teamwork is no longer just within a company. It’s industry-wide.
As a result, lines haven’t just been blurred; they’ve been pulverized on high in a blender. Competitors are partners, work is play, and boundaries no longer exist. As such, Gen-Y leaders must be leaders by example, and in every aspect of their life, whether family, work, or play.
Generation Y leaders, however, can and will be easily replaced by their peers. We are a starfish generation. Go ahead and try to chop one of us down, and we’ll grow a whole sprawling forest in that person’s place. We’re that strong. We’re that motivated. We don’t respond lightly to pressure or corruption.
A Gen-Y leader’s efforts to maintain influence will be harder for that reason. Especially because it is often our peers doing the chopping. As a generation, we’re remarkably good at calling bull. We have no qualms about holding our leaders up to the light to check for transparency.
Gen-Y leaders then must know themselves first, and project their authenticity. They must also be constantly learning, experiencing, doing, networking, creating, giving. It won’t stop. Our generation won’t put up with selfish thoughts, unethical behavior, or tired ideas. The Gen-Y leader must be constantly on.
That’s how we will become the next great generation. We won’t stop.
The dynamic leadership requirements for Gen Y are causing Masters in Public Administration, MBA and other education degrees to put an extra emphasis on leadership.
We won’t all be Steve Jobs, but many of us will be the top executives in our respective cities. I recently met with seven of the top Executives, Presidents and CEOs in Madison, Wisconsin. Here are their keys to business and leadership success—
Share your success. It is incumbent on the person being promoted, according to Mark Meloy, President and CEO of First Business Bank, to pull others along with them. Make sure that as you become more successful, your leaders feel that their careers are moving forward as well.
Network to problem-solve. Finding groups that help you problem-solve will save many a headache, according to Brett Armstrong, CFO of the IT company Trident Contact Management. Like if you’re being audited, the group will have your back. But choose your involvement wisely, Armstrong advocates, since you only have a certain amount of time and need to spend it wisely. If you’re only half-involved then that is how people will know you.
Balance… well, it’ll all even out in the end. First, you have to decide if you want a job or a career, according to Mark Meloy. If it’s a career you decide upon, make sure you’re engaging in a two-way street. Work and life won’t always balance out that day, week, or month, but equilibrium will be found. Eventually. Meloy walks the talk at First Business Bank. When his employees go on vacation, they are not allowed access to email and have only limited access to voicemail. The company gives vacation, he says, for a reason.
A vision can’t just be a pie in the sky. A vision must be a concrete vision, according to Donna Sollenberger, President and CEO of UW Hospital and Clinics. To create the right vision, you must find the right direction for your organization to take. To do this, look at the industry trends and listen to your market. Then build a case, a good solid argument, and back it up with data to demonstrate where you need to go.
Entrepreneurs – socialites, control-freaks, risk-takers, and self-promoters. So says Curt Brink, a successful real estate developer. You must not only deal with a wide range of people in entrepreneurship, he argues, but you must also follow through on getting things done. Don’t be afraid to try something new, because once you’ve done it, you then understand how to do it better. A successful entrepreneur likes being in control, but can delegate fully. If you don’t, no one will grow. By the way, Brink was unconsciously promoting his current and past projects the entire time he was talking. That’s called passion. Get some.
Do a lot, and make sure everyone knows. Don’t let anyone pigeon hole your talents, says Annette Knapstein, Vice President of Office Administration at American Family Insurance. Stretch yourself, develop new talents and volunteer for different committees. And then, make sure everyone knows it. If they don’t know, it doesn’t exist.
Leadership is lonely sometimes. A good leader and manager makes effective decisions and communicates clearly, while putting the right people in the right spots. Not always easy, according to Gary Wolter, President and CEO of MGE. To illustrate his point, Wolter told a story about a receptionist he saw year after year. Each morning, the receptionist would say, “Hello, Gary.” Yet, when Wolter was promoted to CEO, the next morning was different. “Hello, Mr. Wolter,” the receptionist said. Leadership fundamentally changes relationships and people expect different things of you. People who were your peers, you now supervise, and while you can still be friendly, you can’t talk about the boss anymore because you are the boss. The support group that you had developed, who had remained loyal to you, and helped you along your journey has changed. Be prepared.
Throw an open door party daily. Reaching out to younger people for fresh air is essential, according to Richard Lynch, President of J.H. Findorff & Son, who had a great sense of the upcoming workforce. He recognizes that young workers are entrepreneurial, and need a flexible and honest environment to work in. He has an open door policy for this purpose and subsequently attracts the brightest young workers.
Speaking of honesty… Surround yourself with people who will tell you that you’re an idiot, says Gary Wolter. Look both inside your organization, and outside, for individuals you can bounce ideas off of, and who can communicate with you effectively and honestly.
I had my dream job once. I worked at a small company where I could utilize my skills and interests from both my college major and minor. I was located in a lively downtown area, a short walk from my apartment. There were no cubicles. Instead, the company embraced an open-office floor plan. I was given projects and responsibility right away. Free peanut butter sandwiches were available to all employees. I had good benefits and three weeks of vacation. It was great.
Except that I hated it.
Looking back, I see I was easily caught up in the bells and whistles companies implement to attract Generation Y workers, while ignoring some of the more important things. Here are some things to look out for:
1) Know the difference between a visionary leader and a good manager. A visionary person will easily sweep you off your feet with their grand ideas, but they can often be a difficult person to work for. People with just a vision will want things a certain way – without explaining how to get there – instead of giving you the autonomy, trust and guidance to do well in your position. Listen carefully to how your coworkers describe working for your boss. It will reveal a lot early on.
2) Money does matter. My first salary was hardly anything to wipe the floor with, let alone live on, but I was passionate about the job so I thought it was okay. It wasn’t. When you start a job, make sure you’re at least negotiating enough to live on, because the truly rich have both – money and passion. Money may not seem important, but it is likely to become a source of resentment later on when you expect to be rewarded for your hard work.
3) Be grateful for your office, if you have one. While open offices seem to provide a space for maximum collaboration, sometimes it’s nice to be able to shut the door. There are times you will need privacy and you’ll work better if you have it. If your workplace has an open office plan, find out if there is a private area you can use.
4) Make sure you have the flexibility and freedom to get the job done. The company I worked for said they endorsed flexible schedules to allow for the ability to go to a doctor’s appointment, attend networking events, and have lunch with a friend if needed. And I had three weeks of vacation; it said so in my contract. But I was never made to feel it was acceptable to use these benefits. I was stuck recording every minute of work, and might as well have been punching a time card for the amount of rigidity in my schedule. Moreover, I was told if I wanted to make it big, I needed to be prepared to work insane hours after work, otherwise, I wasn’t committed enough.
No thanks.
Make sure your employer walks the talk. Will you be expected to come in at 9:00 am every day or will you have more flexibility? What is the policy if you have outside commitments? Is there an “it will all even out” or “you must make up every minute” mentality? Will you have to dress up every day or can you wear jeans when you don’t have meetings?
Seemingly insignificant, these personal freedoms will become increasingly important the more you take on inside and outside of work.
5) Be weary of turnover. Within a few months of my start date, all of my co-workers announced plans to leave. I thought it was just a natural progression, but since I left, the company has since experienced a similar turnover. Yes, millennials are known to be job-hoppers, but only because we are searching for the right position. Companies with the lowest turnover are usually ranked among the best. That means if the faces at a company keep changing, take it as a bright red flashing signal to get the heck out of there.
In choosing a position, look beyond the typical things companies do to attract millennials to determine if the culture is right for you. Most importantly, know yourself. Only you know how you like to work best.