Dear Executives (From an Employee)

Dear Executives:

I enjoy working for this company. I like the people here, the culture, and I believe in the product!

I want to succeed here—in big ways. And make a name for myself. I want to contribute. I want to grow here and build my career further with you. I want to help the company, but I'm not always sure how.

I frequently get frustrated. It's hard to get time with you to have real conversations. I feel like you don't listen to me or the other employees—we have ideas, too. I've tried to share mine, but after the third time where nothing happened and no one cared or listened, I just gave up.

It's so hard to change anything here (even little things), and I don't know where my career is going with you, or have any confidence you even care about it or me.

In other words, while I make decent money here today, I don't feel valued—and that makes me feel like I don't have a future here. So I am only motivated to do the minimum here to get by, rather than going above and beyond—because, what's the point? I use my extra time reading up on topics like finding dream jobs, starting a business, and online marketing.

I can often feel trapped in my role, not allowed to try anything new or experiment. Rather than feeling trapped by my day job, I want to use it as a springboard to discover what else I can learn and how I can make a bigger contribution. The more I learn about other parts of our business and market, the more ways I can contribute.

I know I need to perform in my “day job” (what I was hired for), but aren't there ways that I can also keep learning in other areas, including in making the company more money? Don't look at these other interests as distractions from my role, but rather as possible complements.

The career path here seems like a mystery, or worse, arbitrary, in which executive favorites get all the attention and promotions, even when more than a few don't seem that great, and some are even disasters.

Dear Employee (From the Executives)

Dear Employee,

So you want to be successful in your career. Maybe you believe right now that you deserve a promotion or a raise. Or you're just bored at work. Maybe people don't respect your (great) ideas, or listen to you. Maybe you think that you're not getting a fair shake from either the owners or perhaps even the customers. Maybe our management systems are just broken and defeat our people's best efforts (though we can't admit that publicly).

Because … the truth is, while we like you as a person and think you're swell, and you're doing well in your job, that's the minimum. We don't see how you're going out of your way to contribute in other ways. (And all those side projects you're working on don't count. What, you think people here don't know about them?)

Here's the deal. If things aren't happening the way you want, it's time to take charge of your own destiny rather than believe it's the fault of “other people” such as your manager, owner, or team. Don't blame others for not recognizing your greatness. If you wait for people to recognize or discover you, here or anywhere, chances are you'll be waiting a lo-o-ong time. The time will never be perfect. The opportunity will never be perfect. You have to work with what you have—as frustrated or defeated as you feel.

A company is full of people who need things. Products launched, marketing campaigns run, sales closed, employees hired, customers serviced, and bills paid. There will always be innumerable problems to solve; pick one and do something about it.

You must be able to do this without sacrificing results in your “day job”; what your current manager, team, and job description expects from you. If you can't deliver on what we hired you for, we're unlikely to trust you to deliver on anything else. An owner doesn't deliver results only when it's convenient.

If your reaction is “How do I do that?” then, well, that's the whole point, because we can't tell you. If we knew, we'd already be doing it. How can you improve the business in ways that we don't see or that aren't practical yet?

If your reaction is “I've tried to do that, and keep getting shot down!” then the best we can say is, find someone who will believe in you and coach you here. Even if you have to do it privately, since it might not be your manager. You can't wait for the company (or anyone) to figure this out for you.

If you're unsure where to begin, start by talking to us and other employees. What problem needs to be solved, what function needs an owner, or who wants to help you?

There is no magic recipe to follow, where someone can just “tell you what to do.” You have to practice figuring it out on your own—this is part of taking the initiative! Remember: so many of the success stories around you are part of the Reality Distortion Field, and they leave out most of the undramatic (and thus boring) bits about the daily struggle, from which 98% of success comes from.

We know you've got unbelievable potential, so stop talking about it and show us by taking the initiative. Put down your smartphone and Instagram; get out from behind your computer. We want you to succeed here as badly as you do.

P.S.: “Dear Senior Executives, Don't Get Left Behind” (From the CEO and Board)

Dear Senior Executives,

I get that you're an expert in your area, with a long track record of success. I know you're looked up to as an industry expert, invited to talk, write, and speak on panels. But that success is now getting in the way of your own career growth. I get that you're an expert in your area. But I need you to also be an expert in how all our functions work together to grow revenue. I need you to know how our sales, lead generation, Customer Success, recruiting, and ownership culture work. What are you working on doing that the board will appreciate?

I know this is in addition to keeping us on top of trends in your own area, such as:

• In IT, the world of SaaS software is changing the needs of your group and how technology is built, sold, and maintained.
• In marketing, now it's all about data, analytics, and metrics—more than just creativity and branding.
• In sales, its metrics, role specialization, and predictability, more than just relationships, channel partners, and forecasting.
• In human resources, it's about employee engagement, satisfaction and development, more than just benefits and compliance.
• In manufacturing or development, it's about faster time-to-market, agile creation, and demand fulfillment.

I know we have set ways of doing things, but don't let them trap you into inertia or excuses:

1. You can't wait for more people and budgets to happen before you can evolve and adapt. There is always a way to move forward with the time and resources that you already have.
2. Embrace faster decisions: Nothing happens until a decision is made. Are you avoiding making an important decision (or keeping it in committee indefinitely, or hiring a McKinsey…) because you're afraid of making the wrong one or looking bad?
3. Don't punish new ideas. When a salesperson intentionally tries a creative new technique but loses a big deal or blows up a customer, do you punish them for failing or reward them for trying? It's not a loss as long you learn. Save stronger action for people who (a) make the same mistakes repeatedly, or (b) lie.

   ---

   If you punish your employees for trying new ideas (or just ignore them), they'll stop trying.

   ---

4. Get your hands dirty—say “I,” not “we.” Do you think “we” should start a blog, start prospecting, or come up with a new vision statement? Kick off the grunt work yourself first. You'll set the example and learn more about what “it” will take to work.
5. How can you and your team increase revenue? Maybe no one else cared before how HR, procurement, IT, manufacturing, or accounting affected revenue. But I need you to understand what growth requires, so you can help. At a minimum you can teach our sales teams to be smarter about how your function works at customers. And the closer you can tie your area to financial results, the better for your career and responsibilities.

If you're feeling left behind already, or burned out, you have a chance to remake yourself. What trends do you want to learn about, what interests you?

My uber-point: Yes, you've overcome big challenges in your career to get here. What's next in your area, and how it can help revenue growth or customers? Because if you can't evolve the way you're thinking or running your team, you're going to be left behind.

Are Your People Renting or Owning?

What if employees always knew what they needed to do next, without having to be told or managed all the time?

As an executive, it's impossible to implement new growth ideas as fast as you want to, as fast as is needed, unless your people embrace them. Otherwise, you're stuck in the mud. It could be specializing your sales roles, creating bigger enterprise packages or smaller SMB products, pivoting, going freemium, running away from freemium, changing culture, whatever.

How dependent is your team on your ideas, motivation, and execution? How often do they come up with their own new ideas, and take the initiative to figure them out?

Do you feel like you constantly have to step in and fix things for employees, tell them what to do, answer the same question time and again—or do they take initiative?

What would happen if you took a two-week vacation, unplugged?

How can you help employees go above and beyond their job description—not in hours, but in initiative? In feeling like and acting like owners. How often does a nonexecutive come up with, and execute—out of the blue—something that increases leads, sales productivity, or customer retention?

Owners don't need to be managed. They don't sit around waiting to be told what to do—they do it. Because when they own something, emotionally, when they care about something, they take care of it.

Look, if most sales managers complain their salespeople don't prospect enough, then it's not the salespeople that are the problem—it's the system of prospecting that needs to change. This is why specializing sales roles works so well. Got it? Okay then…

Likewise, if most CEOs and executives wish their employees took more initiative and acted like owners, and then it's not the people that are the problem, it's the system of management that needs to change.

Because the truth is, your employees are renting their jobs:

• How do you treat a car you own versus a rental?
• How do you invest in a house you own versus a leased apartment?
• What's it feel like to babysit others' kids, versus having your own?

Your employees don't act like owners, because they aren't owners. Not really.

When you hear “owner,” do you immediately start thinking about Financial Ownership (equity, commissions, ESOPs)? If Financial Ownership, combined with your typical goals, responsibilities, and recognition was enough to systematize things like learning, actions, initiative, results and decisions—then you and every other manager would already have teams full of people acting like owners and mini-CEOs. But you don't.

Because Financial Ownership for employees is icing on the cake.

Financial Ownership doesn't consistently create both the Functional Ownership and the “oh shit, it's really all on me” moments of 100% responsibility that inspire people to go beyond the bullet points of their job description.

Delegation isn't true ownership. Employees need Functional Ownership, to own something, to learn how to act like owners.

You're Not Cloning Yourself

No one will ever be you. Their job is not to sell like you, create like you, or lead like you. Sometimes they'll be worse than you at things, sometimes better, but never the same. Everyone has a Unique Genius that they can bring to work and use to make a difference there.

By not tapping into the ideas, energy, and motivation of your employees, without creating systems that challenge them to get off their butts, out of their ruts, and make things happen, you're wasting their potential and your time.

This isn't some kind of one-sided sermon on why you should treat people well; give them love, kumbaya and so on, because employees can be half of the problem. Most wait to be told what to do. It's what they've been trained to do since they were young, in school and most jobs—“do what you're told” and “just follow these 10 steps to pass the class and get the reward.” They're impatient for those rewards—including unearned ones. They get bored fast, complain, and expect you to keep them challenged and babysit their needs. And that's just the good ones :)