Should you do the job before you get the job?

Nat: Kristen has passed over introducing to me today, so I’m going to go down two tangents before we start. First tangent: I have a real hot tip for how to stop a bad habit.

Kristen: Do I want to hear it? Okay.

Nat: It’s quite funny. Oh my god, I hate people’s—

Kristen: Self-flagellation?

Nat: As soon as you say something’s funny, it’s not funny anymore. What a dumb way to use that. Anyway, when we were away, my very gorgeous little six-year-old nephew said at one point, “Auntie, why do you always say ‘honestly’?” I was like, I honestly have no idea, and I didn’t even know I was always saying it. He said, “Yeah, you say it every couple of sentences.” That was really surprising. Get a six-year-old to give you feedback, because it’s non-judgmental. He was purely curious. So I said, mate, I’m going to pay you a dollar every time you catch me saying it. Six-year-olds pay close attention, and they are very motivated by a dollar. Twelve dollars down over eleven days, I’ve all but cut the habit. The only thing is that now I notice when anyone else says it, because I think I’ve caught it from someone else, and I’m like, do not start saying that word. But it really worked, because I knew there was a dollar on it. That friction point, even though it wasn’t much, really stopped me.

Kristen: Each person probably has their own kryptonite. For me it would probably be burpees, if I had to do six burpees every time I said a word. That would be the thing.

Nat: They pay so much attention, and they’re really motivated to point it out. It was really cute having a little kid who was going to hold me to account, regardless of what the punishment was, because you don’t notice yourself doing it. So that’s hot tip one. Second thing: I checked our YouTube today, which we’ve very recently started putting videos up on. You’re welcome, you can see us now. We have sixty-one followers, so please go follow us on YouTube, because we had very little before. We’re growing exponentially, but from a small number. You’ll also see my new lipstick that I mentioned last week, which I’m now wearing and which is my favorite lipstick. I’ll tell you in the comments where I got it if you want it for yourself. But on to today’s topic. I saw someone write an article on LinkedIn the other day, or share an opinion on it, and the question was: should you act at the level expected before you’re given the promotion? Should you be taking on that responsibility? Should you be showing up in a way that’s expected of someone more senior than you? Should you be taking on the workload, whatever it might be, before you’re given the job? It’s a very controversial question. Kristen, first, what have you heard other people say, and second, what’s your view?

Kristen: What have I heard? I’m not sure it’s what I’ve heard, but there are varying expectations. Some would just expect that this is what you’d have to show in order to be considered for the next step up, whereas others probably wouldn’t. I’m not sure I’ve had a conversation about this other than with you, as the managing team of our business. But how I feel about it, I feel strongly about a couple of areas, yes, and a couple of areas, no. The first area I’d call out is visibility. By that I mean making your work more visible. As part of stepping up, you take ownership of the visibility of the great work you’re doing, connect it to how you’re adding value to the organization, and show your work at a more strategic level. That leads to the second thing, strategic work. Start thinking about your work more strategically: how it connects into the organization, what levers you’re moving, how specifically you’re adding value, and make sure you’re doing more of that. What’s the next step so that you can offload the non-promotable work, the busy work, the stuff that doesn’t matter and just fills up our time? That will build your personal brand and get you trusted in those arenas, and it also means you start prioritizing and being more thoughtful about the hours you do have. But where I feel strongly is on not taking on a whole other job.

Nat: Okay. I think we should dig into each of those, because I’d like you to define what strategic looks like in those situations. I also had a conversation with Rachel on the weekend, one of our Powrsuit experts. I asked what she thought, and she had the exact same response as me: yes. She said, I know people hate to hear it, but you absolutely need to. My example is, let’s say you need to hire a plumber. You’ve got a leaky tap and you’re ringing around, and one plumber says, I’ve never done any of those things before, but you should trust me, because why would I do them unless you pay me to? You’d think, no, I’m going to hire the plumber I know can do the job. Trust flows both ways. When I’ve heard the split of opinions, the people who are in the job are more likely to feel they shouldn’t have to operate at that senior level before getting the role, and the people in hiring positions are always like, absolutely they need to, because otherwise why would I promote you when I don’t know you can do the job and you’re not showing any indication you can? The plumber example is a bit clunky, and it falls apart a little when you’re moving into a different organization, because they can’t witness it. But if I’m expecting you to operate in meetings as a peer, sharing your opinion and grappling with things, and you’re not showing me you can do that, what faith do I have that having a job title will suddenly change it? I have zero. In fact I have less faith than I would in someone else, because you’re showing me all day, every day, that you can’t do that, even if you’re holding back. That’s the second part Rachel and I talked about. If you’re deliberately holding back until you get the promotion, it shows a poor work ethic as well. It says, I’m deliberately not adding value in those areas. But I think we agree on a couple of exceptions, and you’ve put it as, don’t take on someone else’s full job. My way of putting that, from an example I heard recently: someone else gets the promotion and they’re less qualified than you for it, and they say, can you come and fill in the gaps for me? Don’t do it. It’s not your job. You didn’t get the promotion, someone else did, and they can do that job.

Kristen: Nice caveat. I liked how you used the word “operating,” because that’s what I was trying to articulate with visibility and strategic work. You go from mastering your role to being ready for the next role. What are the behaviors you have to exhibit to operate at that next level? It’s not necessarily assuming the workload or the responsibility and ownership, but it’s showing that you can. What you described didn’t feel scary: contributing in meetings, adding value where you can, thinking more strategically about what the next step means for the organization. If you’re inhabiting that space, that makes sense to me.

Nat: I like that. So the distinction is that you’re not taking on a second job or other people’s work, but you are operating in a way that makes me look at you and think, I back you. The way you behave at work indicates you’re able to take on that job. I referred to another Powrsuit expert, Tamina Aparthik, whose mini masterclass is on demand now, so if you’re a Powrsuiter, go and watch it. She talks about a hierarchy, the five levels of trust you need to build to get more autonomy, more trust, and more ownership and responsibility at work. I won’t go into each in depth, but I’ll tell you what they are for the people listening. You already know them, Kristen. I think they’re also the levels of trust you need to show at different stages throughout your career. They start with deliver. Can I trust you to deliver a piece of work without needing lots of rewriting, edits and input from me? That’s level one. Level two is inform. Can I trust you to deliver it and also keep me updated, keep me in the loop, knowing you’ll raise things with me if I need to be across them? Level three is understand. Do you understand the scope of the work, the outcome and what success looks like? Are you thinking, like you said, more strategically about what you’re delivering? Level four is create capacity. Are you actually taking time off my plate? That doesn’t mean doing my work, but doing yours to a level where I’m no longer chasing you or contributing, and I can trust you to go to the meeting alone. Level five is extend leadership. Are you embedding those practices in other people? When we think about stages in our career, a graduate role is deliver. Then when you get your first promotion, you’re probably expected to have a bit more skill and thoughtfulness about informing. As you go up, those same levels of trust apply at each stage, but the further up the ladder you go, the more they’re doubled down on. I’m going to pause, because I’ve just given you a lecture. What are your thoughts?

Kristen: For me, the level of role you’re at, whether you’re graduate, junior, associate, whatever the bands are in your organization, is less relevant than length in role. When I used to get jobs and get paid for them, remember when we used to get paid? No, I’m joking, we get paid. Anyway.

Nat: You could just spin up and get a paycheck for turning up.

Kristen: I would take my job description so seriously, because it’s my MO. I want to rock in and know exactly what I own, what I’m relied upon for, and what’s expected of me. I’d have any KPIs, the key performance indicators, or any metrics related to success, out on the desk.

Nat: We’ve talked about our opposite personality types. I’m not winging it, but I pay attention and figure out where I’m needed and do it, whereas you’re more process: I’m going to read this and follow that rule. I’m like, I’ll figure this out and do what they want. I don’t care about my job description. I’ve never thought about it.

Kristen: I just had to know that by my mid-year review I’d smashed everything. The pro is that you can count on me to deliver, so within three to six months I’ve found my feet in delivery. Where the flip has to happen, and we get a lot of organizations putting fabulous women onto Powrsuit just to get that flip going, is asking: this is my role, but where do I fit in, and how does it connect with the others? Am I contributing to revenue? Reducing cost? Contributing to culture and people staying, and so reducing cost? Start getting curious. If you’re too narrow on your roles and responsibilities, you can get tunnel vision and miss the big picture. All I’m suggesting is that in the first three to six months, smash it and deliver, no matter what level you’re at, because you’ll be expected to get wins on the board. I always made sure I got wins on the board: deliver this project, make these stakeholders happy, while I’m getting to know everyone and establishing a personal brand of trust on delivery. Then as I got comfortable, I had more time, because I could do things more quickly, or I’d learned who I could lean on or what I could delegate. Then I’d look at how I might get onto that cross-functional project, or I’d see a gap, or hear a common theme, and suggest how we might fix it. I naturally moved from delivery to the next level, no matter where I was in my career. I still did that at a senior level. I’d be so conscious of getting those wins in, and then I’d say, hey, I’ve noticed this is broken, I think we could do this.

Nat: I agree. What I like about those levels is that they work within each role, but your expectation for where you operate also increases at each career stage. One thing I like about your approach: in our last company, we hired a bunch of relatively young people, maybe in their second or third job, and they skipped deliver. They were so ambitious, we’d hired the best of the best, and it felt like on day three, though it was probably month two, so many of them wanted a promotion to the next stage. I remember thinking, I haven’t even seen you master this job. I don’t even know if you can do it yet. You haven’t delivered, you haven’t nailed that level of trust, you haven’t got the wins. You want to leapfrog to the upper level without me knowing you’ve mastered this. When you think about hiring decisions, and I imagine a portion of our listeners have been in hiring roles and a portion haven’t, I’ve noticed that anyone who steps into making hiring and promotion decisions completely changes their tune on this. When you’ve only ever been the person being promoted or hired, you have an idea of what you think people are looking for. We talked about this in our last episode, with the two sisters, about how people think they need permission and need to wait to be asked, because that’s polite and respectful, and the managers say, it kills me, I just need people to get stuff done. This is another example. You think you’re being strategic by holding back value until you get the job, and that people should understand your value and see where you sit, but all you’re doing is depriving them of the information they need to trust you. So leapfrogging any of those levels is a terrible idea. The levels are additive. If you don’t master the one before, it doesn’t matter that you’re extending leadership and telling everyone else how to delegate and do their jobs. If you’re not modeling it, no one’s paying attention.

Kristen: Going back to my original two points, visibility is a thing here. Visibility of delivery. We’ve talked about a bunch of ways you can make your work visible, handing it up on a silver platter: this is what I’m working on and why, here are the blockers, here’s what I need from you. Consistently keeping that delivery visible and celebrating wins. I’m a huge fan of communicating a win to your manager and other stakeholders, and thanking the team if they were part of it. But visibility