The Expert Podcast

Taking on an additional leadership role or going into business for yourself may seem like an overwhelming obligation. It might seem intimidating. It might seem bigger than you're capable of doing. What we're going to talk about today are some stories of people and companies that have taken on larger roles for themselves or their company and to show you that it's nothing more than what you're already doing. In fact, sometimes a higher level of job description, an elevated job role, is actually easier than what you're doing.

Now sometimes making your company bigger is actually easier than running a smaller company. Sometimes the obstacle of getting to that higher level is the fear of taking that step, the fear of making a bigger place for yourself. So the first story we're going to talk about is from a company that was facing a finance manager who was leaving. They had a finance manager that had worked for this company for seven or eight years. It was a high-level role and this person—they had announced that they were leaving the company. They put in their notice. They couldn't be around for a couple more weeks and they had to replace this person.

There were two candidates to replace this role. Both were currently working in the company. One of his name was Dave, one's name was Pamela. And Dave and Pamela both had done backup for the retiring finance manager. His name was Bob. Bob was kind of an elder statesman. He had held this job for many, many years. And both Pamela and Dave filled in for him on his day off. When there was more than one customer that needed assistance—sometimes if there was a scheduling conflict where Bob wasn't going to be around—Dave and Pamela both filled in for this role. They had primary roles in another part of the company but they filled in for Bob when he wasn't around.

Both Dave and Pamela wanted this job. They both wanted to take over this full-time finance manager job. It was an upgrade of their job, right? So both of them wanted it. But how do you decide how it happens? Well within this company, Dave was friends with one of the managers who had partial say in this promotion. Pamela was also friends with another manager that had partial say in the promotion. So they both kind of had an in with getting this job.

The general manager of this company wanted Dave to have the job. He wanted Dave to be promoted to the full-time finance manager. But there was some politics going on. You know, Pamela was friends with a manager. He didn't want to be the one that kind of, you know, promoted Dave and then now have this political back and forth or drama between the two. It's hard to make a decision. They both were qualified. They both had done the job before. They both were good at it. They both were good at their current jobs.

So behind the scenes, what happened was one day another supervisor in this company went to Dave and said, "What the heck are you doing?" Dave said, "What do you mean?" "What are you doing? Don't you want the job?" He says, "Yeah, I'm waiting for Steve to tell me or to tell who's got the job." Here's the words from this guy John Fitzgerald. He said, "Don't wait for Steve to decide. You just take the job."

"Okay, what do you mean by that?" "Just move your stuff into the office and start doing the job. They want a solution to this. If you take the solution out of their hands—the solution problem—that will show that you're the right person for the job." "Well what if they don't want me to have the job?" "Well if they didn't want you to have the job, they would have already told you. The fact that it's been three or four days or five days and they haven't picked it out means that they don't have a problem with you doing it. You're still doing backup, so just take the job."

So sure enough, Dave moved his stuff into the office and started doing the job. And of course Pam threw a fit. "How come you do this? It's not fair." Come to find out—too late at that point. It was a big, kind of emotional, kind of dramatic thing for Dave to do because he thought he might be embarrassed. Maybe they'll kick him out, put him back on his old job. Who cares, right? It was an opportunity to show leadership.

It took some courage. It took some swallowing of pride—like what happens if they don't want me to have the job? What happens if, you know, I'm embarrassed because they don't give it to me? That's the thing about leadership: you have to check your embarrassment and your pride and your fear of being criticized because that's what a leader does. So sure enough, Dave took over the job, started doing it, and went on to have a great career at doing finance management.

And Pam went on to do a great job at other leadership. She was elevated to another leadership role later. But both people learned from that. Dave learned that it's okay to make your mark, take a shot. Obviously you don't want to do things that disrupt a company. You don't want to do things that disrupt employees or customers. You want to pick your battles. You want to make sure you have good cover within your company. You have somebody watching your back.

Pam learned from it—don’t hesitate because you lose out. She had other opportunities, but it’s because she learned that lesson. And the owner of the company—the general manager Steve—he learned that, you know, you can do things through back channels. Fortunately, he had a really good right-hand person in form of John Fitzgerald to go ahead and do this.

Taking over a role for yourself—whether it's very formally like that or informally like just doing it on your day off—there was a similar story we just read about in the newspaper this week and that's what reminded me of this finance manager story.

There was a guy who was in Cleveland—and you can look this up in Google News—he worked for a marketing company in Cleveland, had been working there for many years, ten years. And he was just tired of Cleveland. The weather was bad. It was snowing. You know, we're recording this video right now in March and this happened in February. He had gone through the Cleveland winter—November, December, January—just brutal snow and blizzard and sub-zero temperatures and ice and bad driving. He didn't like it.

Now this company had another location in Atlanta. And he had been suggesting—kind of hinting—that he wanted to move to the Atlanta office. He wanted to work in the Atlanta branch. Well they didn't approve his suggestions or hint. And who knows how much he really pushed hard for this. But he wanted to move to Atlanta and he told people, "I want to go to Atlanta." Maybe he was telling his immediate supervisor he wanted to move to Atlanta and the supervisor didn’t want to lose him because he's a good employee. Maybe he didn’t go to the right channels—I don't know the whole story. But this guy wanted to move to Atlanta and they didn’t make it easy for him.

But he got fed up with living in Cleveland. So what he did was—on a Friday after work—he packed up all the stuff. He's a single guy, no kids, no dogs, no nothing. Small lifestyle footprint. He drove on Saturday and Sunday to Atlanta. And on Monday morning, he walked in the door of the Atlanta branch and said, "I’m here for work. I work for this company and I’m here for my new job."

And he knew he wasn’t trying to lie to them and say that he knew that they had transferred him. He just said, "I want to work here now. I want to work in this branch." "What are you talking about?" They were confused. Call back there to tell them. You know, to make a long story short—sure, there was some drama. There was some chaos and there was some kind of, I'm sure, inconvenience and annoyance. But he was a good employee, so they found a way for him to work in Atlanta.

What does it matter where he works overall as a company? Because now you're putting the decision in the hands of higher-up company management, not just your immediate supervisor. And you're making it happen. Look, if he was a bad employee, dude—they would just come, "Get lost, you're fired." If it was a bad company to work for and didn’t recognize quality employees, they would have probably told him, "Get lost, you're fired." If he had bad luck and ran into a manager at the Atlanta company who was just a jerk, they would have probably said, "Too bad, you're fired, get lost."

But in any one of those cases, what did he really lose anyway? If he's good at his job, there’s plenty of places he could work in Atlanta. Maybe not his company, but as a good employee and good at his job, I'm sure it would be easy enough for him to find employment. Look, anybody who’s good at their job and good at a valuable industry role can find a job.

Now there may have been some chaos in doing that. He may have had to scramble to find a place to work for a week or so and find a place to live. But the bottom line is that if the bigger picture for this person's life was to have a good job in his field but live in a different place—that was a way of doing it. At least he tried to do it within his existing employer. At the very worst, he would have had to have a different employer in the place he wanted to live.

Both of those stories are bold moves by a person who wanted an upgrade. And it took courage. And it doesn't always work out. Sometimes these things might result in failure. But in the big picture, in the long run, if you are good at what you do and you know what you want—you can make these moves result in a positive upgrade for your life. Where you have what you are in possession of now that's good, and taking the things that aren't as good and removing them so that you upgrade your life—in terms of business, relationships, living arrangements—whatever those things are. Taking that step is not always easy and sometimes it might take two or three tries.

But hopefully those stories give you some examples of where it's been done. And tune in for our next story about a person who went from a rat race job, suit and tie, making good money but miserable—to somebody who worked for himself in an environment that you may not know would have been lucrative but he actually ended up making more money.