When I like a book, the first thing I do after reading it is to check to referenced books at the end of it. By doing that, I end up reading books that I like, at least most of the time.
Today, I want to share my thoughts on “The Next Level” by Scott Eblin. It was referenced in the “Hacking Executive Leadership” book. When stepping up into the next level in your career, we need to pick up new skills and mindsets and let go of other ones in three areas:
- Personal presence
- Team presence
- Organizational presence
In personal presence, you need to pick up the skill of knowing your best self and your contributions to feel and stay confident. You develop communication skills to custom fit your message to various individuals and roles.
In your team presence, you pick up team reliance and let go of self-reliance. You choose accountability of many outcomes over the responsibility of a few outcomes. You work on what instead of how, and to do that, you hire the right people.
In your organizational presence, you let go of being silo and change your communication direction. No more up and down. You add left and right direction to your communication to learn more from your peers and collaborate. You look outside of your organization. You think in terms of bigger pictures over small footprints.
What do I like in this book? It was pragmatic, realistic, and had advice from real executives from their own lives.
But one piece of advice resonated with me more than anything: Preferring effectiveness over being right. Effectiveness is to have the right team mindset and environment to make the right decisions. Hence, an executive actively creates this environment and the team culture inside and outside of meetings to have their teams make vital decisions collectively rather than spending his/her time defending their opinions to be right all the time. There will be times when defending your opinion is critical, but it should not be standard practice.
The summary of this book is “ What got you here won’t get you there.” and the satisfaction at work can be attained by regularly investing in your growth, your health, and your mindset.