Great Work, Great Career

People who are only looking for a job have résumés. People who are looking to make a great career have Contribution Statements.

Your great career starts, as Peter Hawkins and Nick Smith say, “when you stop asking questions such as ‘How do I get promoted?’ and start asking ‘What is the difference I want to make? What is the legacy I want to leave?

A great career is all about solving great problems, meeting great challenges, and making great contributions.

person with a great career makes a distinctive contribution and generates a strong feeling of loyalty and trust in others

The old Industrial Age paradigm tells you that you’re at the mercy of the economy, the industry, the boss, the job description, the standard operating procedure, and everything else that makes you a victim. If you continue to suffer under that paradigm, your relevance, your job security, and even your personal fulfillment and health are at stake.

On the other hand, if you adopt the Knowledge Age paradigm, you free yourself. You don’t look for a job; you look for a significant problem to solve or an exciting opportunity to leverage. You look for a profession you love and that people will pay you to do. You are not a “job description with legs,” but a thinking, creative human being with unique and irreplaceable talents. You can make a contribution no one else can make.

The same is true for your career, even in challenging times. Possibilities abound on all sides. The only shortage of opportunity is in your mind.

In fact, the opportunities could not be greater for those who adopt the right paradigm

When responding to the question, relate the situation—the first part of your STAR—and ask, “Is this the kind of thing you were looking for?”

Here’s an example. The interviewer asks, “What is your key strength as a leader, and when did you capitalize on that strength?” A STAR response looks like this:

(SITUATION) “My key strength is making informed decisions. I once led a sales group equally divided on whether we should have geographical sales territories or key accounts. It was a very political issue with people deeply invested on both sides.”

(TASK) “My task was to research the question and decide.”

(ACTION) “I found that key accounts would be much more productive, allowing a sales team to focus on one client regardless of geography, and I was able to sell that solution on the basis of my research.”

(RESULT) “We increased sales by a third the first year.”

Baran recalls that the process of creating the Internet was “like building a cathedral…new people come along and each lays down a block on top of the old foundations…. Next month another block is placed atop the previous one…the reality is that each contribution follows onto previous work. Everything is tied to everything else.”53

It’s a natural principle that you cannot achieve anything truly worthwhile alone—at least not in the world of work.

What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

A highly synergistic team creates solutions that even the lone genius cannot foresee