To move your career forward, focus on what your company thinks is valuable

By Jim Grey (about)

Early in my career I wrote thick paper manuals for a company’s highly technical software products. (Paper manuals were still very much a thing 34 years ago when I started writing them.) I really liked the work and dreamed of becoming an independent technical author.

The company lost its biggest customer and that put us in serious financial trouble. We needed to ship the next release of a particular product fast to close some product gaps that were blocking sales. My boss reassigned me from writing to testing.

I was not happy about it. At all. I didn’t hate testing, and I could see that they needed more testers to accelerate the schedule. But testing didn’t move me toward my dreams. So I quit to become an editor for a technology publishing company.

That job turned out to be a meat grinder. And then I learned that authors didn’t really make that much money from their books. I’d have to kill myself working to make a good living as an author. So I quit and went to a different company in the software industry.

But this isn’t really about my dream. It’s about a missed opportunity, which was to make a name for myself with those people in that place, materially helping them save the company by doing the critical job they asked me to do. The company did not need more user manuals right then, it needed working software to sell. I could have helped with that. 

Lots of people left that company during that time and it didn’t make it. In my view, if we had all stuck it out and done the things that were needed, even if they were not things we would have preferred to do, we might have pulled the company through. What a story that would have been to be able to tell!

Even in less urgent times, wherever you work, understand what your company thinks is valuable and align yourself hard to those things. Throw yourself into them. Skate to where the puck is.

First, it helps the company more powerfully achieve its goals. Second, it helps you in your career to be seen as someone who’s seriously in the game. That’s good for you.

This does not mean you shouldn’t advocate for things that you think are valuable. I’m sure you see a dozen things that your company doesn’t pay attention to that it probably ought to. Fight the good fight while you give them what they value.

This also does not mean you should align to things that are illegal or immoral. If your company asks you to do that, obviously you should get out.

As a leader I love it when I say, “I need X,” and my team gives me X in abundance. It’s not because my ego needs that stroke, but because X is highly valuable. You giving me that highly valuable stuff leads me to see you as a highly valuable player. It makes it a lot more likely that I might call you one day after we’ve all gone on to work elsewhere, and ask you to join my team again. I know you to be someone who delivers valuable things in abundance!