Several years ago I developed a personal career strategy that I call The Assets and Capabilities Model. For the purposes of this model, an asset is something which you control and a capability is something which you can get done. Notice that this is different than “things you own” and “skills” – that’s intentional and to clarify, here are some examples before moving on:
Some of my assets:
My AWS account
My company’s reputation on Upwork
My computers (note that some assets are, actually, “things you own”)
Software I’ve purchased
My blog
My Zoom account (previously my WebEx account)
My relationship with my kick-ass designer in Ukraine
etc.
Some of my capabilities:
I can design large-scale distributed systems
I can implement a business or development process, train people on it, and monitor it instantly
I can perform code analysis and technical due diligence (in part because of experience and in part because of some of the software I own)
I can build remote teams quickly
I can schedule an online meeting at the drop of a hat
etc.
Take notice of some of the overlap – I can build remote teams quickly in part due to my experience and my company’s reputation on Upwork. I can schedule an online meeting at the drop of a hat because of my Zoom account and because I’ve done it many times before. I have long lists of assets and capabilities which took years of conscious effort to develop and several times a year I ask myself a few questions:
What assets aren’t being fully capitalized upon? (I’m looking at you, list of domain names)
What capabilities aren’t being used frequently enough?
What are some assets I can acquire/develop?
What are some assets I can divest? (domain names, old computer gear, and books are common)
What are some capabilities I’m missing?
What are some capabilities which need to be improved or refreshed?
I recommend the exercise to anyone who is interested in actively managing their value – pretty much anyone who isn’t retired. The exercise starts simply enough: grab your note-taking tool of choice (I have a thing for Canson Sketch Pads) and start listing things you have/control which can be used to solve problems and things that you can get done, either yourself or via your network of strong relationships. I find it’s helpful to link things together to find self-reinforcing constellations of value – things like AWS, Upwork, large-scale system design, building remote teams, and development process implementation all fit together to form a higher-level capability of “I can start a software company in an hour with nothing but an idea, a credit card, and an internet connection”. As you perform your asset and capability cataloging exercise, you’ll naturally identify some of these higher-level capabilities yourself. After you do, then you can follow on with questions about how to make that capability stronger, how to capitalize on it, etc.
What’s the point of doing all of this? Right now you’re probably sitting on a gold mine of value, but it’s not being actively managed. Once you have your catalog, you’ll see what you need to read, what kind of training you should seek out, which things you need to practice, and gaps which need to be filled – this is internal management. Next, your eyes will be opened to opportunities. You’ll find yourself coming across people who need something that you can can do or a chance to deploy an asset – this is external management.
As a final example, I remember some time around the end of 2009 I decided that I lacked public speaking experience. I had no problem speaking to groups in meetings, but I had very little experience presenting to an audience who was there specifically to listen to me. I developed an idea for a talk about the future of work and how it affected recruiter, contacted a few recruiters, and said, “I have this talk and I’m trying to get better at speaking – may I present to your team sometime in the next month?” Not everyone responded, but a couple did and I got to practice. Public speaking is now on my list of capabilities because I’ve actually done it and so I know I can do it again.
What’s on your list? What are you missing? How are you going to capitalize on the unique collection of assets and capabilities that you possess?
In knowledge work, there is value in reducing uncertainty.
Certainty is comfort. Certainty is ease. Certainty is the product.
I’m pretty sure it was Steve McConnell in Rapid Development (which Amazon remembers me purchasing 17 years ago) who introduced me to the concept of the Cone of uncertainty. In the book, he explains how as requirements are gathered, code is built, and testing is performed that we progressively improve our ability to estimate since unknowns are being removed. I think this concept has a broader application to any type of knowledge work, be it software development, consulting, financial valuation, or other types of “figuring things out”. Here’s a sketch to illustrate my mental model:
It is useful to keep in mind that you can never remove all of the uncertainty – you can only get as close to Truth as is practical with an acceptable amount of uncertainty remaining.
Look at the Cone of Uncertainty as a model, not as actual measurement, and consider the path from initiation (Complete Unknown) to delivery – such as working software which has been tested, documented, formatted, commented, etc. Let’s slice the cone into 9 steps and pull out the total uncertainty (i.e. add the left and right distances from Truth centerline) to represent what someone needs to overcome to move to the next step:
At step 1 (Creation/Initiation) there is a huge reduction in the amount of uncertainty. Accordingly, there is huge value. People who create companies, people who create products, and salespeople are all good examples of working in that area. The ability to go from a nearly complete unknown to something that has structure is incredibly valuable – and can offer corresponding financial rewards.
The next few steps chip away at uncertainty until we get to the first working version. It’s not just that it takes skills to gather requirements, determine an appropriate architecture, and design a system – it’s that at every step along that path there is a non-trivial amount of uncertainty which must be dealt with. The people working in those domains need to understand that uncertainty and press forward to reduce it. It’s uncomfortable to be unsure. The feeling of sticking your neck out and running the risk of being wrong can be crippling to some – think of everyone who says that they could never be a salesperson or start a company. Those who overcome that feeling and work through it, however, are some of the highest paid people in any industry.
Note also that between step 5 (First working version) and step 9 (which is, essentially, a very specific form of documentation) there is very little reduction in uncertainty. This makes sense if you think about it – you could hand software from step 8 to anyone with basic development skills to have step 9 completed. While this is still an important step, there is substantially less value in it compared to building the first version since it is commodity work. This is also one of the reasons why developers are so hesitant to comment their code, write documentation, etc. – it doesn’t have the same level of satisfaction that comes from building something and going from concept to functioning code.
This idea has been on my mind for a few weeks now since I work with team members in a wide spectrum of capabilities and price points. I started wondering, “Why do we pay Igor the designer more than Ivan the tester?” and “Why is this guy paid like a team lead while that guy is paid like an intern?” In each case it wasn’t the individual’s skill level, but the amount of uncertainty they managed to both deal with and reduce for us. A designer who can take fuzzy direction like, “Make it look modern and attractive” and create a great user interface is worth more to us than a tester who takes a piece of software and reports back “Here are the things I tried and here are the results”. This is particularly interesting to me since testing is hard and requires more skill to do well than most people realize.
I’ve focused a lot on how this applies to software, but I’m pretty sure you can apply it to any knowledge-work based position. This leads to a couple of important conclusions. The first is that you need to accept, acknowledge, and overcome uncertainty. Part of your job is to explain, contain, and remove that uncertainty. This is usually accomplished by writing something which explains what you found, what you decided, and why. Someone with more (or different) experience may disagree with you, but if you’ve provided what you know and what you think it will be easy for others to improve or correct what you’ve done. Lastly, if you’re looking for a way to become more valuable then work your way up the cone to deal with increasing levels of uncertainty. The ultimate is to create a completely new product or company and go from the terrifying unknown to millions of people understanding you.
Think of yourself as a product for a few moments. Your employer (or client) continuously refills on what you have to offer.
Now think of how you treat products. The ones you like and seek out vs. the ones you just kind of use because they’re there or because switching costs are high. There are also products you use that you really don’t like, but feel there is no good alternative (I’m looking at you, AT&T which has essentially a monopoly where I live).
Which are you? Are you a product with a devoted following or are you just there because you’re there?
One of the difficult aspects of the modern economy is that there are new, competing products being released all the time. Just like music moved from tape to digital, there are now alternatives to what you’ve been doing for years. Not many people (if any) said, “Think of the tape manufacturers – it’s not fair, we need to keep using cassettes!” Instead, we saw that CDs (and then MP3s and then streaming) were better alternatives and so we switched.
Jobs are “disappearing” because there are so many better alternatives to hiring for those jobs. From outsourcing to machine learning to robotics and drones and autonomous vehicles – you aren’t competing against just other people anymore.
A new model year for you is just around the corner. Is the 2017 edition of you going to sell out or sit on the shelf? You need to become your own product manager, which means understanding your true competition, your actual costs (if you are unfamiliar with “fully burdened labor costs” then Google it – or just add 20% to your pay to estimate it), your actual value, etc.
So, as the year winds down give some serious thought to your entire offering – from packaging to warranty.
Here’s to wishing you a year of Apple-level devotion and margins!
Your #1 j ob is to make people want to work with you. If you’re ever faced with a work decision, use that measuring stick first by asking if your response makes someone want to work with you more, less, or the same. Since a large part of my brand is clarity, I’ll break this down into specifics, but please keep in mind that this list isn’t comprehensive and that environments vary widely.
Deliver. Getting your work done is critical. This is the biggest influencer on whether people want to work with you.
Smile. Not just in your facial expressions, but in your words and voice. Being pleasant is a close second to getting your work done and close enough that I’ve seen ineffective people retain their position far longer than they should simply because everyone liked them.
Innovate. While this is a pretty overused term, I’m using it here to specifically mean “do something or create something new which is a pleasant surprise”. It only takes 1 or 2 small innovations a year for people to want to work with you and see what’s next.
Bleed. You are going to make a mistake – own that mistake and do everything you can to make things right. You should not, of course, intentionally create problems but it’s pretty safe to say that problems will come. If you are the type of person who never blames others nor covers things up then people will notice (consciously or not) and want to work with you.
Support. Keep an eye out for others having difficulty and jump in to get their head above water. Someone who can keep the team moving in the toughest of times will be sought out and held onto.
Teach. If you can make others more valuable then you are a force multiplier and people will want to work with you.
Delight. The occasional left-field surprise goes a long way.
The challenging aspect to all this is that it needs to be genuine – for example pleasant can’t be an act, it needs to be a commitment.
