My mission is to help HPNAs succeed as “CEOs of Their Career.”
The first step is to understand and step into that role. Your Career is not your current job - your Career is a 60 year block of time, 9am-6pm for 13,200 working days. How you allocate that time, how you manage it, how you make it count makes an enormous difference (to you and your area of impact). Like any business it requires executive management if you want it to perform.
I can’t urge you strongly enough to take a step back and get your head around this.
You’re the CEO in charge of this business - not just right now, not just when it’s a time of job change or when it’s convenient. It’s an ongoing role, a 60 year mandate. If it was an external business or you were advising a CEO client you would be super professional about it; but because it’s an internal, largely invisible and unexplored function it’s amateur hour.
But with a shift in mindset and very lightweight time and structure you can add in this layer of executive management to your Career and, I believe, in doing so make the single biggest boost to the High Performing ‘HP’ in HPNA.
So here’s how I think about the fact that we have our full time jobs (Work) as well as having this ongoing role as CEO of Our Career.
The first office building I ever worked in was 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, the bank’s 60 Floor world headquarters. I worked on the 3rd Floor along with a vast group of new starters and junior staff. People worked all hours all the time, ate at their desks, ran out to Century 21 when they needed new clothes. The lights never went out, nor was there a lot of direct sunlight there. The 3rd Floor was definitely for Workers.
The CEO and most senior executives on the other hand spent time on the 60th Floor. They had their own elevator, rushing them to the top so they could think big thoughts, see things in perspective, reflect, plan and set action in course. The world literally looks different from the 60th Floor.
So think of yourself as 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, so to speak. We spend 99% of our time and attention working on the 3rd Floor in our day jobs. But we also have an ongoing presence on the 60th Floor - yes it might be on average only 1% of our time but that’s where we operate as CEOs. The 60th Floor is where we manage and chart direction, where we decide what to do on the 3rd Floor and have to navigate it.
Here’s a little picture of this:
Yes, me & Noun Project
These are parallel, complementary functions. You do both.
Occupying the 60th Floor is not just a mindset - it means really doing the work of a CEO, including strategic planning, tactical execution, pastoral (self) care. Putting in actual time and work, actual Board meetings. I work with people to make it lightweight and time-boxed, but it is definitely an ongoing job. Think of it as 36 minutes a month, but every month.
Being CEO doesn’t make the hard problems go away, reduce the non-controllables, or take away the misses. But it gives a unique chance to make better, more professional decisions for oneself. It allows you to create some space and mind space for reflection and stepping out of the present. You deserve the opportunity to make your time and effort count.
Reach out if you’d like to get going.
Be well
Carl
