How To Get Things Done at Your Company
This will vary a bit from company-to-company, but it's advice I've generally found useful when trying to accomplish things at medium-to-large size organizations.
1. Understand what the ethos of your company is. Frame things in that context.
For a lot of organizations (at least the one's I've worked at), this is something like...your heart is pure.
- Your Heart = your true intentions and reason for doing the thing / asking for a thing / pushing someone to do a thing faster.
- Pure = genuinely aligned with an in support of the culturally-accepted missing/purpose/ethos.
- At your company, this is normally something related to your mission statement, with variants per team / dependent on what the goal of the moment is (if your CEO has given a quarterly all hands or something similar recently, think about how the priorities that were discussed trickle down to your team).
- The easiest way to do this is if your heart actually is pure (a.k.a - the reason you want the thing is completely in line with the generally-wanted team outcome).
2. Be the person you'll want others to be to you (learn more here).
Respond quickly when others ask you for things, share what you know, be helpful (even, and especially if, you don't have a quick-pro-quo in mind). This is important for three reasons:
- First: if you want to do something really big, you're going to need a lot of people to trust you (and trust that "your heart is pure"). You have to earn this trust, by showing who you are over time.
- Second: when you're getting things done, you'll want people to respond to your asks quickly. So, respond to their asks quickly to set the precedent.
- Third: you never know when you'll want to ask a favor from someone. Especially in big companies, roles change, teams evolve, and the random person you were snotty to at lunch becomes the engineering director of a group you're dependent on!
3. Get to know the people who are connectors (and can direct you to other specific people who know things) or have robust knowledge in a subject/product area.
- These people are usually "mid-tenured", and have been at your company for 2-4 years (+/- depending on how long people typically stay at your company).
- Also, they tend to know each other (e.g - "talk to so-and-so in accounting and she'll work with all those teams for you").
- It really does help to meet others in person, and establish the mysterious magic bond that connects humans. It's much easier to ask for something (and get a quick response) if the person knows who you are.
4. Make it your business to know what other people/teams' goals are.
Align and position your asks to their goals.
A relevant quote from Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:
To be trusted in a position of leadership, it helps to advance other people’s goals as well as one’s own.
5. Make it pleasant and fun for others to do things for you.
- Be cool.
- Wrap up every interaction with something light/funny/fun.
- Say "thanks" a lot (but not too much - don't be weird/sycophantic about it).
6. Focus on the goal, not the credit.
Let others share in any impacts/positive outcomes of your projects.
7. Stay above board. Don't do things behind people's backs.
This will sometimes work in some company cultures, but for most you'll get some short term gain but ultimately suffer.
8. It helps to have a helpful manager.
- You can get things done without one, but recognize that everything becomes a bit more tenuous.
- What is a helpful manager? Someone who can give good advice, ask the right questions, and help pave the way in new areas (or help unblock things if you get stuck).
9. Stay in folks' radar.
Reply to their org announcement emails saying something nice. Like peoples posts/pages on company message boards. Check in and ask how things are going (even, and especially, if you don't need anything from them). Share things you come across that are relevant to them.
10. When you're ready and need something.
- If it's anything out of the ordinary or new:
- For standardized, quick requests with an existing, acceptable turnaround time - just start with the published process (e.g - IT requests, simple repeated reviews, etc.).
11. Write good documentation.
And organize it/make it discoverable so that others can find prior work you did and think you're sharp (and be receptive to future asks).
12. Minimize, bound, and be strategic about who you complain to.
Gossip travels. Generally, you shouldn't be upset/frustrated/bothered with someone unless you've talked to them about it first.
13. Try to always take a meeting that an individual person asked for.
- Even if it seems like that person doesn't have anything to do with what you're doing now - they have a reason. This is part of #2 on this list.
- If you're really busy - push it back a week.
- This is not true for large meetings with a bunch of people - probably better to skip those.
14. Get access to every group, etc.
So that when you find a new internal tool or resource, you can use it/see it instantly without needing to go through a permissions process. You will have varying levels of success with this depending on how strict your organization is with access to internal tools.
The above will help you from getting blocked in the first place. When you do get blocked (as you inevitably will at times), here’s Unblocking 101.
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