#494 Be yourself more with skill

0:00Hi everybody, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast. Before you listen or watch today's episode, I just wanted to let you know about some news that Sarah and I are very excited about, and that is that our Squiggly Careers Skills Sprint is back. This time we are going to be sprinting in September and the sprint will last for a week. Our focus is on the five Squiggly Career Skills. So that is strengths, values, confidence, network and future possibilities. And we are going to be accelerating your development by adding in a little bit of AI. life. So there are some prompts for you to play with, there are some tools for you to try out, and we have got everything that you need to learn.

0:35So sign up to the sprint, head to squiggliesprint.com, add your email in and we'll start to send you your Ready Steady Sprint guide. You can sprint together as a team, you can sprint on your own, whatever works for you, but we are going to make this as easy as possible for you to sign up, for you to start and for you to stick to your sprint. So go to squiggliesprint.com to get started now. Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast. Every week we choose a different topic to do with work and your career and try to share some ideas and actions to help all of us navigate these squiggly careers, that bit more confidence and control.

1:14And this is the fourth in a slightly random series that we decided to do over the summer because we thought, is everybody committed to taking lots of deep action with their development in August? No, no one needs a matrix in August I don't reckon really no one needs a matrix in August oh that makes me sad but I think you might be right people do people need to need a bit of inspiration in August some sort of light ways to reflect and think about what you're doing and maybe take back into September when you when you kind of come back to everything that's in your inbox so that is what this series is all about we are taking quotes that have inspired our career things that have helped us to think slightly differently about our development.

1:58And we wanted to turn them into something that you can use to reflect on for yourself. And you can also hear about how we've put into action so that maybe you can adopt some of that stuff too. So this is the fourth, and it's the final one of this series. So let us know if you liked it. It's Helen and Sarah at squigglycareers.com. But just a recap of what we've covered so far. Episode one was Run Your Own Race, which is a quote that has worked for me. Episode two was Never Live Your Same Year Twice, which is a quote that has helped Sarah along the way. episode three was to challenge your limits don't limit your challenges another one that's worked for me and today Sarah what are we talking about um so it's not really a quote right I mean off brief off brief as always great thanks for that um what it is is a definition of leadership okay yeah which is what nobody asked for or wanted that is what we are doing um and I think there are not many definitions of leadership that have really connected or stuck with me, which is why I think it sort of works as a quote, because it has inspired me, and it has resulted in action.

3:01So you know, I feel like it still fits the criteria. And this comes from Rob Joffe and Gareth Jones, and their book, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? And their sort of award winning Harvard Business Review article with the same title. So if you don't read the book have a look at the article and they describe leadership as be yourself more with skill so be yourself more with skill and for me I just think that is a really good reflection for everybody so yes it was written in the context of leadership and exploring leadership but you know who who doesn't that apply to we all need to kind of be ourselves more with skill in terms of how we turn up at work, how we show up, how we keep learning.

3:48So that's what we're going to explore today. What does it mean to you? That's like, I think the first question, if you're unpacking it in your brain, like what does it mean to you and why does it resonate with you? So I think the reason it resonated was I remember reading this work and it's very clear that there is no blueprint for being brilliant. And I think that's quite reassuring. you know like oh I don't have to change my personality I don't have to become something I'm not what I actually need to do is be a better me that I think that is actually the really important point and I think I it probably particularly connected with me because I did spend I think a fair bit of my career particularly in the early days pretending to be someone I wasn't or feeling pressure to pretend to be somebody I wasn't so to be more extrovert than I kind of naturally am um to try and maybe have some skills that I'm not actually that good at um you know sort of worrying more about my weaknesses and focusing on my strengths all of those kind of things and I think once I started to sort of make the transition to oh but how could I be a better me almost sort of accepting me my my reality like well you know this this is what I'm good at these are the strengths that I've got then I found that really helpful it's much more motivating because it feels more in your gift for something that you can go away and do something with so that's kind of the first thing it's like be a better me great so I don't have to worry about other people and then it's the second part is like the be yourself more with skill it's the more with skill I think doesn't mean oh well great I can just turn up and be myself because that's the cop-out I think if you just go be yourself the cop-out is oh like I can behave however I want I can do whatever I want to do and actually think it's quite lazy is there like a specific something that you have specifically done as a result of like in your career do you think there is something like there was a moment where you're like this is specifically better for me because of that I did this differently because of that statement I think one of the things that changed for me is I started talking more openly about being introverted and actually seeing very quickly how much that connected with people who typically are also introverted um and also it raises lots of questions because some of the work that I do you wouldn't naturally or sometimes people wouldn't actually connect the work that I do with being introverted but actually there are lots of people who are introverted who like standing on a stage lots of comedians are introverted and they go and do like stand-up comedy you know at least like I kind of know what I'm going to present when I'm doing a big keynote or whatever it might be um and so I think it gave me permission to kind of talk about that um and then I could I could see the impact of me talking about that with other people and so then it felt useful it felt useful to do um and then I think the the other thing that it prompted me to do was to think about the things that I was very uniquely good at like what makes me uniquely useful and then to kind of double down on those things and go well just because I'm already good at them you don't just sort of go okay great I've got those strengths actually really think about how can I make those strengths stronger how can I stretch those strengths um how can I use those strengths in different situations lots of stuff that we've talked about in the podcast before around strengths I put loads more effort and energy into my strengths after this and I worried a lot less about my weaknesses much happier to sort of let some of those things go there's just things I wasn't that good at or to take the approach of what does good enough look like and be satisfied with that so I think I put my learning and development kind of effort and energy more into kind of strengths less into weaknesses um okay then so let's talk about some ideas for action of work for you that you think could help other people take this quote into their work too so action number one is job crafting and there is a quote from the book that says uh individuals are now architects of their own working lives um and they're talking about kind of some of the changes actually away from career ladders and uh also inspired by recently as a team we did some work with tailored thinking the brilliant tailored thinking on job crafting, like what that looks like for us.

8:18And for people who've not come across job crafting before, because I don't think it is a super common term. I sometimes bring it up in workshops and lots of people are like, oh, what does that, what does that mean? I think it is the difference between changes in your job happening to you, which I think happens to everyone. You know, if you talk about someone's job, how many people's jobs stay identically the same year on year hardly anyone now because you're like well companies are changing there's so much uncertainty so everybody's job changes all of the time but how many of those jobs are um those job changes are sort of intentional from you are driven by you versus driven by other people or your organization and so job crafting is you you driving changes to your roles and responsibilities in small ways in significant ways usually um in collaboration with your with your manager with your boss because it's often there might be some small tweaks you can make by yourself but typically if you're kind of doing this in a very kind of thoughtful way you can't just go oh i'm just going to stop doing this and start doing this you know you need to buy in yeah because you need kind of buy-in um also it might have implications for other people in the team you know so there's like the ripple effect ripple effect of that and so if you're maybe listening to this and you're like oh actually I've never really I've actually never really thought about how I spend my time in my job you know like the tasks that I do what I'm responsible for what I'd want to do more of or less of and then really starting to kind of think about that it's almost like taking ownership for your own live job description um I think that is a great way to be yourself more with skill and grow in the role that you are in today.

10:05If you can solve someone else's problem or support their priority at the same time, that's kind of the win so that it looks like it's a way in which you can stretch that strength and it has a positive outcome for them too. You're much more likely to get buy-in, I think, when it works for both parties. And if you want to learn a bit more, Dan Cable from London Business School, great article you can read on job crafting. I think he's great on job crafting. Okay, so number two, what's the second thing people should do? so second thing is asking for feedback um but particularly on your blind spots so blind spots things that other people can see that you can't see in yourself often quite hard to do so what i wouldn't recommend is just saying to somebody um helen i'd like some feedback on my blind spots i think that is a really hard question it's a confronted question isn't it and so i think we've got to be more specific but the reason I think this is a good action on being yourself more with skill is part of being skillful is knowing what you don't know and recognizing that there will always be some things that you that you kind of don't know about yourself and other people can give you some learning that you just can't achieve alone and a better way perhaps to ask for feedback on your blind spots that we've been testing and seems to be working quite well with people is to connect those blind spots to a goal that you've got to make it load to give a frame for that free feedback and make it loads easier for people to to answer so I was trying to like come up with some examples here to sort of bring this to life so what I could say to Helen is um I want to be a leader if I think about leadership I want to be a leader that gives people both the space they need and the support they need to succeed in their roles it's really important to me that I get that right that kind of space and support um combination what might I be missing that would help me to do that really well and so at least then I've given I still think it's quite hard it's still not easy but at least Helen I've then said to Helen well this is something that's important to me this is a goal that kind of matters to me or I could do it around one of my strengths so I might say I've got a goal around um well one of my strengths is coming up with ideas and I love a blank piece of paper and I want to make sure I'm using that strength in as many ways as possible to help Amazing If to do what we want to do to make squiggly careers better for everybody what do I not do that I could start doing that you think would be useful for Amazing If?

12:42I find the second framing of that question easier than the first like what do I not do I'd be like oh well we don't keep a bank of those ideas and we don't come back to them so they either catch in the moment or we lose them I feel like that I could answer much more easily and it doesn't feel like a direct critique of you yeah so action three our final thing for people to I feel like these are quite hard I'm like giving people really quite a quite hard hard um actions we've built them up through this series we've been okay they're ready I think you need to have some squiggly stretch and this actually links really well I think to your previous episode where we're talking about kind of challenge your limits don't limit your challenges because to be yourself more with skill I think you have to put yourself every so often in a uncomfortable uncertain new situation because being yourself more with skill if you are always in the same situation is easier and that's okay that can be okay for a bit I'm not saying you need to do this all of the time but I do think there are kind of moments where you're like I've got to put myself somewhere different so my examples were like side projects that's kind of worked for me to be myself more with skill volunteering doesn't have to be those those are both quite time consuming I think it could be volunteering for something internally you know a project that you don't know how to do it could be a task that makes you feel uncomfortable or like championing something in your team that you just think I don't know what that I don't know what that looks like um but I think if you are only applying this within your sort of comfortable areas or kind of the things you already know So you're not quite doing the kind of moreness.

14:33I think to do this really well, there has got to be those moments where you do transfer your talents. And I think there are small, medium and big ways of doing that. But if you can't remember the last time you did that, now might be a good time to start spotting those opportunities. I think a nice way of doing that as well could be teaching somebody else, you know, like mentoring somebody else. You're kind of extending that strength in a slightly different situation and that can feel like you were saying not as resource intensive as starting a side project but they're all they're all ways to do kind of action yeah I always say I love um mentoring based on what people want to learn rather than the level that they're at and actually if you could set up something in a community or in a company where it's like oh let's all share a strength and if you want to learn that strength let's do some kind of mentoring that would be a really good way to be yourself more with skill so this is the end good luck everyone good luck everyone well okay i think we've given people lots of inspiration lots of ideas so we did the four episodes so there's four kind of main themes of inspiration for people each one has three ideas so that's 12 different ideas for action we've covered in the last couple of weeks so hopefully lots of people to take into september um to invest in their development and if we have inspired you do not forget the sprint is coming the sprint is coming in september we will put all the links to sign up for the sprint if you are signed up for squiggly careers in action which is our weekly newsletter or you follow us on LinkedIn, you cannot miss that the Squiggly sprint is coming.

15:59So please sign up for that. Learn with us in September. But thank you for kind of being part of this series. And we love feedback. Helen and Sarah at squigglycareers.com. So let us know if it's useful. Let us know if you'd like us to do it again in the future. Maybe a good question. If we want to be the most useful podcast for you and your career, what gaps have we got? Oh, free ourselves more with skill. I love it. I love it. Yeah, let us know that everyone. Living the dream. Thank you so much for spending some of your summer time with us, everyone. We hope you are finding them useful. But that's everything for this week.

16:34And we'll be back next week with a normal Squiggly Careers episode. Bye for now. Bye, everyone.