Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Your Job as Grad School



My guess is that all jobs can be learning experiences. Even bad jobs can produce the lesson of "I never want to do that again." 

On a more positive note, however, there are jobs where we can learn an enormous amount if we are alert and willing to look for lessons. This is not automatic. There are people who sleepwalk through what is one of life's greatest graduate schools.

Here are a few questions which should be explored in any job:
  1. Setting aside the hype, how does this place really operate?
  2. How do you get things done?
  3. What type of person tends to get promoted?
  4. What will get you fired?
  5. When are exceptions made?
  6. How does top management find out what's going on?
  7. Does it really know what's going on?
  8. Who are the key players?
  9. What are their strategies?
  10. What is rewarded?
  11. What is the mission?
  12. How well is the mission fulfilled?
  13. What causes people to drift away from the mission?
  14. Is there a common characteristic of people who have been with the organization a long time?
  15. Is there a common characteristic of the people who leave?
  16. Where is the fast-track?
  17. Where is Siberia?
  18. Where are the landmines?
  19. How could this place be improved?
  20. How can the bureaucracy be thwarted?
  21. In two, three or five years, what will I have learned?

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