I don’t feel my potential is being realised.

Dear Aunty B,

I work for a very entrepreneurial company in Perth, but I keep being overlooked for senior positions. I have been with the company for 10 years (it was my first job out of school) and I’ve gone as far as I can go in operations. I am also on the strategy committee because I come up with good ideas for the business.

I have been told the reason I am missing out on these positions is that I am not good at the detail side of business and I am a poor manager of people. This is not true as I am great with people and my staff really like me. Yes I am not a spreadsheet type of bloke as I have tried to develop some of that but doing is far more important than spreadsheeting in my book.

So I am in this catch 22. My boss says I am brilliant at what I do and that I should stick to that. I don’t agree with his description of my weaknesses. I have also been offered another job on the east coast but it is doing what I am doing now for a larger company though on less pay. Should I accept it? I know my boss would be cut up if I left and I will really miss this organisation. But I don’t feel my potential is being realised. Also this is the right time for me to make a move as I haven’t settled down and my family is back east.

Tony

Dear Tony,

Your boss has made it very clear: you are highly valued, paid well and obviously respected, hence your position on the strategy committee. But it has also been made clear to you that you lack the skills required to get to the next level within the organisation.

As you say yourself, you are not a spreadsheet type of guy. Just that comment alone reveals that you don’t respect or understand the complexities involved in stepping up to the next position. What you have to understand is this. Entrepreneurial companies don’t sit around creating speadsheet activity for the hell of it. If we didn’t have such sensitive bottoms, we would all prefer to use spreadsheets as toilet paper. (I’m old and thinking of paper here.)

Stop thinking about filling in spreadsheets and start thinking about gathering intelligence. What is required in key positions of entrepreneurial companies is not a cheerleader who knows how to build widgets and has good ideas (not that I am saying that is all you are or that cheerleading widget builders with good ideas are not needed. They are.)

Your boss is asking for someone who can gather and record information to provide a dashboard of how the company is travelling and to look for clues. Where are the fault lines? What’s trending down? Where are the opportunities?

Coming up with ideas is different to this analysis work. There is also a vast gulf between being liked by your staff and being a good manager.

You know it can be very frustrating wanting a job that you are clearly not cut out for.

One tip to ask yourself is this: what can I never improve? No matter how hard I try, what can I never get better at?

You have answered that. You like to do. Not to “spreadsheet”. Why try and be something you are not? Especially when you are so good at what you do. Take your job and look at it a different way. How can you get even better at what you do? And then ask yourself how you can contribute to the company’s goals? If you find that doesn’t excite you then it is time to move on. But make sure you don’t spend the next 10 years trying to get good at what you struggle with. You will be happier and more successful getting better at what you excel in rather than trying to turn yourself into something you are not. Go with your strengths!!

Be smart,
Your Aunty B

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