0:00 Who are you? [music] And where are you going?
0:06 >> [music]
0:08 >> What do you want? Hello and welcome to people making money. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and I'm here every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about job hunting, starting and running a business, and building wealth. So, the whole financial side of our lives. And today I'm focused on job hunting and being an employee. And I'm going to be talking about the first 90 days on a job. So,
0:45 par- pardon me, we oftentimes when you know, a new president takes office, they talk about the first 100 days. Uh I you know, I don't know that there's any magic to these time periods per se, uh but there is no doubt that what we do in the first, you know, in the in that initial period when we go to work for a new company can have a pretty significant impact on our tenure at that company. And so, admitting that, you know, 90 days is a
1:21 somewhat arbitrary number. Uh maybe it's, you know, 80 days, 120 days, who knows. Um but this this is to give you an idea of how to get off on the right foot when you go to work for a new company. So, I have five thoughts to share with you. And as those of you who watch the show regularly know, I most of my professional life I've worked for myself. I've had my own businesses. I've been an employee, I think basically four times in my
1:58 professional life. Once when I first got out of college, I worked for a lawyer for about a year and a half and then after that I worked for his brother who was a real estate syndicator for about a year and a half as well. So that that's kind of one incident cuz they were connected. They were brothers. And then I when I was in college, I worked for Disneyland.
2:20 >> [laughter]
2:21 >> Definitely an employee there. And and then was employed by the United States Navy in between when I founded and ran my real estate company here in Los Angeles and what I'm doing now. And so I can draw on those experiences and I'm going to be using my time in the Navy primarily to give you some examples of I think how some of this can be done effectively. So
2:52 >> [clears throat]
2:52 >> when you you know, when you start working for a new company, I suspect you feel a lot of pressure to do something. I've talked about this phenomenon of do something you know, a number of times on on my various shows and I and I I when I So my first duty station when I when I went on active duty was in Okinawa, Japan. I I got there in late December of 2007.
3:27 I was there by myself. My family was not there yet. I didn't even have my dogs with me, right? And so I had really nothing to do but work and and you know, I felt like I I need to do something, right? And and what I ended up doing was agreeing to do so many things that I had so much to do. There were weeks that, uh, you know, I would work 80 plus hours. Um, when my, uh, then wife, uh, finally got
4:02 to Okinawa and, uh, soon after that our daughter was born, uh, I would go entire weeks without seeing my daughter awake because I I was working so much. And and that all dated from the first few months I was there in Okinawa. Uh, it it it's essentially with nothing to do but work. And and I think that it's it's a mistake for us to, uh, feel the compul- to give in to the compulsion to to do, you know, to take immediate action. We're better
4:37 off starting out getting kind of a strategic vision of what needs to happen and taking a little bit of time to do that. Checking out the lay of the land, as they say. So, one of the most important things we can do is figure out what is the informal power structure. Not the organizational chart. So, what when I got to Okinawa, uh, because my head had was filled with, uh, you know, World War II movies of of world, you know, uh, of how the military
5:14 works and and a number of preconceived notions that came from officer training. I had this idea that, well, you know, the the base chaplain's office was run by a chaplain who was a Navy captain, what's known as a four-striper cuz on his, uh, service dress blues uniform he had four gold stripes. And so, he must control everything. No. That was not the case at all. Probably the most powerful person in the base chaplain's office
5:50 was actually his secretary who was a Japanese woman and and therefore a civilian who had been the secretary to successive base chaplains for I think at that point close to 30 years. She had all the corporate knowledge. She had relationships of long standing. And if she didn't want something to happen it pretty much was not going to happen.
6:25 Okay. And and I I recognized pretty quickly, wow in reality, you know, because military people sort of come and go two, three, maybe four years at the most and the civilians are there year after year after year after year a lot of power was in the hands of civilians. In the chapel for which I was responsible on a on a base called Camp Foster the secretary there who was also a a Japanese lady uh she had been there for I think six or seven years and she knew a lot and and she was able
7:04 to accrete a lot of power. Now uh because I was able to establish a good working relationship with her, we were able to work in concert. And lucky for me, um not too long after I got into that job the base chaplain's secretary retired and the secretary at my chapel took that job. So now all of a sudden I had an established relationship with the secretary for the base chaplain, right? So recognizing these kinds of situations
7:39 are very important. Uh another situation that that that sort of shows the importance. So, overall in the military, civilians have a lot more authority than you might think they would because we think of the uniformed personnel as running the show. If it's anything administrative, it's very unlikely that uniformed people run the show. So, when I had to hire a new secretary after mine got promoted, right? I was told it would take 6 to 9
8:14 months to do like, wait, that can't possibly be right. And so, what I had to do was go talk to the various civilians who were in charge of advertising the position and vetting the people and etc. etc. and find out, you know, what is the process? How does it work? Uh and figure out how I could speed it up. And and the the the reality was the way I sped it up and got it done in under 3 months was by doing their work for them. Cuz otherwise, the paperwork would sit on their desk
8:49 until they had time to handle it. And that's really what took so long is there were just there were a series of of essentially bottlenecks, right? And anytime someone represents a bottleneck, that person has power because they can decide what the workflow will be. Right? So, it's critical in in your first, you know, few weeks at a new company to figure out what is that informal power structure. Okay? And then that's number one. That's the first part of number
9:24 one.
9:25 >> [snorts]
9:25 >> And then, you need to figure out what does success in your job actually look like? This has often times not a whole lot to do with your job description. Okay, I have a friend who works for a technology company and his job description says he's a data scientist. And yet, really what he is is a software engineer. Because success for him looks like the company being successful and the company's biggest problem is not the data analysis, it's the software that performs the data analysis
10:01 and and the software engineers of the company don't seem to be able to get that to work right. So, he's had to take on that role even though it's not really part of his job description. Right? So, what figuring out what makes this company successful and how can I positively impact that success? That's a another crucial factor to figure out in your early time at the company. So, how do you do that? Well, one thing you do is you listen for recurring problems. What are people complaining
10:37 about? Now, obviously there often times there's a lot of complaints about this there I don't like the health plan or I don't like this there. Okay, that that's that will always go on. People always complain. But, what are customers and clients complaining about? How can they be served better? What are the struc- not the structural, I shouldn't call them structural. What are the um the biggest uh problems facing a company? Is it issues like cash flow? Is it finding uh qualified people to work
11:12 there? Is it maintaining qualified people working there? Is it product development is lagging? What are the key two or three problems or issues the company is facing that seem to be undermining it its success? That's one side of it. The other side of it is what are the things maybe that are taking it to a tremendous success level and how do those get supported? How do they get expanded? How do they how does how is that how is that momentum
11:47 sustained, right? These are the kind of things you want to look at in determining what success actually looks like and and then particularly on the problem side. So, if if there are some problems structural or just just core problems, those are opportunities because if you can figure out a way to solve those problems or at least reduce the negative impact they have on the company, that's a tremendous success. So,
12:22 you want to avoid the trap of trying to prove yourself too fast because number one, you may end up aligning yourself with people who actually are not influential within the company or even worse with people that the company is really seeking to shunt aside or get rid of. You may end up addressing problems or what appear to be problems that really are not going to have a significant impact on the company. And you may be
12:57 by doing that you may create resistance to your success within the company. So, you may say, "Well, God, that's pretty manipulative." Well, I don't know that it's manipulative, but what it is is it's it's it's smart politics and every company has politics. Even small ones do. Now, typically the smaller the company, the less egregious the politics, but especially if you're working for a a organization, your success in that organization is is going to be highly correlated with your ability to
13:34 navigate the political uh landmines that may be there,
13:40 >> [snorts]
13:40 >> as well just you know playing politics doesn't mean that you have to treat people badly or stab people in the back or anything like that, right? One can be an honest politician, a decent politician in that sense by you know, treating people appropriately, uh by by not engaging in gossip or or other negative behaviors, okay? So, start out with strategic observation, not immediate action. Number two
14:17 build key relationships before you need them, okay? So, you want to map out um maybe five, depending on how large the organization is, maybe it's only two or three, if it's larger, maybe it's as many as 10 critical uh people across not just your own department, but across departments in the company that really can be important sources of collaboration, sources of mentorship
14:52 and [snorts] sources of information, okay? And by the way, that can also be uh that can also be good mentees. So, depending on where you are in your career, if you're a more senior person, one of the things you want to find is is people who you can in essence take under your wing because the first job of anyone in any company, really, especially if you're in a senior leadership role is to make sure that there's someone who can step into your role. Okay, that that sounds counterintuitive.
15:27 Like, wait a minute. I'm I'm grooming my replacement so that I can get kicked out? Yes. That that is the reality. We we shouldn't be leaving a company in a situation where it it it will fall apart without us. That is not good leadership. What happens if we get sick or worse, get injured, or even worse, God forbid, you know, die? What are we leaving behind, right? So, we want to we want to identify who are the people with whom we need we
16:02 need to build these relationships, and then start building those relationships. So, schedule a number of short one-on-one, you know, focused meetings, and and talk to those people about their priorities, both for their own careers and within the company. So, I'll give you an example. When when I was again stationed in Okinawa, so the base chaplain's office was its own part of the command, fulfilling our function as chaplains, but for administrative purposes, we were
16:38 connected to what was called headquarters and services battalion. So, if we had issues with getting paid or with taking leave or those kinds of things, that was all handled through H&S battalion. And about I about a year or so after I I got to Okinawa, the Marine Corps colonel in charge of H&S battalion changed, and the new new colonel got there. So, I had been taught by my father that when you first got to a a new duty station, or when you got a new
17:15 commanding officer, I'm putting that in quotes cuz technically he wasn't my commanding officer, but he was kind of along this from administrative standpoint he was. So, one of in the military one should make a duty call. Now, I didn't know that the practice [laughter] had essentially gone away over the succeeding over the preceding 20 or 30 years or so. So, uh when I heard that the new colonel was, you know, in his office working, I went to his secretary and said, I'd like to set up a time to meet with the
17:50 colonel. And she said, why? And I said, well, uh you know, I'm one of the chaplains who is assigned to H&S Battalion on an administrative basis and I think it's appropriate for me to uh meet with the colonel, introduce myself, and find out what it is that, you know, he wants from me. And [snorts] she said, she said, oh, okay. And so, we scheduled the appointment and on the appointed time I showed up and, you know, he asked me into his office, we shook hands, and he asked me to take a seat, and he said, so, what can I do for you, Chaplain? I said, well, sir,
18:26 I'm I'm here primarily to make a duty call. And he looked at me and he said, I didn't know people still did that. I said, well, sir, my father taught me that, you know, part of my duty was to call on a new commanding officer and although, as you know, you're not literally my commanding officer, but I'm under your administrative authority and I thought it was I thought I should take the time and come here and introduce myself and, you know, maybe hear what directions you have for me. So, he got out from behind
19:02 his desk and he came and sat down on the couch opposite what the couch I was sitting on and we had a nice conversation for about 10 or for minutes. Now, that 10 or 15-minute meeting set the tone for the entire 3 years that we worked together, including when I was filling in for his chaplain, the chaplain assigned directly to H&S Battalion, and and would and and participated in his weekly staff meetings. So, for about 6 or 9 months, I filled in
19:37 for his chaplain in addition to my other duties, and I could tell by the way he interacted with me as opposed to other members of his staff that he he looked at me differently. Right? He You know, the reason I made that duty call was to show him, "Look, you're entitled to my respect, number one, and number two, I'm here to address your priorities. That doesn't mean we were always going to agree, by the way. We had a a very difficult disagreement on an issue related to how how matters were
20:14 handled at the brig, right? But because we had that initial meeting, we were you know, we worked through those differences. And and so, this is this is the kind of thing that I I encourage you to do, to reach out. And by the way, if if someone refuses to meet with you, hey, they're telling you something about how they view relationships, how they you know, view matters at the company, okay? Someone who who, you know, won't meet you for coffee for 15 or 20 minutes or, you know, go to lunch or whatever,
20:50 okay, well, that's someone to kind of keep an eye on a little bit, right? Now, maybe they are super busy and they're not able to do it right, you know, right away, okay? But but you know, good people, people who want to do good work recognize they have to have relationships with other people, and so they seek to build them proactively, just like you should. Okay? So, one of the questions that I recommend you ask when you meet with people is, "What does success look like for you in the next 6
21:26 months?" Because what you want to do is look for opportunities to support the success that they're looking to attain. Okay? Even if it's not particularly in your job description. Okay? This is how relationships are built. So, if if I make your concerns partly my concerns, and I help you achieve what you want to achieve, right? I'm saying I care about you as a person. Yes, I care about the company, of course.
22:01 But, I also care about you as an individual. Okay? And and then see how people respond back to you. If you need help, are they there to help you out? That's a real relationship. Okay? So, build key relationships before you need them, right? Next, number three. Clarify expectations and redefine your role. So, within the first month that you're there at the company, get an explicit agreement with your supervisor on priorities. What needs to be done? Now,
22:39 by the way, this isn't just tasks. This these are objectives. What objectives need to be reached? What is the timeline for reaching those objectives? Okay? So, one of the things you need to do is identify what are the expectations, and what is the reality of the situation? And then where are gaps? And how are you going to bridge those gaps? Okay. So, when I when I got to Okinawa, okay, the
23:16 base chaplain's office there typically has eight chaplains. Okay, cuz it we we had um I want to say seven chapels and uh I mean it was it was a really large operation. There are tens of thousands of US Marines in addition to other military person US military personnel on the island. Um and and you know, the Marine Corps uh provided chaplains for for a lot of situations vis-a-vis the other services. Like I was the only Jewish chaplain on
23:51 the island. So, I ministered to anybody who was Jewish regardless of whether they were Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, made made no difference. Okay. So, um one of the uh um expectations that the Marine Corps had of us was that we were going to you know, take care of the Marines there. And one of those things was doing work space visits. Well, within about 6 months,
24:27 uh the the number of chaplains on assigned to the Marine Corps dropped from eight to six. So, a bunch of people rotated out, but there wasn't personnel available to rotate in. So, most of us had to take on multiple roles. And so, although I was there to run a chapel and run the you know, the Jewish um you know, worship program, that was really the the two duties that I had. Very quickly, I realized somebody had to administrate
25:02 the base chaplain's office. And since I came with a business background, I became the admin officer. So, I took on supply, budgeting, dealing with personnel, um approving travel requests, approving leave requests. I mean, all of that sort of administrative side of thing that that involved uh working with H&S battalion. So, that became a third job. A fourth job was there needed to be a chaplain who would look after the Marines and other personnel in the brig. That's That's Navy and Marine Corps talk
25:38 for jail. Right? We couldn't ignore these these people merely because they were incarcerated. In fact, they in many cases needed more help than Marines who weren't. I became the brig chaplain, right? So, you know, I was doing pretty much the duty of three chaplains in order to make sure that the base chaplain's office could could continue to operate appropriately and the and the Marines and and their families would get the kind of support they needed. Okay? And And one of the things I used to do One of the things I did, I should
26:14 say, is I adopted what I called orphaned units. So, there were a lot of small units or units that were too small, I should say, to have a chaplain actually assigned to them. So, for example, Third Marine Corps Division is based in Okinawa. They have two chaplains assigned to the Marine Corps Division. And And these are chaplains not that aren't even part of the base chaplain's office cuz we were we were part of the the base structure.
26:50 Right? Well, they were big enough to have one. But, the Third Dental Battalion, which had a presence on every single Marine Corps base in Okinawa, and comprised probably a couple of thousand sailors and officers, they were too small to have their own chaplain. But, you had a lot of young sailors there. When I say young, 18, 19, 20 years old, far away from home for the first time dealing with military life. And so, I adopted Third Third Dental Battalion.
27:28 And the funny thing was, um, people were from from the United States were sending me care packages with all kinds of stuff, cereal bars and candy, all this stuff. And I didn't know what the heck I was going to do with all of it. So, I decided to go visit the dental office on my base, Camp Foster, one day. And I just got a bag and I dumped all the food And I went to say hello to the sailors. And I said, "Would you like something to eat?" And they're like, "Well, what do you have?" And they're like, "Cereal bars or this or that." Right? And they're like, "Wow, this is great, Chaplain. Thanks a lot." You know, so I visited, I don't know, there was probably about 30, 40, 50, you know,
28:05 people there. And you know, just introduce myself, how you doing, that kind of thing. And And so, you know, I spent whatever it was, an hour, an hour and a half there. And as I'm getting ready to leave, one of the young sailors came up to me and he said, "Hey, Chaplain, you know, it it's really cool of you to come by and visit us." I said, "And And we love the food. But, but frankly, next time if you don't bring chocolate, we're kicking you out." I always thought it was hilarious that the dental people wanted, you know, candy so badly. Right? But, what I what I needed to do there were the there was the expectation
28:40 that the Marines were going to get and and sailors were going to get taken care of. There was the reality that we had half the number of chaplains. so there was a gap. And my leverage was helping to fill that gap. Right? And and
28:55 >> [laughter]
28:55 >> in the end, um you know, before I left, the the um the well, I'll talk I'll talk about this thing in in in a minute, actually, on the next one, you know, because it's it's kind of a funny story as well. So, you know, look once you identify where those gaps are, so look for ways to expand your role using your strengths. Right? So, in the case of, you know, visiting the dental battalion, my strengths were I had a bunch of food to give away, right? And my you know, my again, my wife at the time and I we didn't we didn't want
29:31 all this stuff hanging around cuz we didn't need to eat it, right? So, um but also, you know, I I I I was I was old enough to be, you know, at least the father of a lot of these young sailors, and some of them were pretty lonely being away from home. There was one uh young female sailor, 18 years old. I mean, she'd never been out of her home state before, and now she here she is in Okinawa. It and she was having a bit of a hard time adjusting. A really sweet, you know, young young young lady trying
30:08 to figure it all out. And you know, whenever she would see me, we'd sit down and and just kind of have a it was it was like a father- daughter talk, you know? Uh and I remember one time I went to visit her, and unbeknownst to me, she had gotten a tattoo. Right? [snorts] And she she wanted to talk to me. She was she was very upset about something, clearly. And I said, "Well, what's you know, what's going on, shipmate?" And she's like, "Well, I need to tell you something, but I think you're going to be mad at me." I'm like, "I don't know why I would be mad at you." She's So, "Well, said, "Well, I got a tattoo." And I said, "Well,
30:44 why did you do that?" She said, "Well, I don't know. Everybody was getting them." I'm like, "Well, okay. I mean, look, you know, you did it." She said, "I don't know what my mother's going to say." I said, "Well, this this is where my job stops. I'm I'm not going to call your mother and pave the way." But I said, "You know, you know, at some point you'll have to tell her and she'll have to recognize that you're an adult now and you're making adult decisions." And I said, "Look, the worst case scenario is you'll get the tattoo removed." So, she felt better after, you know, we talked. But But
31:17 >> [clears throat]
31:18 >> figure out what are your strengths. How can you deploy those strengths in closing some of the key gaps that you find between what the company is trying to accomplish or expecting to accomplish and where the reality of the situation is right now, okay? You [snorts] want to position yourself as a higher-level problem-solver, okay? You don't be someone who just execute tasks. Look for problems that you can embrace and solve. Okay, let's take a quick break.
31:52 >> [clears throat]
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32:33 or visit magnumprops.com. Okay. So, next, number four. You want to create some early wins that really signal your long-term value, okay? So, as you clarify expectations and you redefine your role, you find those gaps and you you figure out where you can have an impact. So, target one or two visible, meaningful projects that you can embrace, not just
33:10 busy work, but ones that will actually improve how things are operating at the company. Could be something in marketing, operations, administration. It It It doesn't matter, okay? It should be something nominally within Or or not nominally, I mean, that that's within, you know, your sphere of influence, but it may be something where you're teaming up with somebody else from another department and between the two of you, you're having a broader impact on the company, okay? So, figure out what those
33:45 are. And focus on the impact. So, in the in the um military, it in the Navy and the Marine Corps, we have something called fitness reports for officers. And they're done annually, okay? So, you get you get what's called your annual fitrep, fitness reports. The military loves, you know, lingo. And
34:10 >> [clears throat]
34:11 >> And but And And nominally, they're written by your commanding officer, but actually, for chaplains, we wrote our own, right? [laughter] That was just how the system worked. I always found that a little bit strange, but it was explained to me, no commanding officer is is going to sign a fitrep that he disagrees with. So, if you're making yourself look better than he thinks you are, he's going to change it. So, I said, "Okay." The key uh thing that I had to learn about writing a fit rep was to highlight the impact I
34:47 was having. And in a quantifiable way. Right? So, so when I realized that I was going to have to do that, and and I I kind of lucked out because fit rep uh time period happened just a few months, like two or three months after I got there. And so, I initially got what was called an unobserved fit rep because it meant I hadn't been there long enough for them to rate me. But because I got that experience and I figured out what they what they wanted to know about me in a in a written fitness report, I kept
35:22 statistics. How many sailors I met in my workplace visits, how much money I saved the command through administrative work, the you know, the the the the budget the size of the budget I I dealt with. All these kind of quantifiable things and how I impacted them. And so, as I looked at my work, I realized that if if if I wanted to do a good job, I I I I couldn't focus on busy work. I had enlisted staff to do that. I had to focus on what really would make
35:58 a difference, which meant getting out of my chapel and getting in front of other Marines and sailors. Right? And helping them deal with their problems or whatever was going on with them. Okay? And and and that was good because in in the end, I I had a very successful tour.
36:19 >> [clears throat and cough]
36:20 >> So, you know, whatever it is uh from from your perspective that you can have a positive impact on on the company for which you work, that's what you want to target. Okay? And you want to communicate the your results, and you want to do that clearly. Don't assume people know. So,
36:42 >> [clears throat]
36:43 >> I mentioned uh before the break that I adopted the 3rd Dental Battalion. So, the people in 3rd Dental Dental Battalion knew that, including the commanding officer, because I started visiting all of their dental clinics on all the various bases and their headquarters, which happened to be on on my base. And I I went into what's called the executive suite, where the commanding officer and the executive officer and the opso and such have their have their offices. And I I went to introduce myself to the XO,
37:18 um and he says he says, "Oh, you're the chaplain who's bringing people candy." I said, "Yeah, sir, I was just told I had to." And he said, "Well, I'm just telling you, if I hear you've been here and there's no chocolate on my desk, I'm going to kick you out next time." Right, they're they were really great guy, funny guy. And the the the CEO was very nice man. He he wasn't um kind of an outgoing individual, uh but uh he also he also wanted his, you know, chocolate. So, um so they knew that I was coming to visit them, uh but people
37:53 in my command who were responsible directly responsible for, you know, rating me and such, they didn't know. So, I happened to mention it to my supervisor one day. And he said, "I didn't know you were doing this." I said, "Yeah, I've been doing it." I think at that point I'd been doing it for a couple of years. He's like, "Well, are are they going to give you a concurrent fit rep?" Which means they were going to give they were going to give me a fit rep. I said, "I don't think so, sir." I didn't even know what that was at the time. And he said, well, you know, they should give you a decoration for all the work that you've
38:29 been doing. I said, well, how would that happen, sir? I just I mean, he said, well, you're going to have to mention it to somebody who will get it done for you. And I said, but I'm not doing this for the medals. He said, no, I understand that. He said, look, I I I I know you well enough to know that. And anybody who knows you realizes you're not doing this for the medals. He said, but you need to take responsibility for communicating your results. And one of the ways we do this in the military is
39:05 by giving people medals for extraordinary work. And by any measure, adopting this unit with hundreds and hundreds of sailors and visiting them on a regular basis is extraordinary work. So, I I I knew the um uh deputy clinic director at at one of the larger clinics. We We had become friends. Her husband was actually the operations officer for the dental battalion. And uh we were on, you know, very nice terms. And so, I I had Next time I saw her, uh we were talking, and and uh I
39:44 mentioned to her that I I I was going to be rotating out and I think in about 9 months or 6 months, something like that. And she said, oh, we're you know, we're really going to be sorry to to have you leave. She said, no one has ever taken care of us before. I said, well, it's very nice of you. I said, you know, candidly, my supervisor told me I should tell somebody that, you know, I should get a medal for doing this. I said, it's so icky to do that. And she said, no, you know what, he's he's absolutely right. He said, she she said, you know what, just leave it in my hands. Just leave it in my hands." I said, "Okay."
40:20 That's it. And [snorts] that was the last I dealt with it, last I heard of it. Interestingly enough, the last time I went to visit the dental uh battalion headquarters, I went to say goodbye to the XO. I had my bag of food
40:35 >> [laughter]
40:35 >> and my bag of candy. And and he said he said, "Oh, Chaplain, I'm so glad you came by." He said, "Wait right here. Do not leave." And the next thing I know, all of the senior staff were in his office and they were holding a what's called an award ceremony and they gave me a medal. I almost started crying. Um it's it's I got lots of decorations when I was in the in the Navy. That is the most important one I got because it was not cuz first of all, it it it wasn't what's called an end of tour award where like,
41:10 you know, you get the gold star for showing up every day. It was because I think they sincerely appreciated what I did. Um and and also I guess because I took the responsibility for communicating my success. So, we can do that with humility. We we You know, we don't want to communicate our success by bragging certainly cuz that turns people off. Uh but um but we can't assume that people know about the good work that we're doing. And so, we need to uh I think humbly let people know about what we've done or
41:46 and and the things that we're trying to do. So, document before and after outcomes uh and and and and sort of build your story of success at the company. Whether your company does actual written periodic reviews or whether they're less formal than that, it's important that you keep that information and that you quantify your success if at all possible. So, if you saved the company a million dollars or you increased revenue by 10 million dollars or or whatever the
42:22 numbers are. I'm I'm just pulling numbers out of the hat. They just need to be relevant to to your your own job. Document that information. Now, obviously, you shouldn't take in you shouldn't take out of the office information that's not supposed to be taken out of the office, that kind of thing. But but you can do this in an appropriate way and have it available. And I think it's also good for us as individuals for us to document our own success to ourselves so that we can feel that we're doing something worthwhile, that we're making progress. Okay? And
42:57 finally, uh turn your performance into positioning. This is number five. So, keep a running record of your contributions and your measurable outcomes. I kept a whole spreadsheet of all kinds of metrics of the things that I did uh at at at when I was at uh when I was stationed in Okinawa. The number of sailors I visited, the number of I I did a lot of speaking engagements cuz I was the only rabbi and they all they always you know, they they they heard that I would I would say you know, things that were a little bit you know, outrageous. So, one of the big things in the
43:33 military at the time was when you know,
43:36 >> [clears throat]
43:37 >> when chaplains prayed, they had to do so in a non-denominational uh you know, non-denominational way. And so, you know, I I wasn't supposed to pray in Hebrew, which I thought frankly was silly, but whatever. And so, we had a new chaplain come to the island and at the quarterly all chaplains meeting, he was asked to give the uh the closing prayer to the meeting and he ended the prayer by saying, "And I I pray this in Jesus's name, right? [laughter] There were 40 chaplains, there were 35 chaplains there and they all turn and
44:13 look at me. I felt like like Rabbi Bavel's head is going to explode cuz he heard, you know, Jesus's name. It was hilarious. I like this poor chaplain, a young guy, probably in his like late 20s, his first sort of public, you know, prayer and he obviously realizes, "Oh my gosh, I blew it."
44:31 >> [snorts]
44:31 >> Everybody's looking at me and I just said, "Don't worry, he was one of ours first." Whole place just starts laughing, right? I mean, you know,
44:42 >> [laughter]
44:43 >> you can't you can't take this stuff too seriously. I mean, for crying out loud, this poor young guy, he came up to me afterwards. He's like, "Thank you so much." I'm like, "Don't worry about it, brother. You're very welcome." I said, "Look, we all make mistakes." And I said to him, "As far as I'm By the way, as far as I'm concerned, you should be praying in Jesus's name. That's your That's your faith tradition. So, don't don't worry about me. Easy day for me." Um but, you know, I kept track of the, you know, thousands and tens of thousands of people that I that I, you know, spoke to at speaking engagements and again, the money I saved and the amount of travel
45:19 that I authorized, all these kind of metrics. Um because
45:23 >> [clears throat]
45:23 >> as I mentioned earlier, in my case, I had to provide information for a written fitness report once a year. So, but even if you don't have to do that, keep track of those metrics. Develop the metrics of your success. What does that look like? Because that will help you focus your effort on improving that, okay? As opposed to just being involved in tasks. Tasks are not particularly useful unless they are pointed at a particular objective. So,
45:58 your metrics should be developed so that they reflect getting ever closer to objectives or obtaining objectives, okay? So, [snorts] align your work with company-wide goals, not just team tasks. If you're not in a leadership position and you want to get into one, showing that you understand the larger goals of the company and that you are working to align whatever you're doing to meet those goals. People will see that and that's what will permit you to advance. That's
46:34 certainly what got me my, you know, the one uh merit promotion that I got in the Navy from lieutenant to lieutenant commander. Was I I made it clear. I'm here to make sure that sailors and Marines are ready to pursue the fight. That's what I'm here to do. Okay? Um
46:55 >> [clears throat]
46:56 >> Start shaping how others perceive you. Are you a problem solver? Are you a leader? Are you a specialist? Okay? Maybe you really dig into this one particular area of the company that has very difficult specialized or that that requires very difficult and specialized knowledge in order to operate in that sphere. And you're going to dig down into it and become the subject matter expert. That's one way to go. Another way to go you can become the go-to problem person. When a problem
47:33 arises, hey, you know, call Bob. Call Sharon, right? Because she's the one who puts out the fires. That's not a leader, that's a problem solver. That's A leader is different. A leader is someone who's going to drive the organization forward, typically operationally or strategically. You can fill any of those. Figure out where you want to be. Which role is going to be the one that that you can most deeply embrace because then you'll be good at it.
48:08 Don't pursue a leadership role if that's not really what you want to do. You may love the challenge of being the problem solver. The one that leadership always knows they can count on when the chips are down. Okay? And if that's what you enjoy doing, then why do you want to become a leader? All right, this is an example my dad taught me. My mother was always pushing him, "Oh, you got to get into management." He He just He didn't want He didn't want to do that. What he wanted to do was solve the actual problems of for the companies that he worked for. Okay? And then finally,
48:45 use the 90-day mark to reset expectations, okay? Upward in terms of the scope of your work, the level of your influence, and the opportunity that you want, okay? Now, I I'm going to end where I started out. 90 days is it's it's it's a somewhat artificial time frame, okay? Maybe you feel like you need 120 days, or maybe only 60 days or 75 days. But whatever that time period is, and you should be able to determine it within a couple of weeks of being at the company,
49:21 set that as your goal. And work through these issues. And that will set you up for success in your new job. So, I thank you very much for joining me today. And let's see. Just real quickly, other times for us to be together. So, regular slate of shows, Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Trust and Estates Weekly. Tuesdays, 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, uh Business Lessons from the Military. Wednesdays, like today, 10:00 a.m. Pacific time people making money and then every other Thursday at 5:00 p.m.
49:57 Pacific is my show Jigger's Place where we have a cocktail and schmooze. So, I hope you'll look I hope you'll join me again several times during the week and today is what's known as erev Pesach or the the evening the the day before Passover. It starts tonight after sundown. So, for all of you who are observing this festival, I wish you a hag sameach, a happy Pesach. And that just leaves me to sign off as I always do. Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage
50:34 at all times, my friends.