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You are here: Home / Archives for career mistakes

September 16, 2020 by Eric Butts

Weird non-flex but ok

Every time I think i’ve seen it all somebody comes and raises the bar.

I guess that’s a good thing because I might run out of stuff to write about otherwise.

Here’s how it went down:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Career Advice Tagged With: career advice, career management, career mistakes

February 20, 2020 by Eric Butts Leave a Comment

Spank me hard and call me baby

A few days ago, I told you how I fell in love after a business dinner.

What I didn’t tell you is that I received an award earlier that night. In fairness, I almost forgot about until I pulled it out of my mobile office backpack today.

It’s the illustrious baby’s bottom award, for being “smoothest in times of crisis”.

I bring this up because it highlights a key lesson that people overlook far too frequently. And that lesson is…

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Career Advice Tagged With: career advice, career mistakes

April 12, 2019 by Eric Butts Leave a Comment

This one line from Lord of the Rings will save you from a multitude of career limiting moves

You shall not pass!
– Gandalf (the gray), Lord of the Rings

Okay – I admit it. I just wanted to try to find a way to refer to another one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. Since spring break I’ve probably added a few dozen hundred views but who’s counting.

There’s something to this though and I’m going to give a few scenarios where if you’re doing this, your expectation when you’re trying to get promoted should be “you shall not pass!”

And if you’re more of a monopoly fan… do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

So here they are: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Career Advice Tagged With: career mistakes

April 4, 2019 by Eric Butts Leave a Comment

San Francisco pedestrian perfectly mimics a lot of people’s career struggle

So I was walking to the client office from my hotel in San Francisco recently when it dawned on me how pedestrians mimic the behavior of some struggling careerists.

Here’s what happened… [Read more…]

Filed Under: Career Advice Tagged With: career management, career mistakes

March 30, 2019 by Eric Butts Leave a Comment

I quit

Every year at consulting firms there’s a time where you have a mad exodus of people. The messages are delivered in all types of fashions but it ultimately comes down to two words: I quit.

In truthfulness, some need to go and some come with a little pain and the question on what could’ve been differently to keep them.

The reason this phenomenon is different than working in industry is because all of the promotion decisions happen at the same time in consulting. When you work at a company, you definitely have performance reviews but rarely are you confronted with your shortcomings in the same way as you are in consulting.

For example, in industry there’s often a chance to see you did a great job but we don’t have any open spots at the next level right now. Going into it, you kinda know someone has to quit, get fired, or die for a promotion opportunity to become available.

There are three reasons people typically are leaving the business. 1. They don’t want to travel anymore. 2. They don’t like the people they’re working with (and see no end in sight) 3. They didn’t get the promotion they wanted.

Let’s talk about #3 and if you want to cover #1 and #2, let me know and I’ll get into that a different day.

Notice on #3 I said “wanted” and not “deserved”. A lot of people want to start out making their case for promo by talking about how long they’ve been around (aka managed to not get fired). There’s nothing inspiring about this. Results should be your focus. Then and only then should you consider talking about your years of experience.

Years of experience is more of a hedge against you not screwing up when you get dropped into a new situation. The more experience you have, the less “new” situations and therefore risk you’re likely to come across.

Speaking of risk, here’s another thing. Knowing you can do something and demonstrating / convincing other people of your capability are totally different, unrelated things.

If you want to get promoted, get your receipts in order and make a case nobody can deny.

That ended up a little more ranty than I was expecting but I felt like I needed to get that out.

Those are the types of things I work with people on in the Success Factory (if you didn’t apply, it’s too late for April), but you can get some inspiration from my book.

Some people inevitably will come back and say it doesn’t look like it’s for them. My advice to them… don’t buy it then.

For the smart ones who buy it, read it, and apply some of the ideas, I’m confident they will get more value than the cost of the e-book, regardless of where they are in their career. Fundamentals never go out of style.

Get the book here:

https://ericpbutts.com/clu-book/

– EB

 

Filed Under: Career Advice Tagged With: career advice, career mistakes, corporate ladder university

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