What will be described following, is one of my favorite ways to test if one has what it takes to grow within their role and beyond that. The method I am about to describe, although simple and straightforward, has been developed during a period of many executive years, with the scope of making it possible to identify the status of an employee or of a partner, as far as that person’s professional maturity is concerned. Specifically, it was developed to pinpoint whether the certain employee or partner is in, what I call, the “professional puberty” stage or not and if they have what it takes to progress.
It is important to be in the position to understand the stage a colleague is in, as it is the key factor determining the capability of this person to move forward to the next position in the hierarchy, to get a promotion or increased responsibilities and authority. When one is in the “professional puberty” stage, then one is not ready.
I call these professional adolescents ProfAdols. Their main characteristics are
- Arrogance and boosted self-confidence.
- Decision making based on insufficient information or insufficient facts.
- A big mouth.
- Avoidance of accountability when failing.
As young and inexperienced executives, ProfAdols like to criticize, and they do that a lot! They choose to believe that those “elder colleagues” are usually wrong in their ways and are only doing things in the manner these things were always done, unwilling to develop and improve. Professional adolescents choose to believe that most elders are not experienced but instead, just old, and outdated.
They are a quite common race of usually young professionals sharing same characteristics. In a weird manner, they could even be considered a nation in as far as that, all around the world, they depict common beliefs, culture, and attitudes, although they are not acquainted to each other and are not educated in the same manner or at the same schools.
Note that professional puberty may sound like a life stage, one that will pass within the normal course of things, but more often than not, it does not pass and instead, it turns into a prison for the mind of the professional and also into an insurmountable obstacle. If not properly combatted, it can be a game changer and a showstopper for one’s career.
ProfAdols, through a process of habitual self-assurance, become very arrogant and show-offs. Often, they are smart individuals, with at least higher than average potential. Their capacity to win, has enabled them to challenge their competition and progress. In their current situation, they have landed at a medium level executive position and they are trying to further develop and win-over their next promotion.
Their success has filled their heads with dreams of further success but also arrogance. All through their course up to this point, their capability to win has evolved with a steady rhythm. Their development was achieved at a steady pace. Winning became a habit and the hypnotizing force of habit led these persons to believe that success is easy and almost their birth right. They believe that they deserve success. But all benefits come at a cost, and they have yet to pay their dues. The ease that has accompanied their success will not continue. ProfAdols are not mature enough to understand that.
These inexperienced professionals do not understand the dynamics of smaller groups. Now, after all their promotions and growth, they have been awarded participation in a group of a higher hierarchical level, a group that consists of a small number of more capable participants. These new colleagues are not so easy to deal with. Still, ProfAdols believe that it is solely them who know the truth, it is them who understand the business models and operations better than the others and certainly better than the elders. And this is where they are wrong.
The following simple method has been developed to sniff-out ProfAdols. Strech Them! Award them a project, name them Champions of the specific work category and send them off to bring results.
The usual outcome: ProfAdols start to work as “champions” of the field. In this assignment they have the responsibility to lead the field assigned to them, make all decisions necessary and reap all benefits. But good decisions and successful results require complete information on the subject, timely reactions, strong collaboration with colleagues and a lot of consistent effort. ProfAdols, are big mouths that have yet to understand that they do not have the skills they claim they do. So, more often than not, they fail when stretched. When they fail, they avoid to report and when asked to do so, they always blame their failure on bad luck, lack of support by the system, poor market conditions, unfavorable unexpected situations.
What they fail to see, is that all the reasons they blame their failure upon are standard deviations from planning, thus, commonly faced obstacles that all mature managers and leaders are called to overcome.
The rare but welcome outcome: Accountability, even at failure. Championing or bringing to fruition a stretch assignment, does not imply succeeding in it. ProfAdols, exit this work-life stage and move to the next, when they understand that they must and do stand accountable for the work that was assigned to them, even if they failed at it. The rare but welcome outcome is when the ProfAdol assigned the work, experiences this rare moment when they realize that they should be humbler and utilize the forces in the environment and the power of collaboration to their advantage, while at the same time admitting their accountability for the results on the work assigned.
So if you are young and want to grow at work you need to understand that bragging about your capabilities is not the way to go about it. Doing the work and being accountable for it, is. Your superiors expect you to be a ProfAdol and fail. Prove them wrong.
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