It doesn’t matter your level

The following was a note I wrote myself about a year ago. It still hold true to me. My job has changed, but the reality that everyone at every level has something you can learn from and they have something they can learn from you. Sure some you could learn more from…but that’s not really the point…

One part of my job that I love is that I get to work with people at every level of the company.  Most of the time when I’m in the room with VPs and other partner level leaders, I’m the one learning from them. So often they command the room, have a ton of background, and a sense of clarity on the topic.

There are other times where my role is to partner with a VP to help guide them. What I’ve found fascinating is that it doesn’t matter what level you.  It doesn’t matter how much experience you have.  You can find yourself lost, or confused at any level.  When a VP doesn’t know what they should do, that feeling isn’t any different than someone fresh out of college.  Granted, they may have the maturity on how to react to those feeling when amongst their team.

I was debriefing with a colleague, brainstorming some options.  His response was that this person “should know better.”  The reason I don’t agree is that we are all human.  We all have the ability to get stuck in our thinking.  The moment we latch on to a thought, and we believe it, it can become hard to see past it.

If you feel stuck, get a mentor or a coach to help you get some perspective.  While self coaching is a wonderful tool, if you’re stuck, having someone else get you thinking differently can help at any level.