Your host, Sri Chellappa, talks with the Keynote Speaker, Podcast Host, Author, and Founding Partner of Gray + Miller Agency, Scott Miller Scott explored the intricate process of building a career that's not left to chance but is instead carefully crafted and steered by intention. He delved into the core principles that are outlined in his book, principles that are essential for anyone looking to navigate their professional path with purpose and clarity.
Scott emphasized that understanding what you stand for is the bedrock of a deliberate career. It's about aligning your work with your core beliefs and ensuring that every step you take is a reflection of what matters most to you.
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[00:00:00] People First Organizations Will Win In The Future Of Where? Welcome to the People Strategy Leaders Show. I'm your host, Srik Chalappa Founder and President of Engage Lee, and a serial entrepreneur in Technology, Films and Music. This is where we talk to people leaders, business strategy leaders, business strategy leaders,
[00:00:30] religious and organizational sub-hands about leading in the time of change. What is working, what is not working and more importantly, what we should be thinking about.
[00:00:40] Stick around to the end of the show, we will reveal how you can be our next guest, and now let's engage.
[00:00:47] Hello and welcome to People Strategy Leaders Podcast. I am Srik Chalappa, your host. Today I'm joined with Scott Miller, capping a 25-year career in which he served as a chief marketing officer and executive vice president. Scott Miller is currently Franklin Covey Senior Advisor on Thought Leadership, leading the strategy development and publication of firms best selling books.
[00:01:11] Scott Miller hosts the Franklin Covey sponsored on leadership with Scott Miller, the world's largest weekly leadership podcast and see sweet conversations with Scott Miller, a podcast which features interviews with the world's top executives.
[00:01:24] Miller is also the author of Marty Volume series Master Mentor, 30 transformative insights from our greatest business minds, Harper Carlin's leadership which features insights from his interviews with leading thinkers of our time including Seth Gordon, Susan Kane, Steadman Graham, Stephen M.R. Covey, Liz Weissman, Mel Robbins and many others.
[00:01:45] He recently released the Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship in July of 2023 and is launching his seventh book in February 2024 titled Career on Course, 10 Strategies to Take Your Career from Accidental to Deliberate.
[00:02:00] Well, welcome to the show. Scott, it is such a pleasure to have you on this show.
[00:02:04] Thank you so much. I appreciate the spotlight today looking forward to talking about how to create an intentional career.
[00:02:10] Yeah, I mean, this is an important one. We typically talk about leadership in our show and about coaching leaders for also being a good people leader but part of that is also helping people build careers within their organization there and or outside the organization if there's not the right opportunities there.
[00:02:29] But that being said, it's also important for people to know what do they need to do to build a great career and I think your book is very timely in that respect.
[00:02:38] So we'll talk about the 10 strategies, you know, for building your career in a more deliberate fashion. Do you want to just quickly highlight those 10 strategies and maybe we can dive deep into couple of them to really understand what are the things that are really important in those 10 strategies and why are those 10 strategies important?
[00:02:55] I'd be happy to. The book is just released about two weeks ago called career on course and after, you know, a 30 year career myself from the front line up to the C suite of a large public global company and interviewing countless hundreds of, you know, recruiters and interviewers and chief people officers I codify what I think are 10 consistent strategies for people who want to own their career
[00:03:17] and be less accidental and more intentional strategy number one is know your professional values. I think a lot of people may or may not have done the work on their personal values, but I take it a step further to some controversial debate.
[00:03:31] I think you ought to have a list of personal values and a list of list of professional values because that's the lens which you make your decisions and you know when are they ever in conflict or in our alignment with each other.
[00:03:42] Number two is decide if you're a specialist or a generalist. One is not right, one is not wrong, but for people like me that are more of a generalist I call a specialist, you know, orthodontist a commercial airline pilot, you know, massage therapists these are specialists and people like me that are in sales and marketing and leadership and authorship
[00:04:03] generalist can often fall into the trap of the conundrum of comparing themselves to somebody else. And so number two is decide if you're a specialist and generalist and there's really no action on it other than just the awareness I think is very helpful to know how quickly your career aspirations might come to fruition.
[00:04:20] Number three is study yourself. This is all about self awareness, really understanding what it is like to lead you collaborate with you be married to you work with you partner with you.
[00:04:30] I think we spend a lot of time studying other people are favorite authors are favorite bloggers and you know speakers that favorite thought leaders but really do we spend enough time studying ourselves.
[00:04:40] Number four is this is the crux of the book number four is illustrate and recalibrate your long term plan I think too many people think of their career in terms of what is next not what's after what's next and so I teach people a multi decade process of thinking their career in terms of many decades and so
[00:04:59] many decades and starting at the very end what is your ultimate goal and then back casting all of the ages, the salaries, the titles, the skills you have to develop think of your career long term.
[00:05:12] Number five is defined and build your brand there is always a chasm between what you think your brand is and how people receive your brand is they receive your brand and what you want it to be some great work there. It's not an epiphany that everyone has in a brand.
[00:05:27] But most people's brands my experience has been they're kind of left half hazard lead chance and you want to take much more deliberate over your brand number seven is take the lead with your leader just because your leader has the title does not mean they have the competence or the character or the maturity or wisdom to promote you and to understand how best to have high courage conversations with you about their performance your performance.
[00:05:52] And so there's you know really leading up number eight is do the job you are hired for plus the one you want that's pretty inherent in terms of not doing just the job you want but the best way to get promoted is to crush the job you are in and I think there's a level of impatience out there people wanting to accelerate their career maybe sometimes faster what the cultural norms are in their organization next is keep your ear to the ground.
[00:06:17] That's a process of making sure you know what's going on without becoming the company gossip and then lastly is dig your well before your thirsty it's all about building a network that is mutually beneficial that you are curating and nurturing so that when you are laid off when you are fire when you are disrupted you're not scrambling to have people help you you have people coming out of the woodwork to help you because you've been helping them for the last year five years 10 years those are the 10 strategies.
[00:06:46] Yeah I think you actually miss one thing it's I think it's called the B willing to disrupt you thank you number six thank you for correcting me number six is be willing to disrupt yourself all of us are going to be disrupted by outside forces.
[00:07:00] And I find the best careers are those of people that just take it upon themselves to disrupt their own level of comfort thank you for filling in the blank yeah I really like that one actually because it's important because one of the things you know you mentioned here is that think 10 20 30 40 years ahead.
[00:07:16] In terms of your career but sometimes what do you think maybe 40 years out might be no longer true 10 years in to that journey and at that point you're like oh shit my goal post moved or it doesn't exist anymore right and then and you're like but I actually like doing this instead of what I thought I like yes and I'll give an example you know I used to really think I would love to be an investment banker or a CFO.
[00:07:39] And after doing a couple of internships and and a few job applications I realize any interviews I was like I can't I this is not my life I can do that and I've done that twice in my life before earlier I was trying to I was on the on the path doing a PhD in engineering.
[00:07:56] And then I thought finance but I find I think I found my life as a generalist as you said being an author.
[00:08:02] Yeah so I think that's a description because then you got to learn new skills and different skills what are you what are you trained for right it is true my strategy in the book is really just to get people to think beyond what's next but really things strategically long term I mean you may or may not at the age of 22 know that you want to be the CEO you want to be an entrepreneur you want to be the senior vice president of the western region this book is really not written for individuals that want to work with me.
[00:08:32] And I think that's a great way to work on their own this is a very organization friendly book it's really meant for people that want to have a long term career mainly inside an organization and figure out how to work up through it this is not the book for the person wants to quit their job in start a side hustle lots of books on that this is not their book this is a book about how do you think about your career more strategically and how to understand how do your talents and your skills and your personality work within organizations where there will be disruption so why not.
[00:09:02] But be the person that does it yourself right the plan is act or be acted upon have a plan or become part of someone else's correct correct so I'm going to focus on the first one because I thought that was really interesting one for me because we always think about personal values like
[00:09:21] I don't know those are the 10 commandments you know I know I'm working down that path not all 10 that's a lot of that too but there are other personal values right I will only work with people I can trust businesses yes but people I can trust me there's some other my personal values
[00:09:39] I guess if in some ways but there's a little of such personal values that everybody has talk to me about professional values like what is that and I look you know in your book and this for some of the professional values we're very interesting some other related to making money for example was on an example I read so now we're talking about subjects that might be taboo to talk in public so yes I do believe but it needs to be talked about so can you talk can you talk about that and some examples of what that might look like well couple of thoughts first of all I don't think anything is taboo anymore
[00:10:09] I think all the rules are off so people can talk about everything they want to now so you're something to talk about your professional values let me rewind a bit I don't think most people have identified their personal values I think most people could come up with a good set
[00:10:24] and I think most people are in a meeting or at a cocktail party but I don't think the vast majority of humans have taken the time to codify right down and high-arkly rank their personal values
[00:10:38] and that's the part of the exercise what's that has a guilty as well I mean I think that's true so the first part of the book that chapter is say hey first I want you to codify your personal values don't say freedom
[00:10:51] choice don't say patriotism take a couple of weekends and write down your personal values and commit them to memory mine are purpose health integrity loyalty positivity abundance and learning
[00:11:03] philpal I'm very clear on them that took me several weeks to codify and they change as my roles change in life and then and only then do I think you move to your professional values your professional values really are the lens through which you make your professional decisions by the way my purpose in life has very little to do with my career
[00:11:26] my vocation is not my avocation I work to earn money period it's my number one professional value and I'm very comfortable talking about that in lots of settings my number one professional value is to maximize my income my number two professional value is to work for and with an organization that I respect their brand
[00:11:48] number three is to work with people who I like and love and who like and love me now I could have earned a whole lot more money working for a company but people I did not like
[00:11:58] but then number two and three values would have been not part of the process so I think the reason it's important to have a list of personal values and professional values as I write in the book on numerous occasions they're often in conflict
[00:12:11] if you're in sales your number one value probably is maximizing income or you wouldn't be on a full commission plan but that might be in conflict with your number one value which is family maybe your grandfather need to around so you can't move to a sales territory where there's more business or face-to-face meetings
[00:12:30] the reason I have two list of values is to identify when are they in conflict when are they in alignment and do you choose to do anything about that most people's career frustrations or their career cul-de-sacs are blamed on other people when in fact they are because they have not identified their two sets of values and they don't know what is the cause of the frustration
[00:12:56] it's very interesting and I'll just read out some other professional values that you kind of listed as options to help because I was trying to figure out what doesn't mean but you put a list together in the book which is very helpful brands I try to use and trust is an example entrepreneurial spirit I think that's an important one for somebody like me risk taking culture is an important one but you also mentioned proximity to family
[00:13:22] I would probably say that's the one that's not very important to me you know stock options be macrass fair international assignments for example is a good one so I don't think people think like that in the professional values they might be thinking oh please have an arrow I can grow and get promoted
[00:13:43] I think people think where can I earn the next $5,000 do I like the amenities does this seem like a safe place by the way those are also professional values
[00:13:53] and I would just mention that you and your leaders in your readers and your listeners and viewers should pick your professional values only based on what you value do not pick your values on what anybody else thinks or cares I don't care what you think about my values
[00:14:11] they are my values I'm very comfortable talking about them and everybody who knows and has read this book knows that my number one professional value is maximize my income
[00:14:22] and I'm super comfortable talking about it yeah I think the one thing is a lot of people might like like I said might be gun shy about admitting some of those professional values you know but
[00:14:35] well then they're not going to take control of their career because if you want to take your career by the horns and you have them lead it
[00:14:43] then you've got to be very clear about what is most important to you and be able to express that to yourself and to your prospective employer
[00:14:52] now not in the beginning right if you want to land a job somewhere the last thing you tell them is what's important to you
[00:14:58] the first thing you do is tell them why I am the right person to progress your goals right you should be solely focused on how I can help your organization
[00:15:08] progress your mission and goals and then once they are convinced that that is when you talk about now here's what's important to me and decided you have a deal or no deal
[00:15:16] yeah yeah so I think people might get a mistake sorry I think most people walk in to negotiations and interviews talking about all the things they need
[00:15:25] and that is the last thing you do now it's arguably the most important thing you do but you do that after you have convinced the hiring organization
[00:15:35] why you are the right person to hire to progress their goals once you've convinced them of that you're in a better position
[00:15:42] to make sure they understand what's important for you for to you for them to accommodate
[00:15:48] and I think it's very important as a leader to know that for their people because that is employee retention employee growth
[00:15:57] yes, maximization of the organization's profits yeah because if you align better with their growth needs or their own or their values in this case professional values
[00:16:07] then you obviously will maximize their likelihood to stay in the organization contribute
[00:16:14] that's exactly right if I argue that my you know my number one professional value is to be able to you know travel internationally
[00:16:22] your company may or may not have an opportunity but you may decide to send me on three or four trips a year that are good for the company
[00:16:28] but also keeping me around because now you know that's important for me I'm not suggesting you make up bogus trips
[00:16:34] but you know if I could go work a trade show at the London book fair just as easy as you can I don't want to go to London
[00:16:41] it's happening right week I sent other people there because other people have that as an important part of their job
[00:16:46] they want to travel I've been to London 40 times I live there for a year no need to go back lovely city
[00:16:52] but if I can gain someone's loyalty and my firm by sending them man what a win for both of us
[00:16:59] yeah yeah that's absolutely true so the one that I really I think I have some questions on please
[00:17:06] please no I define and build your brand I don't even know people now obviously I know that as I see you're a founder of a startup
[00:17:15] that brand is very important so I look I focus on engage these brand but also my own personal brand which is one of the reasons I do the podcast as well
[00:17:23] but what does it mean for an average person who's looking to build a career like what do they do and what does the brand mean first of all
[00:17:31] but then so that maybe you can define that and then what do they need to do to actually define and build their brand
[00:17:36] so in this book there are 10 exercises that are pretty intensive for all 10 strategies and these are not exercises you do in five minutes
[00:17:44] some of them will take you two or three days if you really want to maximize the content this is not an epiphany every person has a brand
[00:17:51] my brand is I have an indefatigable level of energy I process very fast I'm super impatient I sometimes talk too straight
[00:18:02] I can hurt your feelings because I'm so brief and clear and how I speak I'm a very abundant person I'm a very loyal person sometimes to a fault
[00:18:12] I tend to assume I know all the facts and I interrupt people when in fact if I would just be more patient they would explain to me the full picture
[00:18:19] I mean in on and on and on because I'm self aware because I study myself everybody has a brand and you are rarely seen how you think you are seen
[00:18:29] right I'm seen as being very anxious and very impatient I'm always on edge when in fact I don't feel like I'm an anxious person
[00:18:36] but people tell me no Scott you seem pretty anxious and sometimes Scott you seem pretty angry
[00:18:41] and I look at me on the podcast I say I'm not angry they say no you look angry no I'm just passionate but Scott you look angry
[00:18:48] I mean look at yourself and so there is always a chasm dissonance between how you think you are perceived and how you are perceived
[00:18:58] I think I'm a very productive person and I would say some people will say yes Scott but you take on too much
[00:19:04] because even though you deliver you often deliver late so my brand is not keeping promises my brand is making promises
[00:19:13] and then usually delivering them a little bit late so everyone that reads this book should do the exercise of what do you think your current brand is
[00:19:23] I spend a whole page and a half talking with some pretty outrageous confessions about my own brand actually was three pages long
[00:19:30] in the editor cut it down and took out like 15 things I wrote about myself because I am self aware
[00:19:37] because I study myself and I ask for feedback a lot the second exercise then is to go pick I think it's three people you trust in the organization and ask them
[00:19:47] how did I see your brand how did I experience your brand and then to determine where the disconnection ultimately what do you want your brand to look like
[00:19:56] and what behavior changes do you need to make in order to achieve that brand and then also is that brand valued in your current organization I worked for the Walt Disney company for very short period of time about four years
[00:20:10] and very conservative company and I was the wrong fit for the Walt Disney company not the right fit
[00:20:16] and so I think it's important to know what your brand is how others see your brand where is there a disconnect for the brand you want and is the brand you want the brand your current employer or future employer values
[00:20:30] So this is a brand that you would show internally to organization but should they be doing this publicly as well with the advent of different social media channels and other mechanisms like podcasts and stuff
[00:20:43] Why think so I mean I think you have one brand I mean you've a brand that's multifaceted I mean people know that I am the father of three young boys
[00:20:53] millions people know this they also know I do not like parenting I talk about it very openly I am not a natural parent most days I hate parenting my boys know I love them and they know I hate parenting we talk about it pretty openly hopefully
[00:21:08] hopefully they won't need too much therapy and so my brand is a guy that's very open very vulnerable very I mean heck I want to hold serious books about management
[00:21:18] and marketing mess right all the mistakes I've made in my career I've built a brand that I am willing to talk about my mistakes
[00:21:26] not it's a crutch to keep making them but to teach other people through them and so you have to figure out what you want your brand to be
[00:21:36] and then really only you can cultivate that and it's never too late to change your brand but you can't talk yourself out of a problem or a brand that you behave yourself into
[00:21:45] a brand that you want you have to have a reputation of behaving and alignment with that brand you can't declare yourself trust worthy and then violate people's version of what trust is you have to behave yourself into a reputation of being trusted
[00:22:01] and then you have to be your brand. And the reason to I'm going to go back to the core principle here which is the reason you want to build a brand is because then you take a more deliberate approach to your career
[00:22:11] otherwise it's accidental and whatever happens happens there are the wind flows you've sailed that way.
[00:22:17] That's right or the brand you have is kind of accidental you didn't realize your scene as the person that is always late to the meeting or always offers an interesting solution
[00:22:29] but it's really for the wrong problem right what is your self regulation do you process things externally like I do I have to say something in order if we determine do I believe that as a result I say things I don't believe I'm an outward processor other people have have to think about it for a day or two before they opine in and there are probably seen as people that are quite quiet and maybe not as high contributors in a meeting in meetings.
[00:22:57] You have a brand the only way for you to really understand it is to ask other people to describe your brand that is part of the exercise yeah but that's very helpful because that way that we at least know if your brand is on the wrong path that you want it to be you can take some corrective action right or could be on the right path but for the wrong leader in the wrong organization right right exactly exactly I'm going to guess the Episcopal Church wants people with different brands than Tesla.
[00:23:27] Well it does maybe you're in the wrong building maybe in the wrong company that is true that is true yeah yeah I'm sure why I picked the Episcopal Church in Tesla but I was trying to think of like opposite brands right well that's true but I was I was thinking about when you said world Disney World because I actually did a project for a world Disney World back in the day as well and you are absolutely right it was a very much conservative friendly super friendly organization.
[00:23:52] I'm not sure it's the same thing you are is funny change quite a bit in the last well I think it's highly political.
[00:23:57] I think you know back in the 90s when I worked there you didn't leave your cube without your jacket on it at pie it's very much changed right but it was just not the right place for me at that point in my career and I became really understanding.
[00:24:09] Through a lot of self inquiry and high courage conversations my leaders have with me it was not the right place for me with my brand now I could have changed my brand to fit the company but I think it would have been disingenuous and authentic and I don't think anybody's interested in force fitting their brand into a culture that doesn't value who they are yeah yeah.
[00:24:31] The last one here also I think is something that I wanted to get some more insight into dig your dig your well before your thirsty yes what are we talking about specifically so this actually is the name of a book written by Harvey McKay the very famous motivational speaker diggy well before your thirsty you know 80 plus percent of jobs are filled through referrals they're not filled because some algorithm on assorting you know.
[00:25:01] Of software matching keywords on resumes at the end of the day the vast majority of roles are filled through network you may not know who is going to be your next leader but you know the person who's going to introduce you to them.
[00:25:19] So in this chapter I talk about how important it is to constantly be building your network I I worked at the Franklin Covey company for 25 years.
[00:25:27] I became a very influential member of the board or sorry the senior leadership team was a named officer in the company as the chief marketing officer after 25 years I had a large network.
[00:25:37] But everybody worked inside of Franklin Covey I had very little network outside of the company and my colleagues weren't going to be the person to find me my next career.
[00:25:48] So I kind of sobered up quickly to realize my goodness I've got to build a network outside of this company is way to insular everybody knows the same people.
[00:25:57] So whether it's TikTok probably not given what Congress is doing with TikTok in the US whether it's LinkedIn or X or Facebook or you name it you need to start building a network and that doesn't mean just going out and connecting everybody you can in the hope they can help you find a job someday.
[00:26:12] No, this is about being a very abundant person helping people connecting others offering advice posting on LinkedIn having an abundance mentality where you are helping as many people possible because that's who you are.
[00:26:26] And that's one of your values remember one of my seven values is abundance and it always comes back to help me in the end when I need help from somebody else dig your well before your thirsty.
[00:26:39] That's very good one. Yeah, I appreciate it.
[00:26:42] You cannot build your network overnight. It's too late.
[00:26:45] It's it is and people do it.
[00:26:48] Here's the problem people do network they do network only purely for the sake of getting something out of it. Yeah, with the vested in rather that I build network with this person because everybody sees right through that.
[00:26:59] That's what you can all be doing and you know that you're trying you can just see it's not genuine. It's not a 10 together point.
[00:27:06] You got a network just for the just for the purely sake of networking and helping people building that the second thing you said.
[00:27:13] You should network with the pure intention of helping other people period and you may never call on them to help you ever.
[00:27:23] But someday you might and when you do that well is not dry, that well as full.
[00:27:30] Yeah. Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
[00:27:34] I only have so much time on this part. I know.
[00:27:37] On and on this book is right on course. It's actually career on course.
[00:27:43] So thanks for sending me a copy and I really enjoyed going through this book.
[00:27:48] I have a few highlights that I will probably talk about in some other channels as well.
[00:27:52] Thank you. Thank you for the platform and the spotlight today. Nice thing with you.
[00:27:57] Yeah. Thank you. Have a good one.
[00:27:58] Shree Chalapa here. Thank you so much for listening to the People Strategy Leaders podcast.
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