Many of us work jobs and we find this little corner of the internet and learn the world is our oyster, not something to beg for. Naturally your new found leadership at home will bleed into other areas of your life, and with this comes turbidity. You quickly start seeing things for what they are, not as they are. You quickly learn that most of the middle management in your company are true blue pills. As you strike out and up, you learn things are not always as they seem but this post will help you put some tools in your toolbox. Today, as someone in executive leadership, I will share with you some of the harsh realities of private sector business.

Fuck Loyalty - Law 39

Many of you think that if you are loyal to your company and do your job better than anyone else. The company will recognize and magically owe you something. The company actually owes you nothing. You are a spoke on the wheel. Your have your job through the law of laziness. It's simply easier to keep you on than it is to replace you. Replacing an employee is more costly and expensive than moderately satisfying the exisiting employee. The upside of this is that the wheel is always turning. If people around you are not telling you that you should be a manager, it's time to rethink your choices.

The company will fire you tomorrow, lay you off next week by conference call, and will not give you the courtesy of letting you know before hand. Why then are we stuck in this role?

For most of you, stuck in your dead in non-leadership job, the only way out of this position is to change companies. Many people I have spoke to simply do not want to change jobs because of the sunken cost fallacy. The others just want the security (false assumption) that they currently enjoy. You cannot be either one of these employees if you want to succeed in the game called life. The option simply isnt there. For those of you who kept reading you now have the shortcut to success. The shortcut is not easy, because if it was, it would be called the way. Polish up your resume, embellish it a bit, and come up with a plan to sell it. You need to make sure you have references, fake or not, to back up what you are saying. In most US states, by law the HR department can only reveal your last title, salary, and employment dates. If you can sell your title of "Permit Issuance" to a management position where you lead a team of inspectors to check on permitting status. The other company has no way to know. Your irrational confidence will sell it.

Lastly, always be loyal to your direct report and their direct report.

Reputation - Law 5

Reputation is the only important thing in your career. Nothing else matters and no one looks at HOW you did it, they only look at the RESULT. With my direct reports I have never dug into the details. You are assigned a project, and it gets completed with great results or it fails. You absolutely must cultivate respect and grow it like a rare flower.

I have found in life that most people don't know how to grow a reputation. They have no clue how to do this. There are easy ways to start your reputation and there are even easier ways to grow it. When you realize that absolutely everything you do will affect in negative and positive ways, the idea is to start acheiving a net gain. Let's start a small bullet point list of things you can start doing today. You absolutely must achieve a me first attitude and drop the nice guy attitude.

  • Failure is never an option, everything succeeds at high quality. Period. If you can't do that, don't bother.
  • People need to know about your accomplishments. Market them.
  • Ask the stakeholders to email your superiors and let them know whether they liked or hated your work. Make sure you dont get a negative comment.
  • Cultivate accomplishments. People think in snapshots, let them all be wins.
  • When your rivals are failing, let them fail, and if you can do it clandestinely, help it fail.
  • If your rival asks for help, deliver it in the most smallest accountable way you can do it in the manner that you help.

Control the Options - Law 31

Continuing the saga of promoting at your current company there are some things you can control. You need to control them but not be seen to be in control. This is typically where you have already made your bed as a worker and you are trying to turn it into a management position. This could even be a promotion but you should be warned that some jobs people just do not promote from.

When dealing directly with other colleagues in your company it is very difficult. How do you motivate a colleague who does not want to be motivated? By finding what they like and play your choices you give them to their preferences. Many people just simply do not have the time to stop and think about the choices and wish to quickly give you an option. Beware the person who stops to think, they are the real threat.

Five Year Plan - Laws 28 and 29 - Goals without dates are called dreams

Story time. One year ago I made a five year plan for me. No other options existed and I only concentrated on my needs purely. Yes, as you know, I have a wife and children. I chose to make my MAP without their needs considered at all. Here are my five things I wanted to happen for myself.

  1. Rebuild my current home, or find a new one in the Galleria.
  2. Find a C-Level job.
  3. Set up private schools for my children.
  4. Make my own retirement.
  5. Buy a new truck, the current one has seen better days.

As everyone knows, my house was destroyed by Harvey. I spent my hurricane days rescuing stranded people with volunteers from work. My family went back to Austin with her parents and I stayed behind to help. Upon returning home there was nothing left. We went to stay at my late grandfathers ranch (was in the process of selling) and we spent some of the best months of our lives. I realized that where we lived and how we lived was detrimental to our growth as a family unit. The house is rebuilt and we are still looking for a new house in the Galleria. Needless to say, the ranch will stay in our family and will turn into our winter home. We spent time finding schools and transportation for our children, that is handled.

Next up, and yeah I know its only year one but once I get started on something I am like a dog with a bone. My wish was to get a C-Level job and move up from division president. The problem is at my company there is no room for me to move up and the current leadership has no issue with things as they currently are. There was no weakness to attack. I was not vested in the company and was not in the league to get voting stock. The options were sealed. My job was simply to do the same job for the next 30 years or hope someone died early.

How do you get interviews? Use the words in your resume to match the job requirements or find out and befriend those who can pass along your resume.

This led me to seek employment outside of what I am currently doing. My prime management skills are in construction or environmental management. Therefore I needed to seek options outside of the current corporate environment. I applied selectively to some open positions and interviewed at all three companies for upper level management. One of the options was a non-starter, it was working with the royal family so that's a dead end. The other two were right up my alley and had much older folks in the C-level jobs. Now how to exploit my current company with the other two companies?

Reputation. I am known throughout my business area as a hard charger and especially known for my quality of work. In the old days as a Department Manager, when you saw my name on the work scope, that pretty much sold the job. Pulling off the impossible was my specialty, and that had 100% to do with my core group of employees. We were known. Those days are over, and only the ancient remember this.

One of the companies dismissed me on the interview process, and I thought the job was lost. Simply a manager of the company, but the options were there because of the C-level age. In the next decade at least two of them were going to be dead or retired. That's more time than I need to handle my business. I went to the interview and I sold myself for exactly who I was thinking that the position wasn't going to happen. Just a dream. Then I got a notice that I was not being considered for the position.

Several weeks later I got a phone call from the CEO asking me to meet him. Our schedules happened to intersect at the DIA airport and we had a chance for an interview for COO. He knew who I was from the past and exactly what I had to offer. We planned a vacation in Cabo with our families that I just returned from.

My current CEO was informed and he was completely floored. Then as we got to talking he knew he just couldn't offer what I could find somewhere else. The path to the C-Level there didnt exist for me and to be fair I was more then fairly compensated and I had points on the gross profit. My salary was directly in my control. They offered more money but he knows I am not working for money, just ambition.

In the end, the boldness my action with a solid plan has paid off in two fold. Either way I decide, I am doing it from a position of power with new understandings on both sides. My choice is not made yet and I hope to take the COO job as I shore up living arrangements and travel assignments. The new office may not be in this country.

The only reason I had the cake and got to eat it? Fuck loyalty. Go out there and get what you want, Amazon Now won't deliver it to your door.