Do You Have to Be Bad at Something Before You Can Be Good?

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When you’re learning something new, there’s often an expectation that you’ll pick it up easily. That it will be smooth sailing. That you won’t skip a beat.

After all, the world moves faster every day. The competitive landscape is more intense than ever. Time is in short supply. It’s one sprint after another to learn what you need to know. Learning curves can feel like vertical climbs.

But when in your life have you learned something new and performed it perfectly right from the start?

As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the book Outliers: The Story of Success, it takes about 10,000 hours to master a skill.

The hard part is the feeling of incompetence that comes along with learning. Two things happened this week that made me think more about being bad at something new.

First was reading the work of Erika Andersen in an HBR post, which was the subject of my blog post yesterday. She wrote about how to identify the next skills you should learn.

In that was an angle on having to be bad at something before you can be good. The important thing, Andersen says, is to continue on through the bad phase so you can get to the good.

In fact, it’s the subject of her new book coming out this winter called Be Bad First: Get Good at Things Fast to Stay Ready for the Future. Sign me up. The pre-ordered book will download on my Kindle app on March 8.

In a Forbes post that may have inspired the book, she gives great strategies for How to Get Good at Things By Being Bad First. One of them is managing your self talk and being deliberately encouraging in how you speak to yourself.

That brings me to the second thing that happened this week. I’ve been trying different yoga classes, looking for 2 to do consistently each week. In addition to the serenity, stretching and balance benefits, I’m training to do paddle board yoga in the spring and summer.

And I’m moving through being bad into being good. One of my yoga instructors gave me a little smile this week when I at last managed to transition into Warrior II with the correct arm in front.

And my first experience with stand up paddle boarding last fall left me with a patch of broken skin on my thumb from holding the paddle the wrong way. The skin healed, and I figured out a better way to paddle.

Something the teacher in yesterday’s yoga class said made a big impression on me. He advised us not to condemn, judge or demand. If we let go of these mindsets and expectations, we will be calmer and happier.

These could apply to others. They could also apply to ourselves. By letting go of judging ourselves and demanding perfection, we are more free to experiment and learn.

That’s what Andersen is saying too. Most everyone will be bad at something when they first start. But by having faith in your ability to persevere and learn what you need to know, you can get good.

Another great book, What To Do When You’re New by Keith Rollag gives strategies for you to perform new things in front of people who aren’t familiar to you. Focusing on learning and getting better, rather than being good right away, is a great tip.

And his HBR article on being new gives good guidance on asking questions: consider what you want and why, determine whom to ask and if the time is right, ask short to-the-point questions and express thanks.

It’s humbling to recognize what you don’t know and what you need to learn. To try to ask the right questions, even when you don’t know what you don’t know. To take a crack at doing the new task. To learn from and recover from the inevitable mistakes. To start building competence.

This is what I’m doing in my new career role in marketing. This is how I navigate new community leadership roles. And this is how I approach my exercise classes. It’s not easy, but I keep moving forward.

As I learned from my yoga teacher, don’t judge yourself or demand perfection. Be kind to yourself and let yourself experiment. You’ll achieve much more, much faster and much better than you ever thought you could.

Make Room for Something New

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“You have to let go of something to make room for something new.”

Author Cynthia Oredugba (pictured, right) shared this and more at a Women of AT&T Southern California fundraiser for scholarships.

Led by chapter president Georgia Zachary (pictured, left), the event was held this weekend at Marmi at The Point in El Segundo, Calif.

How did I find myself there?

For the last year I’ve led the DIRECTV Women’s Leadership Exchange – an employee resource group for professional development, networking, mentoring and community service.

DIRECTV was acquired by AT&T this summer, creating the world’s largest pay TV provider and a video distribution leader across TV, mobile and broadband.

Among other things, our employee resource groups are coming together. This is how I found myself listening to Cynthia Oredugba talk about change.

“You can’t get better by staying the same,” was another truth she shared that struck a chord.

It reminded me of the DIRECTV Leadership Development Program I attended two years ago.

At the end of a life-changing week, I realized I’d only thought I had a big dream for myself in becoming VP of Corporate Communications.

Coming out of the program, I was energized by the idea of pivoting and stretching into a new area – whether that was investor relations, operations, marketing or something else entirely.

But it wasn’t until the transformative coming together of AT&T and DIRECTV that an opportunity would arise.

Three weeks ago, I moved into a marketing role. It centers on the customer experience, consumer research and the vision for the future of the marketing organization.

This speaks to the opportunities that come from change. And from being part of a newly combined company. And among leaders with a commitment to talent mobility as a way for people to grow and contribute.

It also allows me to explore for the first time my full spectrum of the high-scoring artistic, social end enterprising parts of the Strong Interest Inventory. This career assessment tool links personal interests with a variety of career fields.

I’ve long seen Human Resources, Corporate Communications and Marketing along a related spectrum of careers that blend the qualitative and the quantitative, design and data, and people and products.

Having spent many years in Corporate Communications and HR leadership roles, I’m thrilled to have an opportunity in Marketing.

And now the hard work begins. Applying previous knowledge to new situations. Addressing new business challenges. Adapting to new norms.

It’s a good thing I love learning. Because there’s going to be a lot of it in the near future. And we all need to be constant learners, whether or not we’re changing jobs, functions or companies.

Thankfully I work with a lot of great people who are more than willing to answer questions and share insights.

As I dive into the new role, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the many parallels between what I used to do and what I do now.

And that’s been the best learning of all. You don’t have to let go of something you’ve loved as you move into something new.

You just have to let it evolve into a new state. It’s about combining what you’ve done with a commitment to lifelong learning to inform what you do today – and tomorrow.

Who Am I? (part two)

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Once you find your dream career, how do you get a foot in the door?

That became a three-year career change process for me. And it had three parts – getting an advanced degree, building a portfolio of comms work and creating a new network. (Yes, I’m a planner. Probably to an unnecessary degree in this case, but it ultimately worked for me.)

An advanced degree. First I went back to my alma mater and enrolled in the Public Relations certificate program through UCLA Extension.

Then I thought about grad school. Once I discovered corp comms, though, I abandoned plans for an MBA.

Ironically, an undergrad degree in economics worked against me early on. Hiring managers wanted communications, journalism or English.

Only recently has econ turned into an advantage. Now we have to be well versed in business strategy and operations.

I next set my sights on journalism and applied to the University of Southern California.

But I didn’t get in.

Undaunted, I applied to the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

I took two evening classes a semester, learning about organizational comms, the diffusion of innovations and comms research from luminaries like Janet Fulk, Peter Monge and Sheila Murphy.

While I was at Annenberg, the journalism and communication schools merged. So I ultimately became a graduate of the school that turned me down.

The lesson? Rejection is part of chasing your biggest dreams. And sometimes life can surprise you in interesting ways.

A portfolio of work. My masters work helped me build a portfolio of communications, because I could tailor projects to my areas of interest.

I also joined a professional association in my field at the time, the National Contract Management Association. As the chapter’s comms chair, I edited the newsletter, wrote news releases and served as the group’s spokesperson.

Today there are great ways to showcase a portfolio on the web and through social media – a quantum leap from the big book of publications and press clippings I used to lug with me to job interviews.

A new network. The best way to make a lateral career move came from building a network in my new field.

First I joined a professional association. IABC, the International Association of Business Communicators, took me as a member before I had a job in the field.

A local chapter invited me to join their board. It was the perfect opportunity. I invited senior communicators to speak at our meetings. It gave me access to people in way I could build relationships.

When I was asked to be chapter president, it was a fortunate coincidence that I finally landed my first job in the field. Later I become a district director, international executive board member and world conference general session speaker on social media.

My network was valuable in two ways. First, I did informational interviews. Following the Richard Bolles path from part one of this series, I met with people in the field and asked them about their work.

I asked how they got into the field. What they did every day. What they liked and didn’t like. What they looked for in new hires. How the field was changing.

Second, my network became a source of job referrals. I decided a good way to make a lateral move was within the 10,000-person aerospace unit where I already worked. That way I could leverage my knowledge of the company and the industry while moving into a new functional area.

However, the company was so big that to its communications team I was an outsider. But a professional association gave me an in. I met people on the comms team and learned about job openings, often before they were posted.

That led to a series of interviews. And a series of rejections. It became a familiar refrain. The hiring manager liked me, but another candidate was a better fit.

Job opportunity #5 was for a graphic design position. By that point the department was almost as eager to hire me as I was to join. But the position didn’t use my strongest skills, so I declined to pursue it.

I told myself something better would come along. And it did.

A few weeks later, the same hiring manager called me with job opportunity #6. One of his writers had just resigned. Would be I be interested in the job?

Uh, yeah.

A body of awards. Early in my career I tried to establish credibility quickly, to make up for lost time. Awards carried career currency then.

A “with distinction” notation when I passed my master’s comprehensive exam. The outstanding young PR professional award from the Los Angeles chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

A TRW Women of Achievement Award (that’s me, second from the right, in the opening photo). Communicator of the Year from IABC/LA. Several IABC writing awards.

Seems almost silly now, how eager I was to prove myself.

Today our value is measured in new ways. And that’s the subject of my next post.