I was talking to a longtime friend recently, and asked how her new job was going. She mentioned how she is loving the work, because she’s focused right now on figuring out how to build the organization’s external programmatic and engagement strategy. The organization–like so many lately in the progressive space–has focused the bulk of its time and attention in the past several years on getting internal culture and related processes and norms right.
She said, “I mean, I don’t want to run the strategy once we have it. Just to be clear. But I love the process of putting it together and thinking about how it can work.”
That made me think of a discovery I made about myself about 10 years ago. At that time, I realized I’d been happiest–and most productive–in jobs where my main task was to either help start something new or fix something that had gone off the rails.
Whether the new thing was a program, a project, or an entire organization didn’t seem to matter. I really liked doing the work to take an idea and make it real not just programmatically (e.g., what is our strategy; what is our communications plan; how and when do we engage in advocacy) but also functionally (e.g., what kind of systems and processes do we need to establish to make things run well; should we outsource or build our own HR and finance functions).
In terms of fixing something that is broken, well perhaps I’m just a glutton for punishment at times! But for a lot of reasons, one of my strengths is identifying problems and their causes–and I mean both right-now problems and future ones too. So if something isn’t working well, I’m great at coming in and figuring out why, assessing what other risks are, and proposing a way forward that solves today’s problems and minimizes tomorrow’s. To me, that’s a great way to be of service to an organization, program, or project I care about.
When I discovered this realization about myself, I was “running” something that someone else created. And despite having some glaring problems, “fixing” was not an option, because the organization’s leadership was too fragile and unstable to address problems in a forthright way. So after a few misguided attempts at “fixing” I did my best to just run things. And I realized most of the time I felt frustrated to have to pretend the problems didn’t exist. When I wasn’t frustrated, I was just bored having to run the thing in the first place. So I knew I had to leave sooner than later, and I did.
It was a hard experience–I really thought that that job was going to be one I stayed in for a very long time–but I learned a lot. Discovering the Start/Fix/Run framework was one big thing I got out of it.
And it’s something I use with my coaching clients today to get to know them better and help them reflect on where they’ve been and where they want to go.
Of course it’s the rare job that has you only doing one of those things forever, but I think it’s reasonable to say that most jobs will have you doing more of one of those three things than the other two at any given time. Perhaps the balance changes over time, and that’s when you start to feel better or worse about the job.
If you’re feeling bored or frustrated in your current role, or find yourself jumping from job to job without much commitment or joy, take a step back and ask yourself when you’ve been happiest and most content at work. When did you feel the most fulfilled and like you were giving your best? Were you doing more starting or fixing or running?
They all require different skills and kinds of talent, and they will resonate with us differently depending on our background, experience, and interests.
For me, this way of thinking was a starting point for how I’d work to change and restructure my career over the coming decade. For you, it might help you get some clarity about the ups and downs of your career. Or it could help you move in an entirely different direction.
More than anything, it’s important to now and then take a step back and think about where we’ve been and where we’ve felt at our best–and what might come next. This framework could be the first step in doing just that.
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