Taylor Tomlinson is one of my favorite standup comedians and, in one of her specials, has a line that I love:
You have no intuition, no instincts. You can't make decisions, only mistakes. That's why you're thin in your 20s. You don't have a gut to listen to
A few years ago, when I worked in that big company you know about, the company started hiring many senior management from outside and asking them to make some swift changes with only a couple of months of onboarding, essentially on gut feelings.
At the time I thought it was madness, so I asked my manager why he was doing that and his answer puzzled me: “Well if they can’t make those decisions fast, what did we hire them for?”
I gotta be honest, I didn’t find that answer satisfying or useful. I thought it was just a defense of lazy management practices.
Until it was my turn
A rule I had to learn the hard way, and that I invite you to internalize is:
If they are hiring you, an expensive senior professional (manager or otherwise), they need someone to come in, fix something and do it quickly.
No company hires external (expensive) senior talent if they don’t a) have something burning and need a “Mr. Wolf” or b) an internal staffing issue so they can’t rely on their people to fix it.
This is why it’s so hard to hire someone senior and why there are so few openings for those jobs (and many being confidential to begin with).
Also why the process of being hired as a senior professional is so weird, often based on “vibes” or recommendations, and sometimes infinitely long.
It’s not about you specifically, it’s about understanding if you have experience fixing the problem they have (and often don’t even tell you about), if you can onboard quickly (you’ll get one month to settle in, maybe), if you are aligned with the direction (that is most likely new, certainly confusing), if you are compatible with the team (they like you).
And if the above wasn’t enough, use a process often ad hoc and done by people who are probably stressed, tired, and confused as much as you.
In hindsight, it’s obvious why it’s so easy to see many new executives, directors, and principals fail miserably and be shunned by their organization. Pulling this off is hard, people expect you to be their lord and savior and many organizations are generally bad at selecting the right people but quick at crucifying them.
So what happened when it was my turn? Did I trust my gut and make swift changes knowing little about the organization? Did I betray the younger me?
Yes, yes I did.
Not because I was wrong at the time, but I now understand that those swift big decisions look big and swift only if you make the wrong ones.
If you are the right person, those big decisions are obvious and the speed is needed to help the people drowning in front of you. They want you to make those decisions.
In a way, I think that we, knowledge workers, tend to overestimate the impact of talking a lot (are we wordcel?) and underestimate the impact of doing a little.
All this to say that that scene from Indiana Jones, is everything you need to know about trusting your guts.