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So, you want to build a thriving career.
The goal? Become a top performer. Indispensable. A linchpin.
But how can you develop the high performance habits needed to succeed? There’s a way to do this without being a cutthroat careerist. It’s absolutely possible to go about your career in an honest and genuine way while still rising up the ranks.
Let’s take a look at how to do that.
Always perform your best, regardless of your role
They want to wait until they have the perfect role before becoming a top performer. They tell themselves, “Once I land my dream job, I’ll start working hard.”
Because of that attitude, they never get the gig they hoped for. It’s a mindset thing. If you don’t have enough discipline to do well in the role you already have, you’re subconsciously telling yourself that you can’t handle even more responsibility.
A linchpin goes above and beyond what’s expected of them.
This means putting in the extra effort regardless of your role or the stage of your career. Doing things like:
- Anticipating what your boss or clients might need before they ask for it and providing proactive solutions
- Thinking of ways to improve the products or services your company provides and “manage up” by sending detailed plans to your superiors
- Be willing to do the tasks others won’t. Bill Belichick, coach of the 7-time champion New England Patriots, developed a reputation for doing what other coaches didn’t want to do (when he worked for other teams), like watching endless hours of game film
Most importantly, don’t do any of these things with an expectation of a reward.
Do it because it makes you a better employee. Do it because it teaches you valuable skills you can use in the future.
With that attitude, you become a linchpin at your company as a byproduct of your efforts (instead of being motivated by some external recognition).
Let’s dive deeper into high performance habits that will make you an all-star employee.
Related:
Become an intrapreneur
In his words, they didn’t have any skin in the game. They get paid whether or not the company succeeds. Instead, he recommended finding people who are literally invested in the success of the company.
Startups in silicon valley are known for paying employees a little bit less upfront but providing them with equity in the company. Many startups flop, but being an early investor in a successful startup creates life-changing money.
Even if you’re not literally invested in a company, it pays to behave as if you owned a piece of the company. You never know, it might actually lead to that result.
I worked at a digital marketing company years back. I took the job as an educational opportunity, so I kept coming up with ways to make the company more money, retain clients, and upgrade current services. A few years in, the partners told me they wanted to make me a minority partner in the business.
I soon left my job to focus on my business full-time, but the story is telling. You don’t have to make huge sacrifices and invest in a company that might not be faithful to you long-term, but while you’re working, it doesn’t hurt to adopt the attitude of an “intrapreneur” who helps the company grow.
Lifelong learning will set you apart
The reason I performed so well at my old company is that I had a vested interest in learning.
I knew I wanted to become an entrepreneur, so I used my job as a way to get paid to learn. I still use many techniques I learned at the company, like SEO, paid ads, and social media marketing.
I took time to study these tactics outside of work, applied them at my job, and watched the impact they had on our clients. My desire to learn made me a better employee by default. It gave me energy and focus.
Even past roles like working retail taught me valuable skills, like customer service, general social skills, and sales techniques. When I worked as a manager at a video store, we had bonuses for selling deals to customers. I treated it like a fun game—learning how to get people to buy.
I’m reminded of a quote from Naval Ravikant:
The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.
The things that make you a great employee have nothing to do with sucking up or playing office politics. A genuine desire to improve makes you valuable. So many people in today’s society suffer in their careers because they work based on what they “should” do instead of pursuing genuine desire.
Ironically, a desire and hunger to learn (regardless of the results) tend to pay off long-term in the form of money.
Top performers build career capital
Cal Newport calls this career capital in his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.”
Career capital comes from the combination of how rare and valuable your skills are. It’s hard to be a linchpin as a factory worker on an assembly line because many people can do that job.
I hate the term unskilled labor because everyone’s job takes skill, but performing tasks that others can’t do makes it harder to find a replacement. There’s a huge demand in fields like S.T.E.M. because they require skill sets that are hard to learn.
Borrowing from Cal again, you can build career capital by learning how to do deep work or tasks that take tons of focus and cognitive power to execute.
Even among top fields and skills, there are degrees of separation.
Say there’s a company with ten computer programmers. One programmer might be so skilled that they create the same level of output as three of their employees.
Maybe they know how to code multiple languages, which makes them rare. Perhaps they have a background in design, too, which makes them create code that fits easily with site layouts. Perhaps they also know copywriting and understand how fonts and layouts increase website conversions.
Rareness comes from both the degree of difficulty and the number of combined skills. If you want to stand out, you can learn to become T-shaped, which means you’re excellent at one skill and decent at many others.
Most people can—with practice—develop a variety of skills that work well together. I call this idea the Talent Stack.
—Scott Adams
Today’s top employees have talent stacks. To become a linchpin at your organization, think of yourself like a Swiss Army knife.
Become a master of soft skills
Linchpin employees know how to stay calm under pressure. You could be a cook dishing out orders for a jam-packed Friday night rush or the waitstaff dealing with restless patrons waiting for their food. I’ve been in tight spots at past companies, like when the websites of our entire client base all crashed all at once.
Regardless of the situation, panicking makes things worse. And in moments of crisis, emotions run high. People always look to the person on the team who can provide a sense of reassurance.
Be the person others run to when you know what hits the fan.
There’s no other way to develop the skill of being calm under pressure other than actually being calm under pressure during these moments. When stuff happens, think rationally. You logically know that panic won’t help, so keep calm.
You don’t have to put out the entire fire at once. Think of the next step you can take to make things a little better. Once that’s done, focus on the next step. When dealing with clients and customers, maintaining a calm and positive demeanor, regardless of how they’re acting, means everything.
This ties into the points above. If you’re constantly learning the ins and outs of your field, you’ll have a better chance of knowing what to do when it matters most.
Related:
Adaptability is key to high performance
This brings us back to adaptability. The flexibility of your approach increases your value. While this might sound like playing office politics, it really means that you understand people. And act accordingly to get desired results. You don’t have to lie or backstab to achieve that effect.
When I managed a team at my job, I knew different team members needed different management styles to thrive. Some didn’t respond well to criticism and performed better with encouragement and tactful suggestions. Others did better when I pushed them more. Some benefited from quick one-on-one meetings to stay on track. Others didn’t need to be supervised much at all.
This works in reverse, too. You might have supervisors who respond well to different approaches and you have to understand their style to effectively manage up.
Charlie Munger uses a great example of an employee who felt their boss’s decision would ruin the company. Instead of appealing to his logic (“this business is going to fail”), he appealed to his reputation (“if the business fails and you could’ve prevented it, the disaster might ruin your legacy”).
There are too many examples to list here, but you get the point. Hard skills are necessary, but soft skills are the glue that holds everyone together.
Final thoughts on high performance habits
Always remember that success is a byproduct of your effort.
Instead of thinking about how to become a top employee for status and recognition, focus on becoming more valuable for the sake of becoming more valuable.
Look at your career as a journey where you get to learn and grow instead of focusing on what you have to do. Maintain a positive attitude no matter what, and eventually?
Good things will happen.