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Chapter 1: What does Ethan Evans believe is the key to getting promoted at work?
Burnout is less, it turns out, about hard work. It's more about losing your vision. You no longer know where you're going. I'm just going to keep my head down and work hard. I call this work hard and hope to be noticed. Hope is not a very good strategy.
Why is it that people with half your talent seem to be winning all of the time? Ethan Evans should know.
Chapter 2: How can you turn your boss into your biggest advocate?
He's a retired Amazon VP. He's going to give us the exact framework he used to climb from getting fired twice early in his career to running multiple billion dollar businesses. What do you see Jeff Bezos do differently?
He often said, we need to be strategically patient, but tactically impatient. So it's feeling this urgency of how have I moved my business forward as far as I possibly can today, and yet realizing that building something of real value might take 10 years.
There's someone listening right now. They get to take one piece of advice from this podcast. What is the one thing you would give them?
Know what you want, know where you're going, and...
Everyone talks about climbing the corporate ladder, but it's much more than a corporate ladder. I think it's like climbing a corporate ladder while somebody is trying to pull it from underneath you and somebody else has cut it from up above. And there's all these politics. And so you've navigated the politics at the highest level of the game.
What do you wish you knew about corporate politics when you started that you know now?
Boy, I think the thing I wish I had known most about what's been called corporate politics is it's just other people trying to get ahead. They're just starting with what do they need and what do they want. And sometimes if you're in their way, it's not personal. They don't even notice. It's just your accidental roadkill.
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Chapter 3: Why do visible performers consistently outshine invisible performers?
Sometimes it's intentional. So one thing I wish I had known is just figure out what other people's motives are. And that doesn't mean they have a hidden or deep or dark motive. Just sometimes their motives don't align with yours. The other thing you said is you called it a corporate ladder, and that's what it's always been called.
I've heard a new analogy I like better, which is the corporate climbing wall, because it's wider. You can go up, you can go down, you can go sideways. There's many routes to the top. And I think that's the new way of looking at it. It's not just one path. I guess the key question is, why is what they are doing working for them?
That's the insight is stop being frustrated and start asking, well, why? Why is the corporation rewarding that?
Yeah. How can you tell if someone is going to be your advocate or is actually going to be your adversary in the workplace?
Chapter 4: What is the best way to ask for a raise effectively?
Yeah, well, one way of course is relationship. If you can be friends on any sort of topic, commonality, common place you went to school, common sports team you like, kids, whatever, it's more likely they're gonna advocate because we take care of our friends. The second thing though is people help those who help them.
And I think I made a lot of my career effectively by deal making, by finding people that I could align with what they wanted and help them get what they want. And then I would sometimes talk to them privately and be like, hey, I will help you get this. But like, I'm looking for a little help here. And most people don't.
are very willing to, hey, you help me, I'll help you because there's no harm in it. And so if you can't do that, though, and someone wants something completely opposite of what you want, then there can be a problem. The other thing could shoot down is style.
If there is a case, you know, where like I'm very outspoken and driven and you run into somebody who is very consensus based and wants to be cautious, that can lead to friction right away.
Chapter 5: How can you identify a good boss versus a bad boss during an interview?
Because I think a lot like you, I'm like, let's go, let's make a decision. And they're like, let's study it. Now, of course, I'm I'm like giving a little lilty voice, which probably isn't fair, but that's how it felt to me. And of course, they're like, this guy's crazy. So that can lead to conflict where I'm pushing them past their risk threshold and they see me as reckless.
Meanwhile, I see them as like, oh, my God, would you just go?
Can you think about a story about how bad it can get?
Chapter 6: What strategies can be used to give difficult feedback effectively?
The worst story I know of that I've seen is when someone has a step back, when one of the leaders has a failure. I've seen people who are in a competitive situation use that as like, oh, kick them while they're down. Because they're on the rocks. They may have been a good performer. They may be a good performer again.
You've got this one moment if you don't like them to like dog pile on top of them and finish them off. And a couple of times I've definitely seen people who seem very unassuming and like they had nothing to say, like all these fangs come out right when they see the, you know, they see a little blood in the water, maybe use a shark analogy and they start the feeding frenzy.
So I see now on people who struggle is finish them off while they're down. And that to me seemed like give them a hand up.
Yeah. Well, it's good to know. I mean, it's one thing what we think should happen, and then there's reality. And so if you always live in what should happen, what sounds nice, what's Pollyanna, what's rose-colored glasses, you're not going to get far in life. Forget corporations versus startups versus being independent.
And so I think this is so important to talk about because people think that everybody acts like them. People think that everybody acts quote-unquote good or everybody's going to do the quote-unquote right thing. And that's just not human nature.
So can I interject here? I... rant at people almost every time you use the word should you're giving up agency or in your terms that you like ownership. Every time I think, oh, Cody, you're my manager. You should be looking out for my career. What I've just done is stop looking out for myself and put it on you. And now I'm reliant on you to do something which I don't control.
So I actually teach people any time they start thinking about what someone else should do. they should step back and say, okay, how am I going to make sure that happens? Or what can I do if they don't? Because as soon as I get into what should happen, which is what you mentioned, I'm waiting for someone else to do this right thing that I don't control.
What do you think is the difference between a good boss and a bad boss?
I think a good boss is consistent and transparent.
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Chapter 7: What are the career killers that professionals should avoid?
They're clear about how they're judging or what they expect. And then they stick to it even when things get tough. So you will hear some bosses who say things like, I want you to push. I want you to take risks. But then something goes wrong and they're like, oh, I didn't mean that risk. And they throw you under the bus. That's terrible. That's a bad boss. The good bosses are like, hey,
OK, I told you to do this. It didn't work out, but we'll clean it up together. So I think consistency and transparency, good inconsistency is brutal because you just don't. It makes you hesitant, right? It makes you unwilling to take a risk because you're not sure what ground you're on.
Chapter 8: How does Jeff Bezos's philosophy influence corporate culture at Amazon?
I'd rather have hard standards I disagree with. than fuzzy standards that I don't know. If I have to pick, I'd rather be working for a boss I don't agree with but who's really clear than one who sounds agreeable but then shifts with the wind.
Let's say somebody's just starting a company and they're trying to kind of get the lay of the land for the players. How do you know if you work for a good boss or a bad boss?
First, good boss or bad boss, are people leaving or are people coming? Because reputation travels. And if the first signal of a boss is, are they gaining talent or losing talent? If people want out, probably a bad boss. If people want in, probably a good boss.
Beyond that though, my favorite trick, of course you can talk to your boss, you should be trying to build that relationship and ask them what they want. But if they're not very forthcoming, talk to your peers, ask them, what's a pet peeve? Or I see a flattery is great. I can say, Cody, I see you get such great results from our manager. How do you do that? Would you share your secret?
And it's flattering. And most people like to talk about themselves. So odds are, even if you wouldn't be like, I'm going to tell you exactly how to be as successful as I am. And now you'll be my competitor. You'll be lured in by, oh, someone wants to hear my secret. They think highly of me, blah, blah, blah. It's a social engineer.
That's really, really smart, actually. A lot of this reminds me, you have a philosophy called the magic loop.
Yes.
And I would be curious if you would explain that to us.
Sure. So the magic loop got its name from the idea it works so well it can be magical. And it began, I sort of discovered this in my very first job. I got a new boss and she was nice, but didn't understand our technology. I was a young engineer and I said, look, I could teach you about it. And I didn't have any plan. I just, oh, well, if you don't know, I'll teach you.
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