8th Aug 2014 DYNAMIC PROFESSIONALS SEVEN SIGNS YOU ARE TOO SMART FOR YOUR JOB. My dogs Mojo and Magic are small dogs in a big-dog town. They behave like most small dogs. When we come home, theyre overwhelmed by the awesomeness of our return and go crazy. After a few minutes they turn into cats and fall asleep on the arm of the chair. Naturally, they have to protect the household, so if theres any disturbance in the neighborhood -- say, for instance, that a squirrel napping in his nest two houses away turns in his sleep -- Mojo and Magic will bark their heads off. Other dogs require more mental stimulation. Border collies need to work. If theyre bored, theyll go crazy. I used to know a woman who had to bring her dog everywhere with her, because if she left him at home hed whine all day and gnaw right through the doors. When we are bored at work, the job gets much harder. Its hard to keep your focus. When you are too smart for your job, you might ignore the signs for awhile. You might tell yourself things like this: Bored? Maybe a little, but the job is secure. I work ten minutes from home - whats not to like? My boss leaves me alone, so thats something. Maybe I could use more intellectual stimulation, but who wants to go through a job search? We can tell ourselves that it doesnt really matter whether we have interesting things to do and meaty projects too work on. We can delude ourselves that its all the same to us whether we compile the latest version of the bosss favorite make-work project or dig into the coolest assignment weve ever had. Of course, it isnt the same at all. When you have a lot to bring to a job, you want your muscles exercised. You want your brain to be busy. You want to solve hard problems yourself and with other smart people. Parrots and rabbits need something hard to chew on, and so do we. To the left is our Resources & Requirements grid. You can see that there are two axes -- Job Requirements from left to right and Resources from top to bottom. When were starting out in our careers, we might not have a ton of experience or wisdom to bring to work (although energy and enthusiasm make up for a lot)! If the job requirements in the subject-matter arena are low and our resources at that stage are also low (in the lower left corner of the grid) weve got a perfect match. Later in our careers, we have tremendous heft and power to bring to a thorny assignment. If weve got the resources to meet that challenge (in the upper right corner of the grid) were in great shape, once again. What happen when our available Resources and the Requirements of the job are out of whack? In the lower right corner of the grid, we dont yet have what the job requires. Were frustrated and angry. Thats a mismatch that sucks mojo from us and from the team. In the upper left corner of the grid is our poor under-utilized border collie, or perhaps you. We bring enormous gifts to a job that doesnt need them and/ or a manager who doesnt want them. Thats when we languish and gnash our teeth at night. We can tell ourselves whatever we want, but the universe pushes us in the direction of situations that will grow our muscles and our flame. Its time to get a more challenging job, inside your organization or out of it! Here are seven signs youre too smart for the job youre in: Your projects bore you. The most obvious sign youre too smart for your job is boredom. You lose your concentration when your work is more suited to polite rhesus monkeys than thinking human beings. Every job has boring parts to it, but if boredom overwhelms you such that you need sugar and caffeine to stay awake, youre in the wrong spot. You dont see a forward path. I took a job with the State to pay my bills after my divorce, said Elena, and the job was so easy I figured I could stick it out for a couple of years while I got out of debt. It was grueling. Everybody was focused on advancement, but even the higher-paying positions looked like ghastly paper-pushing assignments with zero chance to make anything interesting happen. I ended up leaving the State job after eleven months to work for a scientific institute, and they caught me at the perfect time. I was so hungry for learning that I sucked down everything I could and wrote a new middle- school curriculum for them in the first year! People around you dont see a problem. Your coworkers may be the nicest people on earth, but if they dont understand what youre talking about when you lay out frame-shifting ideas or if they cant hold a conversation about anything except the way theyve always done things, youre in the wrong place. Your job is not to teach every person you meet that people and things must change in order to grow. You dont improve your game by playing with people a level (or two or three) below your league. Your supervisor has no vision for him- or herself, the department, or you. Its easy to get through a job interview without asking your prospective boss what may be the most important question of all: What is your vision for the department? Some leaders will thrill you with their grand scheme and others will stare at you blankly. You cant grow your flame working for someone who has no idea what a vision is or where to get one. You have to learn from your boss, so if that isnt happening, consider this column a tap on the shoulder. Your employer has not seen the best of you. You have good ideas. It should be easy to share ideas at work, and for the best ones to find an audience and to be implemented. If that isnt happening because youre not in a job thats viewed as an idea job, why are you leaving your blameless brain cells to die unused? Put them to work in a place where ideas are welcome! The choir sings from the Tried It - Didnt Work! hymnal. People fall into ruts. Sometimes they stop experimenting and wondering altogether. If you work in a place where the standard response to innovation is Tried that! Didnt work you must ask yourself whether your talents are being invested wisely. No one around you looks like a mentor, a role model or a guide. Our client Arnie said I told my wife, my friends and myself for two years that my co-workers are the reason I keep my so-so job. Then you asked me Who do you spar with? Who stimulates you mentally at work? Who do you look up to, and learn from? and the only honest answer was No one. My boss is a plodder. My CEO inherited the company and isnt invested. Hes dialing it in. Theres no one for me to learn from. If you see yourself in these examples, dont panic. You dont have to do anything today or tomorrow, but start thinking about what youd do if you werent doing the job you have now. Get a journal and write in it. Design your dream job on paper first to get clear about your direction. Then, begin branding yourself for the job you want. We cant wait to see you chewing on the big, tough bones again. Dont let anybody diminish your flame -- they cant pay you enough to make that a good deal for you. Culled from: LinkedIn Pulse. WLC Inc.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 07:53:34 +0000
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