How to Pick Your Gigs: The 3 Criteria for What to Take on Next
Many people find themselves in transition amidst The Great Resignation. Others have remained at their organizations, but they’re still grappling with questions — contemplating their role, which projects to focus on, what will bring them peace and prosperity in the coming year. While the pandemic may have clarified what matters most, it’s not always clear which next step to take.
I hear about this dilemma every week. I’ve wondered it myself:
“What do I take on?”
After studying and observing people who have asked and answered this question, I’ve identified three criteria that tend to yield the best outcomes. Each of them comes with its own set of deeper questions to consider.
- Significance. I remember early in my career telling a partner at my employer Accenture that I was leaving to take a job that promised a 10% pay increase for the same work. He calmly looked at me from across his desk and said, “Matt, I’m not sure the 10% increase will be worth the loss of relationships, growth, and learning you’ll experience here. Don’t make a decision based on pay; make it based on potential.”That was the real question I needed to answer: What would I lose out on by leaving? And how significant would that be?
I stayed in that job long after that conversation. It made a big difference in my career, which helped me to make a difference for others. Take a moment to reflect on the significance of this step you’re considering. Your community, your family, and your organization need difference-makers. To be truly fulfilled, you need to be one.
- Scalability. Consider the example of creating movies. Companies like Disney invest substantially upfront to build their brand and make the production. After that, they license the brand and content to other companies at a much lower cost. How can the example of movies be instructive to you and me when we’re trying to determine if we should take something on? We can evaluate whether our influence will expand, whether the work we do can be easily expanded, and whether we can offload the effort required to get more of it done.The questions here are: Will the costs to get it done go down as you do more of it? Think about all of the costs to you, not just monetary ones. Maybe it means you’ll need to work more hours. What will you give up to do that?
- Sustainability. Peter Block reminds us that most needs come in the form of a “Presenting Problem,” meaning they show up as a symptom rather than the disease. Too often we take on work or roles that address symptoms, which leads to a combination of A) doing work that is quickly forgotten, or B) doing work that requires our endless reacting, fire-fighting, and stop-gapping. Ask yourself: If I take this on, will results continue or improve over time? If not, you’re probably better off saying “no.” Anxious people usually want quick fixes to presenting problems, but you may just need to be willing to disappoint people.
Before you take on your next role, project, or initiative, think about how significant it would be rather than how successful it might make you. Prioritize how scalable the work is over how skilled you are at it. And look at how sustainable it is rather than whether someone might be searching for it at the moment.
How might these three criteria influence what you take on?
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