Shoulda Told Me 1

From time to time, I will take a side trail in order to share what I think of as my “someone shoulda told me” moments. These are “aha” moments that I figured out either along the way or in retrospect. They are moments where I figuratively or literally clapped my forehead and thought, “well crap, if someone woulda told me that, it sure would’ve made my life better”. Some will be work related and some not. But here goes with “shoulda told me #1”.

Sign up or volunteer for “extra curricular activities”. These are the things that don’t strictly fall into your job description. For example, most companies have community outreach activities. Where I worked, we had the annual holiday drive -- food drive, coat drive, toys drive, etc. So one year, I volunteered to coordinate the food drive. That lead to more responsibility in the following year’s drive. And then finally, a couple of years later, I was tapped to head up the entire program. Keep in mind that this was all in addition to doing my “real job”.

It finally dawned on me that this was important to both me personally and for my career.

Personally, it was very gratifying to put together and execute plans that would result in a better life for those less fortunate in our community. I will never forget the very first year. I headed up the food drive program. There was always a friendly competition between similar companies in our community as to who could collect the most food. And we always got our butt kicked. But this year was different. I can’t tell you how gratifying it was at the culmination of the program to pull up to the local food bank with over 10 semi-truck loads of food from our employees. Yep, we won the competition too.

Why was it important for my career? For several reasons. First, this kind of successful program doesn’t happen by accident. It requires military-precision planning and execution. So it forced me to hone my organization skills. In addition, it isn’t accomplished by one person. Remember, I was a volunteer for these programs. And so were all of the other people that worked the program. If you ever want a real management challenge, try organizing and directing volunteers. It is the most difficult management job there is. So, in the end, it also forced me to hone my interpersonal skills. To figure out what motivated each person and then use that information to help them succeed.

And finally, it was important for my career because of the visibility. And I’m not just talking about the live news coverage we got for that first delivery. Remember, this was back in the days before web meetings. And email was a little used tool. So in order to promote the program, I was personally required to go to every directors staff meeting, starting with the head of the company. I would make a presentation about the program as well as issue the challenge to compete between organizations and between the local companies. As a result, I was able to hone my presentation skills and learn how to persuasively present a topic to upper management. In addition, these guys remembered me later on --- when they were looking for someone to promote.

So, yes, I wish someone had told me how important those volunteer activities would be for my personal growth and my professional growth.