Often this is as easy as just asking.  Other times it requires some deeper thought to analyze the available info, the options, and extrapolate potential outcomes.  This is the skill portion, but that’s not enough – you need to put it into action for it to turn into value.  That’s really what this post is about and where the “simple” part comes in.

Make a list of everyone you affect – direct reports, managers, peers, clients, even personal relationships if you like.  Next, put down what each of those people want – specifically from you, but feel free to think more generally for extra credit.  For example, your direct reports usually want things like a clear definition of success, feedback on what they’re doing, interesting work, money, and any number of other things like training, software, hardware, and dozens more.  Your manager wants to know how things are going and that the next milestone will be hit successfully – perhaps another thing or two.  Once you have the basics, you can drill into detail for the particular projects you’re working on.

This list is dynamic and needs to be updated frequently.  For people you manage, this might be daily as you look at specific tasks.  For your manager, weekly should do it.  As you get further out to clients, then monthly may be enough.

This should be a simple exercise – given a person you affect, write down what you know about what they want.  If you are unsure, then the next step is fill it in.

Once you know what people want, you have your playbook and it’s time to start providing it.

For a direct report, maybe they want to work with a new technology and you find budget to provide training.

For a manager, maybe it’s time to update the project plan or to start looking at the next release – before being asked.

For a client, are they struggling with something which keeps them from using what you typically offer them?  If so, that’s a prime opportunity to provide assistance above and beyond your typical offering.

While this entire process really is simple, it’s not easy – especially in the beginning.  You’ll feel like you don’t know what people want or you may even doubt your analysis.  That’s natural and don’t focus on it too much and instead work to validate your assumptions.  Also, the more you practice this the easier it is to identify opportunities to give people what they want as you’re talking to them.  You’ll start to make mental updates to your list (which can be turned into actual updates once the discussion is complete) and you can adjust what you provide accordingly.

Lastly, what do you want?  How can you make it easy for those who affect you to know that and provide it?  It works both ways, but it starts with you.

Some of my assets:

• My AWS account
• My company’s reputation on Upwork
• My computers (note that some assets are, actually, “things you own”)
• Software I’ve purchased
• My blog
• My Zoom account (previously my WebEx account)
• My relationship with my kick-ass designer in Ukraine
• etc.

Some of my capabilities:

• I can design large-scale distributed systems
• I can implement a business or development process, train people on it, and monitor it instantly
• I can perform code analysis and technical due diligence (in part because of experience and in part because of some of the software I own)
• I can build remote teams quickly
• I can schedule an online meeting at the drop of a hat
• etc.

Take notice of some of the overlap – I can build remote teams quickly in part due to my experience and my company’s reputation on Upwork.  I can schedule an online meeting at the drop of a hat because of my Zoom account and because I’ve done it many times before.  I have long lists of assets and capabilities which took years of conscious effort to develop and several times a year I ask myself a few questions:

1. What assets aren’t being fully capitalized upon? (I’m looking at you, list of domain names)
2. What capabilities aren’t being used frequently enough?
3. What are some assets I can acquire/develop?
4. What are some assets I can divest? (domain names, old computer gear, and books are common)
5. What are some capabilities I’m missing?
6. What are some capabilities which need to be improved or refreshed?

I recommend the exercise to anyone who is interested in actively managing their value – pretty much anyone who isn’t retired.  The exercise starts simply enough: grab your note-taking tool of choice (I have a thing for Canson Sketch Pads) and start listing things you have/control which can be used to solve problems and things that you can get done, either yourself or via your network of strong relationships.  I find it’s helpful to link things together to find self-reinforcing constellations of value – things like AWS, Upwork, large-scale system design, building remote teams, and development process implementation all fit together to form a higher-level capability of “I can start a software company in an hour with nothing but an idea, a credit card, and an internet connection”.  As you perform your asset and capability cataloging exercise, you’ll naturally identify some of these higher-level capabilities yourself.  After you do, then you can follow on with questions about how to make that capability stronger, how to capitalize on it, etc.

What’s the point of doing all of this?  Right now you’re probably sitting on a gold mine of value, but it’s not being actively managed.  Once you have your catalog, you’ll see what you need to read, what kind of training you should seek out, which things you need to practice, and gaps which need to be filled – this is internal management.  Next, your eyes will be opened to opportunities.  You’ll find yourself coming across people who need something that you can can do or a chance to deploy an asset – this is external management.

As a final example, I remember some time around the end of 2009 I decided that I lacked public speaking experience.  I had no problem speaking to groups in meetings, but I had very little experience presenting to an audience who was there specifically to listen to me.  I developed an idea for a talk about the future of work and how it affected recruiter, contacted a few recruiters, and said, “I have this talk and I’m trying to get better at speaking – may I present to your team sometime in the next month?” Not everyone responded, but a couple did and I got to practice.  Public speaking is now on my list of capabilities because I’ve actually done it and so I know I can do it again.

What’s on your list?  What are you missing? How are you going to capitalize on the unique collection of assets and capabilities that you possess?

Tools of Titans is one of the most interesting and diverse sets of interviews, pull quotes, and anecdotes I’ve ever read.  Does anyone else feel like Tim Ferriss is the next Shep Gordon?  Read this book if you’re an interesting person, or want to be an interesting person, or want to find other great stuff to read.

Extreme Ownership is referenced in Tools of Titans since Jocko Willink (one of the authors) was interviewed by Tim Ferriss. Read this book if you lead people, want to lead people, or to find out how to become a better team member.  Each chapter starts with a (literal) war story from Iraq, but if you’re not into military stuff you can actually skip to the Practice and Application to Business sections which follow.

Rands in Repose is tied with Seth’s Blog for my favorite blog. Michael Lopp is a brilliant manager with enviable writing skills.  Read this blog if you manage technical people or you are a technical person.  His book Managing Humans is also excellent, but the blog is not to be missed.

Safari Books Online is my secret weapon.  Yes, it’s $399 per year and that’s not cheap but combined with their Queue app it’s a bargain if you’re a technical person who likes to learn.  In the last year I’ve read through dozens of O’Reilly books and watched a couple of their training videos.  The books alone would have cost me triple or more.  If you are a developer and like to learn from books, this one is a no brainer.  If I were running a company with employees, buying the team version would probably be on my list for recruiting top talent.

Okay, one more just for fun: Living with a SEAL is one of my favorite books to give to people.  My friend read the entire thing on a red eye from Seattle to Miami one night after I convinced him to “give it 4 pages and see what you think”.

Enjoy!

Certainty is comfort. Certainty is ease. Certainty is the product.

I’m pretty sure it was Steve McConnell in Rapid Development (which Amazon remembers me purchasing 17 years ago) who introduced me to the concept of the Cone of uncertainty.  In the book, he explains how as requirements are gathered, code is built, and testing is performed that we progressively improve our ability to estimate since unknowns are being removed.  I think this concept has a broader application to any type of knowledge work, be it software development, consulting, financial valuation, or other types of “figuring things out”.  Here’s a sketch to illustrate my mental model:

It is useful to keep in mind that you can never remove all of the uncertainty – you can only get as close to Truth as is practical with an acceptable amount of uncertainty remaining.

Look at the Cone of Uncertainty as a model, not as actual measurement, and consider the path from initiation (Complete Unknown) to delivery – such as working software which has been tested, documented, formatted, commented, etc.  Let’s slice the cone into 9 steps and pull out the total uncertainty (i.e. add the left and right distances from Truth centerline) to represent what someone needs to overcome to move to the next step:

At step 1 (Creation/Initiation) there is a huge reduction in the amount of uncertainty. Accordingly, there is huge value.  People who create companies, people who create products, and salespeople are all good examples of working in that area.  The ability to go from a nearly complete unknown to something that has structure is incredibly valuable – and can offer corresponding financial rewards.

The next few steps chip away at uncertainty until we get to the first working version.  It’s not just that it takes skills to gather requirements, determine an appropriate architecture, and design a system – it’s that at every step along that path there is a non-trivial amount of uncertainty which must be dealt with.  The people working in those domains need to understand that uncertainty and press forward to reduce it.  It’s uncomfortable to be unsure.  The feeling of sticking your neck out and running the risk of being wrong can be crippling to some – think of everyone who says that they could never be a salesperson or start a company.  Those who overcome that feeling and work through it, however, are some of the highest paid people in any industry.

Note also that between step 5 (First working version) and step 9 (which is, essentially, a very specific form of documentation) there is very little reduction in uncertainty. This makes sense if you think about it – you could hand software from step 8 to anyone with basic development skills to have step 9 completed. While this is still an important step, there is substantially less value in it compared to building the first version since it is commodity work.  This is also one of the reasons why developers are so hesitant to comment their code, write documentation, etc. – it doesn’t have the same level of satisfaction that comes from building something and going from concept to functioning code.

This idea has been on my mind for a few weeks now since I work with team members in a wide spectrum of capabilities and price points.  I started wondering, “Why do we pay Igor the designer more than Ivan the tester?” and “Why is this guy paid like a team lead while that guy is paid like an intern?” In each case it wasn’t the individual’s skill level, but the amount of uncertainty they managed to both deal with and reduce for us.  A designer who can take fuzzy direction like, “Make it look modern and attractive” and create a great user interface is worth more to us than a tester who takes a piece of software and reports back “Here are the things I tried and here are the results”.  This is particularly interesting to me since testing is hard and requires more skill to do well than most people realize.

I’ve focused a lot on how this applies to software, but I’m pretty sure you can apply it to any knowledge-work based position.  This leads to a couple of important conclusions.  The first is that you need to accept, acknowledge, and overcome uncertainty.  Part of your job is to explain, contain, and remove that uncertainty.  This is usually accomplished by writing something which explains what you found, what you decided, and why.  Someone with more (or different) experience may disagree with you, but if you’ve provided what you know and what you think it will be easy for others to improve or correct what you’ve done.  Lastly, if you’re looking for a way to become more valuable then work your way up the cone to deal with increasing levels of uncertainty.  The ultimate is to create a completely new product or company and go from the terrifying unknown to millions of people understanding you.

Now think of how you treat products.  The ones you like and seek out vs. the ones you just kind of use because they’re there or because switching costs are high.  There are also products you use that you really don’t like, but feel there is no good alternative (I’m looking at you, AT&T which has essentially a monopoly where I live).

Which are you?  Are you a product with a devoted following or are you just there because you’re there?

One of the difficult aspects of the modern economy is that there are new, competing products being released all the time.  Just like music moved from tape to digital, there are now alternatives to what you’ve been doing for years.  Not many people (if any) said, “Think of the tape manufacturers – it’s not fair, we need to keep using cassettes!”  Instead, we saw that CDs (and then MP3s and then streaming) were better alternatives and so we switched.

Jobs are “disappearing” because there are so many better alternatives to hiring for those jobs.  From outsourcing to machine learning to robotics and drones and autonomous vehicles – you aren’t competing against just other people anymore.

A new model year for you is just around the corner.  Is the 2017 edition of you going to sell out or sit on the shelf?  You need to become your own product manager, which means understanding your true competition, your actual costs (if you are unfamiliar with “fully burdened labor costs” then Google it – or just add 20% to your pay to estimate it), your actual value, etc.

So, as the year winds down give some serious thought to your entire offering – from packaging to warranty.

Here’s to wishing you a year of Apple-level devotion and margins!

• Deliver.  Getting your work done is critical. This is the biggest influencer on whether people want to work with you.
• Smile. Not just in your facial expressions, but in your words and voice. Being pleasant is a close second to getting your work done and close enough that I’ve seen ineffective people retain their position far longer than they should simply because everyone liked them.
• Innovate.  While this is a pretty overused term, I’m using it here to specifically mean “do something or create something new which is a pleasant surprise”. It only takes 1 or 2 small innovations a year for people to want to work with you and see what’s next.
• Bleed. You are going to make a mistake – own that mistake and do everything you can to make things right. You should not, of course, intentionally create problems but it’s pretty safe to say that problems will come.  If you are the type of person who never blames others nor covers things up then people will notice (consciously or not) and want to work with you.
• Support. Keep an eye out for others having difficulty and jump in to get their head above water.  Someone who can keep the team moving in the toughest of times will be sought out and held onto.
• Teach. If you can make others more valuable then you are a force multiplier and people will want to work with you.
• Delight. The occasional left-field surprise goes a long way.

The challenging aspect to all this is that it needs to be genuine – for example pleasant can’t be an act, it needs to be a commitment.

1. Benchmarking yourself against someone else.  This is usually some form of “Bob gets paid x and I’m at least as good as Bob, so I deserve x (or x+)”.  I’ll admit, the logic is solid – the problem is that the information is flawed.  It all comes down to “you’re not Bob” or, more specifically, “You have so little actual information about how you and Bob both fit into the organization that your comparison betrays your naïveté”.  This is one to never, ever do.  At best, you look naive.  At worst, you look like you can’t stand on your own merits.  Focus attention on your value – that’s what you’re selling.
2. Benchmarking yourself against “the market”.  This one is an all-time favorite of mine.  It’s less awkward than targeting an individual within the organization, like Bob, and so it’s very tempting. What you’re saying (intentionally or not) is that you view the organization as a commodity which can be easily replaced based purely on the dollar figure.  My knee-jerk reaction to this line of reasoning is usually, “Right back at ya, brother” (since I’ve only ever had guys be this ham-handed about it).  So, you’d like to play the game of maximizing economic efficiency without regard to any other factor?  Keep in mind that that was my life/job as a crappy manager at the beginning of my career since most managers make that mistake early, lose someone valuable, and reflect upon it every time they argue for “overpaying” a force-multiplier employee.  I get it, you see ads on Dice, or Monster, or Stack Overflow, and think “Wow, that could be me”.  Perhaps it could be and, if that’s what you want, I’ll help you get there.  I would rather have someone work somewhere else and be happy than feel like they’re trapped on my team.  Keep in mind that someone else’s willingness and ability to pay more money isn’t an obligation for your organization to pay you more.  In other words, the two are independent variables as far as your request for a raise is concerned.  Yes, your manager should be aware of what “the market” is offering and should factor that into your pay or risk losing you – but suggesting that you deserve a raise because you feel you could make more somewhere else once again reveals a lack of understanding of what you have to offer.
3. Suggesting you deserve a raise because of what you’ve done this year. This is where we start to get into a tricky area and one that trips up a lot of employees.  Let’s say you busted your ass all year long and, at the end, you feel unappreciated with a smaller than expected raise.  What happened?  Well, it could be any number of things.  Maybe you busted your ass in Q4 and that erased your memory of coasting through Qs 1, 2, and 3.  Maybe you busted your ass on the wrong things.  Maybe you felt like you busted your ass, but really you were just keeping up.  There are so many possibilities, most of which boil down to “you didn’t work with your manager to ensure that your actions were aligned with the organization”.  Lastly, a raise should be for future work – a bonus should be for past work.  Just like a Franklin Mint plate, past performance is no guarantee of future returns (although some plates have gone up in value).  This is especially true if you were at all vocal about your extra work.  Now, the pseudo-exception to this is if you took on extra work which shows that you can provide additional value on an on-going basis.  For example, if you took over part of someone else’s work because their workload has increased and you’re able to continue to do so rather than triggering another hire, then that’s legitimate value. Even in this case, however, the previous work should only be used as evidence of success going forward – always focus on the future.

These certainly aren’t the only mistakes made during “the ask”, but they are the ones I’ve seen enough to rattle off from the top of my head.  If you’ve seen another mistake or, even better, if you’ve seen something you think might be a mistake then please leave it in the comments as a service to those who face this in the future.

This is a mixed sign – if your manager knows all about 1-on-1s and has simply chosen not to have them then it may signal lack of focus on the team members.  On the other hand, if your manager simply hasn’t been exposed to the concept then this is a great opportunity to provide coaching from below.

Regardless of the reason (and it will probably become clear as soon as you request time on the schedule) you need your 1-on-1 time.  This is the first step in managing your manager – but before you take the first step, you need to remember the first rule:

Managing your manager is all about making his/her job easier – while ultimately it’s about you, it’s not about you first.

Violate this rule and things are likely to go poorly.  Every manager actually wants pretty much the same thing: The most productive, most satisfied team with the least amount of effort.  This isn’t due to laziness as much as management time is consumed from all directions: up, down, and sideways.  When managers get efficient, they have buffer and slack to deal with the unexpected (both positive and negative) and get into the productive zone.  When demands from below start to consume an inordinate amount of time or energy, it leaves the manager in a compromised state to deal with the demands from above and the side.  What this means to you is that if you make it easy to manage you, your cost/benefit ratio takes an immediate uptick.

Back to the first step: You need 15 minutes.  While a good 1-on-1 should really be 30 minutes (sometimes more) that time should be split between each side.  In the beginning, if you’re asking for time then only ask for what you need and that should be 15 minutes.  This way your manager doesn’t need to prep (which would represent additional time/energy) and only needs to listen.  You need to prep, your message and questions need to be clear, and anything which requires thought or planning is a posed one week to be discussed the following week.  This time should be spent making course corrections on your progress to your quarterly and annual goals.  It is not “how am I doing?”, but rather “This is what I did and here’s what I’m planning next” to ensure you’re on the right path.

15 minutes – make them count.

Quarterly reviews can replace one of the 1-on-1s each quarter.

NOTE: This is not an ideal situation by any means – the ideal is that your manager wants 1-on-1s, schedules them proactively, and comes prepared with 15 minutes of material to discuss.  Hopefully you’ll get there by showing the value of the time, but be patient since it could take weeks or months.  In the meantime, you’ll be making progress and really helping to make managing you easier.

What if you can’t get 15 minutes a week on the schedule?  Honestly, that’s a bad sign but you can still do your part by sending whatever you would have discussed in person via email (or Slack or whatever is common in your environment).  Truly, this is a last ditch effort but is worthwhile nonetheless.  Even if it doesn’t get read, simply preparing the information will focus you more and help you perform better.

In summary, you can make yourself easier to manage by putting some of your manager’s work onto your own plate – just be proactive, focused, and clear.  This will also help you prepare to run your team later in your career.

So how about getting a raise without asking for one?

This was one of my favorite (and, regretfully, most secret) techniques from my days as an employee and contractor.

Instead of asking, “May I have more money, please?” or (even more cringeworthy) stating “I think I’m worth x”, the correct question is “What do I need to do to be worth x?”.

There are several important aspects of that question.  The first is that it comes ahead of the increase.  You’re asking your manager to help you align with the organization in such a way that you’ll be worth x.  This should be a manager’s dream – you’re making it easy to manage you, and in a proactive way.

Next, notice that x can be whatever you like.  I once got a 50% raise with this technique and my manager was happy to give it to me.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a handout – I had to develop solutions to a couple of very difficult problems to be worth it, but that’s where the beauty lies.  By posing the question this way, and up front, you quickly enter a space of discovering and defining value that’s starts with mutual agreement and completely bypasses the need to negotiate.

Another important aspect to this question is that you may get the response, “We’ll never be able to pay you that”. The manager I had at my very first salaried job had to deliver that message.  To her credit, she delivered it proactively (I was WAY too immature to ask for a raise well – she simply got in front of the issue before it ever came up) by telling me, “This organization will never need all that you can do.  Get as good as you can before you leave, because we’ll never be able to pay you what you’re worth simply because we can’t consume what you do.”  That response, while somewhat disappointing, is incredibly valuable information.  An appropriate reply (and FAR more appropriate than my reply) is “Then what is the maximum I can be worth here and how do I get there?”  It’s also a sign that it’s probably time to start looking elsewhere.

Lastly, there’s an even better technique than what I’ve described.  It’s actually more of a super-charged version, which is why I presented the other one first.  That technique is to bring suggestions for value along with your ask.  That’s what I did for the 50% pop mentioned before. I took the “what can I do to be worth x” and turned it into “would it be worth x if I solve y and z?” You see, at that point you’re doing part of your manager’s job for them and that’s incredibly valuable.

The final point I’d like to make is that you have to deliver.  It’s not enough to ask where the value is, you are committing to deliver on it.  Don’t go asking how to get to x and then reply with, “Yeah, I don’t want to do that”.  Only ask if you’re looking to grow and looking to stretch yourself.

So, look around and identify some of the opportunities which almost certainly surround you.  Talk to your manager in your 1-on-1 to set a goal.  Make a plan, check in during your 1-on-1s and quarterly reviews – the next thing you know you’ll be making what you want.

No 1-on-1s or quarterly review?  Oy, well we’ll discuss managing your manager next time.

Salaried Employess

$10,000 = $5/hr more than your current hourly rate. (divide your salary by 2,000 for a quick hourly rate)

Entry-Level Freelance

If you’re making $20 – $25 per hour, then you need between 400 and 500 extra hours next year.  This is 8 to 10 extra hours per week.  An extra hour per day, plus 3 – 5 hours on Saturday morning will do it.  Not only that, but the extra time you put in should move you up to a mid-level freelancer.

Mid-Level Freelance

If you’re making $30 – $50 per hour, then you need between 200 and 350 extra hours next year.  This is 4 to 7 extra hours per week.  An extra hour per day Monday -Thursday and a few hours on Saturday will do it.

Senior Freelance

If you’re making $50 – $100 per hour, then you need between 100 and 170 extra hours next year. This is 2 to 4 extra hours per week.

Above $100/hour

If you’re making more than $100 per hour, chances are that you’ve built a system of work where adding more time isn’t going to move your income needle enough to offset the loss of free time and big thoughts.

The lesson here is twofold: first, the extra money is easily within grasp if you spread out the effort through the whole year.  Secondly, working on your value (aka your rate) will give you more leverage than simply throwing additional hours into work.  If you’re early in your career then put in the time, collect the extra money, invest in yourself, and learn as much as you can.  By accelerating your experience with the extra time, you’ll hit mid and senior levels earlier and find compounded returns later in your career.