What Great Managers Do

I’ve found that while there are as many styles of management as there are managers, there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: They discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it.

In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can’t play if you don’t know how each piece moves. More important, you won’t win if you don’t think carefully about how you move the pieces. Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack.

The old cliché is that there’s no “I” in “team.” But as Michael Jordan once said, “There may be no ‘I’ in ‘team,’ but there is in ‘win.’”

Fine shadings of personality, though they may be invisible to some and frustrating to others, are crystal clear to and highly valued by great managers. They could no more ignore these subtleties than ignore their own needs and desires. Figuring out what makes people tick is simply in their nature.

To that end, there are three things you must know about someone to manage her well: her strengths, the triggers that activate those strengths, and how she learns.

Great managers don’t try to change a person’s style. They never try to push a knight to move in the same way as a bishop. They know that their employees will differ in how they think, how they build relationships, how altruistic they are, how patient they can be, how much of an expert they need to be, how prepared they need to feel, what drives them, what challenges them, and what their goals are. These differences of trait and talent are like blood types: They cut across the superficial variations of race, sex, and age and capture the essential uniqueness of each individual.

Always remember that great managing is about release, not transformation. It’s about constantly tweaking your environment so that the unique contribution, the unique needs, and the unique style of each employee can be given free rein.

https://hbr.org/2005/03/what-great-managers-do
 

What It Really Takes to Attract Top Talent

If you want candidates interested in staying for the long-term, you have to offer them good opportunities for advancing internally. Organizations rarely take a hard look at what they can give people, and so they are continually disappointed by their recruiting

What you can offer that most competitors can’t. Maybe it’s location, opportunities to acquire experience, or the flexibility to work remotely. None of those will suit everyone, but again, you don’t want to court everyone. Doing your employees’ laundry may get people to stay in the office longer, but if you don’t care where they get the work done, why bother?

If there’s nothing distinctive you can offer to set your organization apart, and you don’t want to pay enough to buy the talent you prefer, then just like any other shopper, you’ll have to start compromising on what you want.

https://hbr.org/2015/11/what-it-really-takes-to-attract-top-talent

How to Show Trustworthiness in a Job Interview

The most important thing to get across in an interview is not that you are smart and motivated – it’s that you are trustworthy.

Trustworthiness is the fundamental trait that people – not just interviewers – automatically and unconsciously look for in others. It will make or break you.There are two qualities you need to possess to be seen as trustworthy: warmth and competence.

Warmth signals that you have good intentions toward the perceiver, and competence signals that you can act on those good intentions. A warm and competent interviewee is a valuable potential ally. But a competent interviewee who doesn’t project warmth is a potentially formidable foe – the kind of person who may not be a team player, and who may cause trouble for you down the road.

Warmth: modesty and gratitude.

Competence:loyalty, and responsibility

Another powerful way to project warmth and competence is through the questions you ask your interviewer. Specifically, you can use questions to send three of the warmest signals you can send: interest in the perceiver, affirmation of their skills and abilities, and empathy.For example, you might show interest in the interviewer by asking, “So, how did you come to be [current role] at [company]?” or “What are you currently working on?”

https://hbr.org/2015/05/how-to-show-trustworthiness-in-a-job-interview

To Win People Over, Speak to Their Wants and Needs

Practicing empathy can be difficult, because you have to step outside your comfort zone to understand someone else’s point of view. But it’s essential to exercising influence.

It’s how method actors move us to feel, think, or act differently — they deeply immerse themselves in their characters, trying on new ways of being and behaving. Sometimes their identity experiments are even part of the story line. During Tootsie, walking in the shoes of a woman had such a profound impact on Dustin Hoffman that, 30 years later, recalling his decision to make the film brought tears to his eyes in an interview with the American Film Institute.

Hoffman did some make-up tests to see if he would be believable as a woman. When he discovered that he could pass, but he wouldn’t be beautiful, he realized he had to do this project. As he explained to his wife: “I think I’m an interesting woman [as Dorothy Michaels]. And I know that if I met myself at a party, I wouldn’t talk to that character because she doesn’t fulfill physically the demands that we’re brought up to think women have to have in order for us to ask them out. … There’s too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I’ve been brainwashed.” Empathy made Hoffman’s performance — and the film’s message — more convincing and powerful.

The same thing happens in business all the time. Whether you’re trying to get your team on board with a new way of working, asking investors to fund you, persuading customers to buy your product, or imploring the public to donate to your cause, your success depends on your ability to grasp the wants and needs of the people around you.

https://hbr.org/2015/05/to-win-people-over-speak-to-their-wants-and-needs

How Power-Hungry Bosses Keep Their Power

It’s established behavior in the animal kingdom: Chimpanzees at the top of the hierarchy are often hostile toward lower-ranking members who might be powerful enough to challenge their authority, and they divide subordinates to prevent them from forming alliances.

New research shows that some human bosses do the same.

They then showed that when those individuals felt insecure about their positions, they tried to prevent highly skilled “subordinates” from bonding and forming cooperative relationships.

These findings pertain specifically to managers who are “dominance motivated” and in “unstable” leadership positions

https://hbr.org/2015/05/how-power-hungry-bosses-keep-their-power

Why You Should Watch Out for Your 5-Year Job Anniversary

Most of us begin a new position with energy and a desire to impress. Our effort is high. Our passion is infectious. Our enthusiasm helps us to excel quickly.

But for some, work becomes mundane and repetitive. They lose some of their passion, and their work can begin to feel like a chore. To better understand this phenomenon we examined data from 970 such people in a single organization. They were between 35 and 44 years old (the typical range for the onset of a mid-career crisis), and they all rated their engagement at work in the bottom 10%.

What was troubling them?

1.Lack of pride and satisfaction with the organization.

2.Minimal appreciation or recognition.

3.Absence of challenge and meaning in work.

4.Unwillingness to go beyond basic requirements.

5.Conclusion that they were not treated fairly.

6.Feeling of powerlessness.

7.The company failed to value and practice values such as teamwork, trust, and fostering diversity.

8.Minimal opportunities for growth and development opportunities.


To the organization we would say this: Over the years, we’ve asked executives to reflect on their own curve of excitement and creativity in all the jobs they’ve done. At what point does the downturn occur? The consistent answer we receive is five years. So at the very least, we would suggest that managers be on the lookout at the five-year point for signs of boredom in their staffs, and nip it the bud by giving some thought to assignments that will require new skills and capabilities. Don’t let these people languish just because they are continuing to do a good job for you.We recognize that managers love to hang on to good people too long.But even the simplest organizational intervention – the requirement that all job assignments be posted – can be remarkably effective.

And to individuals we would say this: You can try to pull yourself out of the career ditch by shifting the burden from blaming the organization to raising the bar on your own efforts. If the organization won’t help you do it, use your own initiative. Taking on new and important challenges can change the dynamics of the game. Work may not have to be about feeling underutilized and disconnected from the organization. It can be about putting your best efforts to good use and making a discernable difference. That effort may not get the recognition it deserves. But it could bring the satisfaction back of doing important work, and doing it well. At the very least it will set you up for a better position at a wiser organization.

https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-you-should-watch-out-for-your-5-year-job-anniversary

What to Do If You Feel Stuck in the Wrong Career

What would you say to people who’ve advanced far in their career only to find that it’s not all they imagined it would be?

Pat yourself on the back for getting there, and then figure out where you want to go next. These are just phases in our lives. It’s not linear. Rethink what you’ve always thought about employment. One of my missions is to convince people that just putting one foot in front of the other in the same career is over. There’s no such thing as job security, and there never will be again. In the future, employment is going to be more of a two-way street, where you can ask yourself what you really want from your life and career, and then talk to your employer to find a way to make it happen.

In addition to advising people going through a mid-career shift, presumably you’ve had the opportunity to hire some. With your hiring manager hat on, what do you think of these applicants?

Often knowing that someone has a real passion for the work might make up for a lack of the required skills. I’d almost always rather have someone with deep passion about the work than someone who has the right qualifications and doesn’t love it.

Are there downsides of hiring a mid-career professional?

They can be jaded. I work with a lot of startups, and the upside of young people is that they don’t know any better, they often don’t know something can’t be done. Innovation comes from naivety. A 20-year-old won’t hear “you can’t”.

What’s your best advice for someone who needs to get out of a mid-career rut?

Start talking to people who are doing something you think you might like to do. Go interview. If you think the grass is greener somewhere else, go munch some grass on the other side of the fence. Finding work that you love is a fair amount of work. So, do the work.

I fundamentally believe that you own your career; companies don’t own it for you. You should be thinking about what you love to do — what you want to do — all the time. And you should feel comfortable talking openly about it. It’s your life.

https://hbr.org/2015/04/what-to-do-if-you-feel-stuck-in-the-wrong-career

Relearning the Art of Asking Questions

Consider these four types of questions :

Clarifying questions(Narrow-Affirm what we know) can help uncover the real intent behind what is said. These help us understand each other better and lead us toward relevant follow-up questions. “Can you tell me more?” and “Why do you say so?” both fall into this category.

Adjoining questions(Wide-Affirm what we know) are used to explore related aspects of the problem that are ignored in the conversation. Questions such as, “How would this concept apply in a different context?” or “What are the related uses of this technology?” , “How would these insights apply in Canada?”

Funneling questions(Narrow-Discover something new) are used to dive deeper. We ask these to understand how an answer was derived, to challenge assumptions, and to understand the root causes of problems. Examples include: “How did you do the analysis?” and “Why did you not include this step?”

Elevating questions(Wide-Discover something new) raise broader issues and highlight the bigger picture. “Taking a step back, what are the larger issues?” or “Are we even addressing the right question?” or “Instead of talking about these issues separately, what are the larger trends we should be concerned about? How do they all tie together?” These questions take us to a higher playing field where we can better see connections between individual problems.

Leaders should encourage people to ask more questions, based on the goals they’re trying to achieve, instead of having them rush to deliver answers.

https://hbr.org/2015/03/relearning-the-art-of-asking-questions

The Most Productive Way to Develop as a Leader

Everybody loves self-improvement. We want to get smarter, network better, be connected, balance our lives, and so on. That’s why we’re such avid consumers of “top 10” lists of things to do to be a more effective, productive, promotable, mindful — you name it — leader.

But what if we didn’t think of self-improvement as work? What if we thought of it as play — specifically, as playing with our sense of self?

Let’s say an executive we’ll call John lacks empathy in his dealings with people. For example, he’s overly blunt when he gives feedback to others and he’s not a very good listener. Thanks to a recent promotion, he needs to be less of a task-master and more people-oriented. He wants to improve on the leadership skills he’s been told are vital for his future success but, unfortunately, they are alien to him. What can he do?

Let’s first imagine John working on himself. The adjectives that come to mind include diligent, serious, thorough, methodical, reasonable, and disciplined. The notion of “work” evokes diligence, efficiency, and duty — focusing on what you should do, especially as others see it, as opposed to what you want to do.With a clear end in mind, he proceeds in a logical, step-by-step manner, striving for progress. There is one right answer. Success or failure is the outcome. We judge ourselves.

Now, let’s imagine John being playful with his sense of self. What adjectives come to mind now? The words lively, good-humored, spirited, irreverent, divergent, amused, and full of fun and life now spring to mind. The notion of “play” evokes an element of fantasy and potential — the “possible self,” as Stanford psychologist Hazel Markuscalls the cacophony of images we all have in our heads for who we might become. I imagine John saying, “I have no idea what to do, but let’s just try something and see where this leads me.” If it doesn’t work, he’s free to pivot to something completely different because he isn’t invested in his initial approach. Trial and error takes time, but getting to finish line first isn’t the objective, enjoyment is. Many different and desirable versions of our future self are possible. Learning, not performance is the outcome. We suspend judgement.


Whatever activity you’re engaged in, when you are in “work” mode, you are purposeful: you set goals and objectives, are mindful of your time, and seek efficient resolution. You’re not going to deviate from the straight and narrow. It’s all very serious and not whole lot of fun. Worse, each episode becomes a performance, a test in which you either fail or succeed.

In contrast, no matter what you’re up to, when you’re in “play” mode, your primary drivers are enjoyment and discovery instead of goals and objectives. You’re curious. You lose track of time. You meander. The normal rules of “real life” don’t apply, so you’re free to be inconsistent — you welcome deviation and detour. That’s why play increases the likelihood that you will discover things you might have never thought to look for at the outset.

In “pretend” play, it’s OK to borrow liberally from different sources. A playful attitude would free John from being “himself” as he is today. Play allows him to try out behaviors he has seen in more successful bosses and peers, perhaps stealing different elements of style from each to form his own pastiche, as opposed to clinging to a straight-jacketing sense of authenticity.

Playfulness changes your mind-set from a performance focus to a learning orientation. One of the biggest reasons we don’t stretch beyond our current selves is that we are afraid to suffer a hit to our performance. A playful posture might help John feel less defensive about his old identity — after all, he’s not forever giving up his “secret sauce” and fountain of past success, he’s just practicing his bad swing.

Play generates variety not consistency. By suspending the cardinal rule of unswerving, reliable behavior, it allows our “shadow,” as Carl Jung called the unexpressed facets of our nature, fuller expression. John might, for example, sign up for some new projects and extracurricular activities, each a setting in which he’s free to rehearse behaviors that deviate from what people have come to expect of him. He’s not being mercurial; he’s just experimenting

https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-most-productive-way-to-develop-as-a-leader

The Small Personal Risks That Actually Change Behavior

We often think of leadership in big, active ways: ambitious visions, well-articulated strategies, convincing speeches, compelling conversations.

Those things can be useful tools for a powerful leader. But they are not the essence of leadership. The essence of leadership is having the courage to show up differently than the people around you.

Most people I know — myself included — stop short of what we can accomplish because, simply put, we’re scared. Of looking bad. Of failing. Of being humiliated. We’re hiding, unwilling to be vulnerable, unsure whether to take a risk. But leadership calls us to step forward first and take the risk that others are afraid to take.

I was in a meeting with a number of senior executives who were all blaming each other for the company’s lackluster revenue numbers. The goal of the meeting was to uncover the causes and each person was pointing to someone else’s division as the source of the problem. The head of sales blamed marketing for targeting the wrong prospects. Marketing blamed operations for pricing the product non-competitively. Operations blamed the company’s technology for being too cumbersome and expensive.

Then the head of customer service spoke up.


He started by saying that the problems the company was facing were complex but he could think of at least three ways that he contributed to making them worse. His department wasn’t prioritizing the most critical customers, they weren’t effectively funneling information they were gathering from customers to the rest of the organization, and, maybe the biggest problem of all, he had morale issues in his group. Then he listed things he was planning to do to address those three issues.

After he spoke, there was silence in the room. Then, one by one, the others started claiming their part in the problems.

That’s barefoot leadership.

Barefoot leadership is about acting in ways that change the way others act. It’s about shifting a room, a team, or even the culture of an organization by taking a risk that others are scared to take.

https://hbr.org/2014/11/the-small-personal-risks-that-actually-change-behavior

Half of Employees Don’t Feel Respected by Their Bosses

When it comes to garnering commitment and engagement from employees, there is one thing that leaders need to demonstrate: Respect

Respect is directly tied to what a particular individual expects — and how the leader makes the person feel. Norms vary by culture, generation, and gender

I’ve learned that the vast majority of disrespect stems from a lack of self-awareness.More often people just do not realize how they affect others. They may have good intentions, but they fail to see how they are perceived.

So what are leaders supposed to do with these findings? First and foremost, they need to promote a culture of respect.Leaders also need to be role models for civility. One surefire way to communicate how much you value civility is to directly evaluate and reward it during performance reviews. Include metrics on interpersonal skills or emotional competence. Introduce peer and customer recognition and rewards is to catch people in the act and reinforce respectful behaviors.

https://hbr.org/2014/11/half-of-employees-dont-feel-respected-by-their-bosses

How to Spend the First 10 Minutes of Your Day

What’s the first thing you do when you arrive at your desk? For many of us, checking email or listening to voice mail is practically automatic. In many ways, these are among the worst ways to start a day. Both activities hijack our focus and put us in a reactive mode, where other people’s priorities take center stage.

A better approach is to begin your day with a brief planning session. Use it to determine the activities you want to focus your energy on.

Then—and this is important—create a plan of attack by breaking down complex tasks into specific actions.

Productivity guru David Allen recommends starting each item on your list with a verb, which is useful because it makes your intentions concrete. For example, instead of listing “Monday’s presentation,” identify every action item that creating Monday’s presentation will involve. You may end up with:collect sales figures, draft slides, and incorporate images into deck.

Studies show that when it comes to goals, the more specific you are about what you’re trying to achieve, the better your chances of success. Having each step mapped out in advance will also minimize complex thinking later in the day and make procrastination less likely.

Finally, prioritize your list. When possible, start your day with tasks that require the most mental energy. Research indicates that we have less willpower as the day progresses, which is why it’s best to tackle challenging items – particularly those requiring focus and mental agility – early on.

By starting each morning with a mini-planning session, you frontload important decisions to a time when your mind is fresh.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-spend-the-first-10-minutes-of-your-day/

To Build Influence, Master How You Enter a Room

How can you wield influence while being empathic? It begins with how you enter a room.

Be aware of your unconscious cues. When you stand, are you taking up all of your space, or do you shrink into corners? When you move, do you move confidently, or do you slink? When you’re sitting alone, do you slouch or sit straight?

There are two essential points here. The first is that you’re always signaling about your intentions and feelings, and so is everyone else. The second point is that most of the time you don’t pay conscious attention to all those signals — either the ones you’re putting out or the ones others are sending to you. Your unconscious mind handles all that. It determines an extraordinary amount of the relationships you have with other people and your influence upon them. Thus it’s essential to get a handle on these unconscious cues. Once you’ve formed a picture of yourself and have either embraced what you see or resolved to improve it, then you’re ready for the next step.

Focus on a key emotion.Think of a time when you’ve walked into a meeting, or come home to your significant other, and been asked without preamble, “What happened?” You’ve been brimming over with some news — either good or bad. You’re excited, or in despair, or triumphant, or whatever the case is. That’s charisma. It’s really about focus.

And finally, have something interesting to say. If you’re going to wield influence, you need to know what you want to be influential about. And you’d better have done your homework because once all eyes are upon you, everyone will expect you to have something worthwhile for them.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/09/to-build-influence-master-how-you-enter-a-room/

Why Marketing Needs More Introverts

Introverts prefer less stimulation and quiet concentration. We listen more than we talk, think before we speak, and focus on relationships. Introverts focus on the meaning of events around us, while extroverts focus on the events themselves.

If I had to bet, the best marketers of tomorrow will likely be far more introverted than the average marketer is today. I would even argue that marketing needs more introverts—people who will spend more time listening than talking, reflecting deeply on meaning, and building fewer, deeper relationships.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/why-marketing-needs-more-introverts/

The Power of Meeting Your Employees’ Needs

What we discovered is that people feel better and perform better and more sustainably when four basic needs are met: renewal (physical); value (emotional), focus (mental) and purpose (spiritual).

Is there any doubt that when we feel more energized, appreciated, focused and purposeful, we perform better? Think about it: The opportunity and encouragement to intermittently rest and renew our energy during the work day serves as an antidote to the increasing overload so many of us feel in a world of relentlessly rising demand. Feeling valued creates a deeper level of trust and security at work, which frees us to spend less energy seeking and defending our value, and more energy creating it. In a world in which our attention is increasingly under siege, better focus makes it possible get more work done, in less time, at a higher level of quality. And finally, a higher purpose – the sense that what we do matters and serves something larger than our immediate self-interest – is a uniquely powerful source of motivation.

What it does require is a willingness among leaders to test their longstanding assumption that that performance is best measured by the number of hours employees puts in – and the more continuous the better — rather than by the value they generate, however they choose to do their work.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/the-power-of-meeting-your-employees-needs/

Restore Trust at Work with These 3 Words

We are allies. Three simple words. Yet when spoken by a manager to an employee, these may be three of the most powerful words possible.

Managers pretend that employees have a job for life. Employees pretend that they intend to work for their company for the rest of their careers. But deep down, both parties don’t believe their own words.

You can’t build a trusting relationship on a foundation of dishonesty and self-deception.

The answer is for managers and employees to treat each other as allies: Independent and autonomous players who voluntarily come together to work towards mutually agreed upon goals.

But, really, your journey as a manager will begin the next time you meet one-on-one with an employee and speak the three simple words that show that you’re committed to an open, honest approach: We are allies.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/restore-trust-at-work-with-these-3-words/

Why Good Managers Are So Rare

If great managers seem scarce, it’s because the talent required to be one is rare. Gallup finds that great managers have the following talents:

• They motivate every single employee to take action and engage them with a compelling mission and vision.
• They have the assertiveness to drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance.
• They create a culture of clear accountability.
• They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue, and full transparency.
• They make decisions that are based on productivity, not politics.

Gallup’s research reveals that about one in ten people possess all these necessary traits. While many people are endowed with some of them, few have the unique combination of talent needed to help a team achieve excellence in a way that significantly improves a company’s performance. These 10%, when put in manager roles, naturally engage team members and customers, retain top performers, and sustain a culture of high productivity.
It’s important to note that another two in 10 exhibit some characteristics of basic managerial talent and can function at a high level if their company invests in coaching and developmental plans for them.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/why-good-managers-are-so-rare/

5 Common Questions Leaders Should Never Ask

Questions can be great for engaging and motivating people , but they can just as easily be used to confront or blame, and can shift the mood from positive to negative. “We live in the world our questions create,” says David Cooperrider, a professor at Case Western Reserve University and a pioneer of “Appreciative Inquiry,” which holds that questions focusing on strengths and using positive language are far more useful to organizations than questions with a negative focus.

So what are some specific questions to avoid?

“What’s the problem?” if a company leader asks questions that are focused on problems and weaknesses, then the organization overall will tend to be fixated on that — rather than focusing on strengths and opportunities.

“Whose fault is it?” when leaders ask about fault, they’re often trying to shift blame away from themselves. A better approach would be to ask, How can we work together to shore up any weaknesses?

“Why don’t you do it this way?” it’s truly a leading question — a way of imposing your ways on others.

“Haven’t we tried this already?” Points out that this version of the question comes off as condescending and even defeatist.

In general, a leader should avoid questions “asked in a spirit of advocacy instead of inquiry,”

“Never ask a question if you don’t want an answer.”

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/5-common-questions-leaders-should-never-ask/

Make Your Team Feel Powerful

Research has shown that helping others feel more powerful can boost productivity, improve performance, and leave employees feeling more satisfied on the job.

Global study conducted by Gallup found that among some 600,000 workers across several industries, leadership support, recognition, constant communication, and trust were essential to creating a thriving environment where front-line employees felt they had the autonomy to make a real difference in the organization.Managers are advised to act more as coaches, giving direction and support, and trusting that frontline employees, who are the experts on the ground, know better which improvements ultimately work in the best interest of the organization.

Tom Peters once said, “Leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders.” Giving your employees real autonomy and helping them feel more powerful is not only your best chance to buck the trend of disengagement and apathy; it is at the heart of competitive strategy.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/05/make-your-team-feel-powerful/

Take a Step Back to Propel Your Career Forward

When it comes to moving your career forward, it’s important to set aside your pride. In Reinventing You, I profiled a successful retired HR executive named Deborah Shah. She had decades of experience behind her. But when she became interested in political campaigns, she was willing to start at the bottom, where the campaign needed her. She made phone calls so reliably and effectively, they soon recognized her abilities and asked her to become a regional field director, launching a new career.

You also need to weigh the opportunity cost. A consultant friend of mine spent months building relationships, doing research, and preparing a proposal to work with the UN. It’s a slow process and — if the contract failed to come to fruition — would have to be viewed as a massive waste of time and money. She was perfectly aware that time spent chasing this contract was time she wasn’t spending on other new business development. But she was willing to take that risk, because she knew that being able to claim such a prestigious global entity as a client would dramatically elevate her firm’s reputation.

We hear all the time from innovation and startup gurus that we have to be “willing to embrace failure.” What that really means is you must be able to afford to fail. Failure is expensive — in time, reputation, and money. But over time, the willingness to take chances (that may fail) is an investment in your future success. If you want to move your career forward, a long-term orientation, a willingness to subsume your ego, and a clear understanding of the choices you’re making will help you advance, even if — temporarily — it appears you might be falling behind.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/02/take-a-step-back-to-propel-your-career-forward/