Challenges

I Missed Promotion. I Failed.

~ Melissa Owusu ~ 3 Comments

goals2nd January 2017 – my annual day of goal setting and reflection.

Both activities are powerful; refection gives you perspective and gratitude whilst goal setting provides focus and much needed motivation for the year ahead.

A new year; another 365 days to create a new and improved story.

2016-2017 goal setting was distinctively more positive than the previous year. 2015 ended on a low, as such 2016 started on an uphill struggle.

You see, at the end of November 2015, I was told that although I had been supported for promotion, I wasn’t successful.

Holding back tears with the horrible lump in my I throat, I said to my Career Counsellor:

“ok, thanks for letting me know”

I put the phone down and I cried. I cried hard. I had deliberately held back any tears on the phone because I wanted to appear ‘strong’ or ‘un-phased’… but sometimes being strong is acknowledging how you feel and dealing with it.

Stop keeping up appearances – it’s not worth it

And at that moment, the emotions came flooding out. It was a disappointed cry; the type of cry where you’re like ‘why am I crying’  but you can’t stop crying, then you become further frustrated with yourself because you are still crying.

Then you’re like ‘ARGHHH . Teeth gritted. Hands clenched.

23rd November 2015 was not a good day.

The previous 11 months, I had worked my ass off. Crazy hours, (though productive) harsh feedback and personal promise to challenge myself in every area of my role. I was exhausted.

For me, this missed promotion represented a significant professional and personal failure.

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 “Hi, I’m Melissa and I’m Superwoman a failure.

I moped around my house. My confidence was hit. I was angry. I felt humiliated and if I’m honest there was a little resentment mixed up in there too.

I’m a failure. Superwoman who? Nope. Superwoman doesn’t miss promotion.

Side note: I felt very strongly about sharing this. We all talk so freely about our highlights – we go on Facebook/Instagram and boast about how great life is. We speak about our achievements – like it happened over night and failing first never happened. It’s annoying, not to mention a damn right lie.

Well…

winston-churchill
Good ole’ Winston!

No-one ever succeeded without failing first. Fact.

 

So after all the tears, you’re probably thinking  what next? Did I quit?

Well, you may remember the post I wrote about how I met my amazing mentor – well she’s still around, offering invaluable advice and guidance.

The conversation was short and sweet.

Mel: Hi Marwa, I am really upset, I missed promotion. They have said its likely for next time which is another 6 months but I don’t feel valued and they don’t deserve me.  (I was super emotional… if you haven’t guessed already)

Marwa: Hey Mel, sorry to hear this, it’s always hard missing promotion – we have ALL been there. One question before you make this dramatic decision.

Mel: Sure, go on

Marwa: Are you still learning?

Mel: Yes, I am, BUT…

Marwa (interjects) :  No buts. If you’re still learning, you’re still growing, and this company is absolutely the best place for you.

You only quit when you stop learning. If you haven’t stopped learning, then you continue. You continue with the utmost commitment and integrity.

 

1.   Accept it.

 

Just imagine, you had built yourself up for this moment. You had browsed the Prada website to pinpoint your promotion gift to yourself. You’d searched Zoopla for a flat to buy with your new salary increase. You planned even more holidays – because you deserved it.

But I didn’t get it… and I had to be reminded this is was no pity party. Thank you Doreen. (See text message)

img_1834-002And so, my advice is to allow yourself to feel these emotions (in private). There is something very dangerous about unchecked emotions. Do not let them consume you to the point that you act irrationally. You do not want to make a bad decision based on a temporary emotion.

Cry if you want or sit in silence if that feels better.

Go out with friends – let your hair down but I implore you to please deal with these emotions. And when you do, deal with them positively.

It’s ok to not be ok but it’s not ok to quit.

You are a potential Leader. Leaders are resilient – they cry sometimes and this doesn’t make them weak – instead they pick themselves up, dust their shoulders off and they continue. They keep going.

Be open to recognising your own faults, so you can grow as both a leader and a human being.

Do some self-reflection. The best leaders are self-aware and use this to lead others.

He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened ~ Lao Tzu

 

2.   Be ok with failure.

 

Unfortunately, it is a part of life. Whether we like it or not, we will all experience failure at some point in our lives.  The more successful you get, the more it’s going to happen and the more it hurts. But the more it happens, the quicker you get over it. So, get used to it.

Remember:

In order to succeed, you need to be willing to fail.

  1. It happens
  2. You get over it
  3. It builds character, perseverance and integrity
  4. It doesn’t define you
  5. Its only temporary providing you don’t quit
  6. And you better not quit
  7. Because Superwoman is not a quitter (neither are you)

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The truth is; the promotion – a career level jump was a big step outside of my comfort zone. I’d go from a big fish in a little pond to a little fish in a big pond. Quite frankly, there was always a risk of failure.

Do I regret going for it? No.

Have I learnt? Yes.

Did I get over it? Yes.  

Take risks – you might fail but you might not and if you don’t, well it could be the best thing you ever did.

 

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3.   Gain Perspective

 

I’m quitting.

*ALERT* knee jerk reaction in progress

I clearly wasn’t valued and to wait another 6 months for the next promotion round was too long and would impact my life goals severely.

*Cue the Drama Queen*

Sometimes we get so caught up in the goal, that we forget the journey is equally as important

We forget that in order to even get to our target destination there is an incredible amount of work, growth, perseverance and mini achievements along the way. Just because I was not promoted in December 2015 did not mean that suddenly the professional growth I’d experienced was reduced to nothing.

It does not mean that my competencies that I’d worked so hard for were suddenly not good enough or diminished. It may have meant that I had a little more growing to do, but that’s it.

That is it and that’s ok.

It also didn’t mean that opportunities would suddenly stop coming my way. You will remember a post I did on my travel to India – an opportunity like no other.

I learnt that my professional competency cannot be reduced to a title or one level; there are many levels in between.

Take time to appreciate your mini-achievements – cumulatively these create the big achievement.

In my case – the promotion.

A missed promotion was simply a stumbling block. I continued. I didn’t quit.

I aspire to be a great leader – one that is authentic in my actions, one that possesses great integrity and character. Missing promotion in December 2015 was needed for this. It tested not only my leadership style when things didn’t go my way but actually who I was as a person. Would I quit? Would I lash out? Would I decide everyone was against me? Would I suddenly stop doing great work?

No.

I still had a team to lead, I still had a (large) project to deliver. It tested my ability to understand and appreciate the bigger picture.

Most importantly, it tested my ability to deal with failure.

To my horror – it’s not just about me.

Failure was quite possibly the biggest and best lesson, because where Superwoman is going, there will be a lot more failures along the way. And at least now I know that the feeling of failure is temporary.

You are only defined as a failure if you quit. Just keep going. 

I was promoted in June 2016 and 6 months later; this is how my 2016 ended:

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I continued. I didn’t quit.

Until next time,

A More Mature Superwoman

Mel x

My First Year in Work And 3 Lessons I Found Hardest to Swallow

~ Melissa Owusu ~ 7 Comments

So you will remember, after six whole months, I finally have a J.O.B. (that’s a job, for normal people). Not just any job. A good job. A job well suited to me – one that was going to propel me towards my destiny (Superwoman); a job that would be challenging and give me the opportunity for development.

This company was awesome. It was small enough to know all your colleagues, yet it had enough gravitas in the market to be exposed to business technology in a way I never thought possible.

My Director was training me to become a Business Development Manager (BDM) ~ fancy title aye? My role essentially was to help sell new technologies/solutions (namely in IT and Telecoms) and become a specialist in Cloud based solutions and their capabilities.

I would have to prospect for new business, design high level solutions to meet business requirements, support the delivery of these solutions and Account Management. (I realise I have just become one of those annoyingly corporate people that just uses all these words, half of which make absolutely no sense to anybody in the real world! Feel free to reach out and I will clarify)

I was dealing with large contracts, large sums of money and ermm… some pretty senior people. Like I’m talking interfacing with MD/CEOs of small to medium enterprises. #NoBiggie.

Surely this should be the most exciting time yet… why was I filled with so much fear?

Mel's belongings
I came back from my 6 months review to find this…  I ended up spending 3 great years with this company : )

1.    You Are Good Enough

Ok down to the facts:

At this point, my experience was limited to 87 days on a fake business management trainee scheme and 6 months unemployment, whereby the only thing I had been on time to was a trip to the Job Centre.

Despite this, I power dressed, I power walked (yup … this is an actual thing) and I power spoke (projected confidence). Yet under this veneer, there was a whole heap of self-doubt. Am I good enough?

For a start, being one of the youngest people in the office sometimes left me feeling alienated – my experience was limited (if not at zero) and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I could actually do the job.

  • Can I sell complicated Business Technology solutions … of which I currently know nothing about?
  • What if my clients find out I have a law degree rather than computer science or a degree in that area?
  • What if I say or do the wrong thing, worse yet what if my handshake is weak?
  • What if I look stupid?
  • What if I am not good enough?

This continued for months and actually, I got the very same feeling when I moved to my current job. Everyone seems to go through it – both male and female; regardless of level or seniority.

What I have learnt however, is that, the key is to believe in yourself and your capabilities – after all the person who hired you clearly does. You need to be OK with asking questions and asking for help.

In my opinion, you need to spend time with ‘you’ getting to know your own USP.

AwesomeYou need to look around you, work out who is in position that inspires you and seek to imitate them with your own personal twist.

Find out what works for you, and what you’re good at, and make sure everyone knows it – but don’t be cocky about it.

In my case, I sought to imitate  my director:

He was an extraordinary salesmen and relationship manager. He had the innate ability to ask the right questions; getting to the root cause of a business problem whilst being endearing and credible. He was basically like a CSI detective.

I was going to copy everything from his questioning skills, his leadership style to his desire to build long lasting business relationships.

Always find someone in the workplace that you can model yourself on, it will serve as both inspiration and direction

Practical Tip:

  • Write down 3 skills you have, work out how you can develop them, either by being coached or reading
  • Find a role model within your company and ask them how they overcame their self-doubt
  • Finally, don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions

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2.    The Expert Was Once a Beginner

Everything comes with time – experience included

After 7 months at the company I had sold my first account.  I could officially call myself an Account Manager as I actually had an account to manage. My client was a luxury carpentry/joinery company located just outside of London. I had built a strong relationship with both the Finance Manager and one of their Directors. Funny enough, this company was my favourite account … Shock.

Their Director had requested we provide pricing for an additional product. At the time, we didn’t offer the product that he wanted, so I had to go via a third party. The third party quoted me £30k for this product and I remember thinking… ‘£30k damn that’s a lot – more than my salary.’ (Bear in mind this is without margin or mark up, so no profit). I decided to call up the company director.

 “Hey Carl, we can provide you with this product, its £30k but as you are a valued client we are offering this to you at cost”

Right now, I am thinking “Yes Mel, great work, nice sales tactic there, girl you are SO clever… you are winning in life” #FistPump

Well … I wasn’t really.  Even if it did sell, we would make no money and therefore no profit which goes against purpose of my role. #Awks

Understandably when my Director found out, he was not best pleased – I think his words were along the lines of

‘How does a business make any money if you’re selling products at cost price because you like the person?”

Yeah, I was out- I had nothing, no response, no excuse, nothing.

Following that incident, my director began coaching me around business revenues, profits and margins. He said to me “It is OK to make mistakes, it is not OK not to learn from them”, furthermore it’s better that it’s done earlier on in your career. (Though the fact the client didn’t buy the product probably helped me keep my job)

The point from the above is that, we are all beginners once and that’s okay.master

In fact, embrace it – use the time to fail, to make mistakes, to gain industry/product knowledge. The fact is most of our important lessons come through trial and error and with time these lessons will shape you and your career.

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Take time to be a master of your craft and to actually understand what you do. Take time to be a beginner.

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3.    Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

Probably my greatest lesson…

“The days you are most uncomfortable are the days you learn the most about yourself” ~ Mary Bean

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable because days where I would feel frustrated, scared and sometimes even teary, were the times I was learning, developing and growing. Moving out of your comfort zone births new things, things you never even thought were possible. In my most uncomfortable days, I began to understand myself better, what I like and dislike,what I am good at (and bad at), values, passions and subsequently – my career.

Being uncomfortable is great; it changes mindsets, it causes you to focus, it encourages you to do whatever it takes to hit that goal. Ultimately being uncomfortable dictates your behaviour; if you hate a job it will cause you to leave, if you don’t understand something it will cause you to learn, if you’re not happy with your life, it will cause you to do something that makes you happy and if you’re doing just OK… it will cause you to do better.

When my Director would set me, what seemed like, impossible sales targets which put me completely out of my comfort zone, I would embrace them (rather than just cry- I cried a lot). It was in these moments that I began to ‘fly’. It was in these moments where I began to read more.  I read blogs, industry magazines and autobiographies of great business minds, whatever it took to get me hitting those targets.  Being uncomfortable changes behaviours.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It’s going to happen a lot throughout your career; these are the precious growth moments and with this let us not forget; pressure is what turns coal into valuable diamonds.

“In life you either need inspiration or desperation” ~Tony Robbins

These are the points when change comes.

Mel x

City Girl
Me, in my first year of work : )