This month we were speaking about how to think about what should be your competitive advantage and comparative advantage as you are building your career or business. Developing a sustainable and realistic competitive advantage in your career is challenging. Everyone reading this understands how difficult and tiresome it is to renew your profile so that you remain attractive to your organization and clients on a daily, weekly, and yearly cycle.

In this series of posts, we are sharing with you our reply to one of our coaching clients. If you missed 3 earlier posts, please read them here (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) before reading today’s final post in this series. Otherwise, it will not make as much sense since this is Part 4 of the 4-part series. So let’s dive in.

… Humans are complex animals who like to hear warm and fuzzy things about us. We want to feel wonderful about what we did, how we did it, and why we did it. My simple question to you is this: sure you can spend 10,000 hours practicing something, but do you need to?

Try to be more efficient with your time.

And make sure what you practicing is worth your time.

This concept of 10,000 hours also feeds our desire to feel good about things in two other ways. First, it ignores the element of luck. Many worthy people do not make it due to bad luck.

To assume hard work alone gets you there is to discount the element of luck. The phrase “chance favors the prepared mind” was invented to imply that, in spite of enormous good fortune, we did it alone. However, usually, luck plays a big role.

Second, this number ignores the entire interlocking system of actions and steps sitting behind the players. How did they arrange their lives, how did they work with their coaches, how did they choose events and sponsors?

If Tiger Woods had picked the wrong events and had a weak coach he could have burnt himself out and learned the wrong habits. It is more likely this complex system sitting under his career led him to the point where he had the time and possibility to reach the top if he practiced 10,000 hours.

Who is to say that is not what happened?

In other words, career success is like a 4 x 100-meter Olympic relay team. All the lights and cameras are flashing on the final step when the 4th guy ends the race. Yet, it could very well have been the 2nd or 3rd guy who made the crucial difference.

Linking this to the Tiger Woods analogy, we give too little attention to the competitive system he built because we never see it and it is not so glamorous. We like to focus on the flashy parts. To be frank, the media does this because you cannot sell shoes and hats by focusing on the grunt work.

But you are not trying to sell shoes or hats, so focus on things that matter.

Kevin P. Coyne does an interesting case in season 2 of The Consulting Offer (available to Insiders and new monthly Premium members). It is the Spice Girls case. In this case, you need to determine the competitive advantage that led to the Spice Girls, Hannah Montana, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and the Jonas Brothers becoming breakout successes.

You will see all the candidates in the recording treating competitive advantage as a set of attributes with metrics, which must be met. They fail to think about the manner in which Disney has organized itself to create these stars. The competitive advantage of the Jonas Brothers is not the Jonas Brothers. It is a fact that they were a product of Disney, and without the Disney machine behind them, they probably would not have been as successful.

Final Thoughts

1. Think about the way you currently spend a typical day, week, or month. Do you exercise, do you network, how do you improve your skills?
   
   Think about what is the best role for you to exploit this system you call “your life’s activities”.

   If you do not like the roles, then we need to change the system to allow you to be successful in the roles you want to pursue.

2. From the above, think about what those activities could prepare you for. Is it just financial modeling? Sounds to me like you could do more.

3. Of the list you generate in step 2 above, think about which creates the most personal and financial value to you, assuming that is your goal.

4. Ignore attributes like your Stanford MBA etc. Those are not competitive advantages in a real sense. Sure, it is better than someone with an MBA from a weaker school, but that is a purely paper advantage. Over time, if that person is better, she will beat you. The MBA designation from the top school is nice but there are substitutes in the market.

Either the goal or the system must be adjusted. Yet, it is not about financial modeling. That sits in the middle. You are only talking and thinking about the task/career. The task/career you focus on is the means of deploying the system advantage you create to achieve your goals. It is a broader discussion that we need to have about the system and goals.

Finally, building this set of interlocking activities takes time. You may be slower at your career as you build this and fine-tune it, but you will accelerate faster once you perfect it. In other words, a career competitive advantage built on a systems view of competitive advantage leads to a slower start in one’s career but a better ending.

I hope you enjoyed this 4 part series. Email team@firmsconsulting.com and let us know what are the areas you are struggling the most with in your career or business.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kris

P.S. If you would like to receive sample episodes from our strategy, problem-solving, leadership, consulting practice building and communication training programs on StrategyTraining.com, you can get it here.

A version of this article was originally published on the main FIRMSconsulting website.