When you think of a consultant or the head of a company, there is this image of someone with a loud voice, going through different charts explaining the decisions we need to make based on the charts. This image of the alpha male who seems to know everything and is a really smooth talker seems to be the way to move up in the business world in America.
American Business Culture
I don't have too much personal experience when it comes to working in America. I've only been working professionally for a few years. In my short time, I've noticed some qualities that we as Americans value in our corporate culture. My views may actually be amazon specific, as my experience is limited to Amazon, but I think it is a general reflection of overall American business culture as well.
If there is a particular personality that does really well at amazon, its actually quite a rare one. The combination of excellent people skills with acute analytical skills is what really works. Knowing what decisions to make based on the data, and then having the ability to convince others to buy into those decisions will make or break you. Oftentimes you see people with one quality or the other. For some reason, a lot of people have the image of me that I'm really the analytical guy, whereas in reality I've really had to hone and develop that quite a bit. For me convincing people to buy into those insights and take action on those is what comes natural to me.
I remember shortly after starting as an area manager, we were on overtime so one of the area managers from the other shift was helping out and our operations manager made some calls that he disagreed with. In the middle of the meeting he challenged the operations manager and justified why a different route was the better way to go given the numbers. My operations manager had a very big ego and he was not going down so easy. He committed to his way and the area manager committed to his way. This got a bit intense, then the senior came in and said to stick with the area manager's method. This showed me 2 things. 1. Leaders make their voice heard and 2. Confidence comes from knowledge and preparation.
Leaders Make Their Voice Heard
In the example mentioned above, the area manager was lower in rank than the operations manager, but he didn't wait to make his voice heard. He spoke up as soon as he heard the flawed logic. Leaders realize that there is a time to stay quiet and there is a time to speak up. When a decision someone is making will impact the entire shift, they can not stay silent and let it happen. A leader will speak up and use their justifications to influence the team to take their course of action.
Coming from a minority community, too often it is easy to just let the people in power do what they want. We value just keeping the decorum and not disturbing the status quo. Leaders don't worry about that stuff. In a business sense, leaders care about the bottom line. If a decision is going to hurt the company, it doesn't matter if the CEO is the one making the call, they will speak up and make their voice heard. If even then the conclusion the team comes to is against what they believe, they will disagree and commit.
Confidence Comes from Preparation
When you read this heading you're probably thinking I'm wasting your time. Thank you captain obvious. Yes, its simple. Yes, you likely already know this. But reminders are still beneficial.
One of the biggest performances I've ever had to do was to MC my friend's wedding. For months and months I prepared stories, jokes, different bits I could do for the 2 days that he wanted me to run the mic. When those days finally came, I had every joke, every story, every bit memorized and I had ran through each of them with my friends at least 5 times.
The day of the event, I was extremely confident. I was rolling. I ended up getting a very warm reception.
In the context of business, you have to do your homework before these meetings. You can't go into meeting where you'll be talking about your business and not know the numbers. You have to be able to justify your decisions with data and present new decisions moving forward based on data. When I was MCing, I had months to prepare. In business, you may have less than half an hour to comb through a data set, analyze it, and then make an argument for why we need to take a certain course of action. In any case, a little time invested to understand your business goes a long way.
You Were Chosen for the Job
Some feedback that I used to get quite often is that I need to "find my voice." I need to learn to speak up in meetings and hold people accountable. After getting this feedback a few times, I reached out to a mentor of mine who has a lot of management experience and has that voice that they are referring to.
One thing he reminded me of was that when they hired you for this job they saw something in you that told them you'd be a good fit for this. They're paying you to speak up. They want to hear your voice. That's why you're in this position. So when it comes time to speak up, remember that. You're doing what you're getting paid to do. It's not personal.
It can be tough when you're the youngest or least experienced in the room to raise your voice. In these moments, don't get caught up in rank. Why isn't it your place to speak up? The most successful people in the long run (even if it means in the short run they may make some enemies) are the ones that are not afraid to speak to what they believe in. The ones that are confident in their opinions and are able to justify their opinions.