Your Boss Should Never Be Your Career's Ceiling

But this is this is like the time when I have a captive audience with KP and I get to say , hey , what were you thinking ? You're posting all these things on LinkedIn ? What were you thinking when you posted that ? I get to ask KP every week about something that he posted on LinkedIn . What was the inspiration , what's the background for that ? Tell me more .

Tell me more about that story . If you're not following KP Ready on LinkedIn , you should be . It's just KP R-E-D-D-Y , kp Ready on LinkedIn . You're probably not going to be able to connect with him because his connections limit is

usually met , but you can certainly follow him . He posts two or three times a day usually and lots of great insights , often some pot stirring going on and also some personal stories , which is the basis of the post we're going to dig into today . So , kp welcome . Hey , jeff , glad you're here today . You have moved to California now .

I guess we've mentioned this a couple of times , but you've moved to California . I'm in Indianapolis . We had snow about three days ago and today it's 80 . What's it like in California today ?

The deal is if you don't like the weather where you are , I guess you have to move maybe you should drive 30 minutes over the hill and it's like 90 yeah , go drive 30 minutes , alright well , that's good to know .

I just hosted our virtual demo day , which I host the final Friday of every month , and I had noticed in the audience that there were a couple of folks from our early and mid-career mastermind group in the audience .

So that was really cool to see , and I think this post and what we discussed today will really resonate with them , because it is about your first job in engineering . So let me read it and then we will unpack it . As the title goes , in my first engineering job I walked into my boss's office and I resigned . He responded it's about time .

He always understood that my ambition because it matched his own or maybe even surpassed his own At some point . He said that my ambition was exceeding his ambition and he knew that he was holding me back . Your ambitions should be clear to your boss . If your boss isn't at least as equally ambitious as you find a new boss .

In AEC , I see a lot of innovation roles reporting to people that are not ambitious or curious , yet they stick around . Don't do it . Move on and find a new

boss or be your own boss . You know it's funny . I mentioned their early and mid career . This definitely touches on that realm right . Early and mid-career this definitely touches on that realm early and mid-career mastermind group , but also we have two innovation leaders , mastermind groups and I'm not saying you're calling anybody out here .

Maybe you are , maybe you aren't . You can reveal that if you like , but these are the people generally in these two mastermind groups that you're talking about .

They're the ones that are leading innovation in firms chief innovation officer , director of innovation , those types of roles in those mastermind groups and the irony is they're leading innovation and reporting up to , sometimes reporting up to some people that are not . So turn the clock back .

I could probably figure out exactly how many years here , but turn the clock back to this point in time where you walked into your boss's office and resigned , and then let's unpack it from there .

I wasn't like the best or anything , but I was really good with clients , mostly just because I took the time to talk to them and I figured out early in my career that I would go up , I'd walk by the receptionist every day and there'd be a stack of those while you were out messages oh yeah . And so one day I asked her like what is that ?

It's like , oh , there's all the like people call us wanting services . They can't leave messages . I'm like , well , who follows up with those ? She's like nobody . These damn engineers don't seem to care . I think I'll give them to me services . They call and leave messages . I'm like , well , who follows up with those ? She's like nobody .

These damn engineers don't seem to care . I was like , oh , give them to me , I'll start calling them . That's all I did . I was like I'll start calling them back . That's kind of rude , don't call people back . And so I started calling these people , right ? So next thing , you know , I'm driving a ton of business , like more business than anyone , anyone .

And then next thing , you know , my I'm like going to my boss and of course I'm making like 26 000 a year at the time , and my boss tried to like keep giving me raises and promotions , uh , up until my the top of the pay band , right , the most he could do .

He did that after he exhausted that he would buy me um cards to Longhorn Steakhouse and Outback Steakhouse . That was about it . I was like tapping him out , basically . And so I think he quickly figured out like hey , this guy's not going to like just hang out .

And he was a super interesting guy because he was not an engineer , he was in the Vietnam War , happened to serve with someone at our firm and he started off as like a concrete technician .

He'll tell you like got really good at golf so got good at business development and was able to drive business , so he kind of appreciated that I was out there driving business , so anyway .

So I think a lot of what he saw was just that he was not going to be able to keep me and then when I started my startup on the side , he thought it was like game over at that point . But you know , it's this pattern and it's an interesting pattern .

From him onwards , I think I really you know that company I started went from two people to 1200 people in like three years when public and I was a really I was a really good boss up to about 20 people and after that I was a pretty bad boss because basically I can't have people that work for me directly , like on a daily basis , that are not equally or

more ambitious than me . I don't understand it . I used to try to like you know people would coach , like , well , you know , everybody's in different situations and different positions and you have to have diversity . I'm like , yeah , they can report to someone else , not me , right ? That's kind of my conclusion .

And I've had people say , oh , that's not fair , but I stuff just was constantly trying to improve himself and create opportunities to earn more and I was like , yeah , sure , I'll give you infinite opportunities . In fact , he was running a big department for the state of Georgia at one point .

So there's been a lot of people that have had that equal or exceeding ambition , that have worked for me and have gone on to do , you know , pretty amazing things . But you know , there was a time in my career where it's like , oh well , not everybody has to be as ambitious as I am , that's okay .

Some people it's just a job , and then really I've gotten to where like , yeah , I can , we can hire those people that you can't report to me , because it'll be equal frustration , right , you know , I slack at two in the morning . If you don't respond like , then you're not ambitious , right , that's just , that's just how , that is right , and so that's fine .

There's , there's always those roles . But I think when you're younger , um , you tend to pattern the behavior

, behavior of the people you report to . And if your boss shows up at nine and takes two coffee breaks and it's all about their quality of life , which good for them , right , and if yours is more like no , I want to be CEO , then that's the wrong person . Find a different person to report to .

And I think that's why , like you know my , my work with startups and all the founders I work with , they are all very they're all you know , equally , if not more ambitious than I am Right . They're all trying to build're all you know , equally , if not more ambitious than I am right .

They're all trying to build unicorn companies and work 24 seven and , um , you know , and they respond to my . You know they're . They're funny . Like I responded , they're slacks . I had one slack me today at three in the morning . He's like what the hell are ?

And I think I think it's a problem because I think so if we look at at the very beginning of things . You know a lot of people that go into civil engineering or construction . It's because maybe they want a quality of life , they like the idea of working for an architecture firm that works with the local K through 12 and don't travel .

You know , I think this year will be the first year that I don't travel 200 days , right , I'm like 200 days a year . That's been going on for 20 years , right , and I have friends like , oh , how do you do it ? It's like , well , it's just the job , it's what I signed up for , right ? So what I do ? I think for a lot of people that's not the case .

You know they want to drive , to work and be at Little League games and that's good . More power to them . But I think if you're , especially if you're younger in your career , it can be very frustrating to have a boss that's in their quality of life phase , or maybe that's just where they want to be . And I think you see it .

And I think our industry is different .

You see it in law firms , you see it in accounting firms , you see it in management consulting , where the youngest teams figure out pretty quickly who's the high flyer , which is the partner that's going to be CEO , and they kind of vie to work for that person , they try to work on their projects , they try to get access to them .

Well , if I want to , if I want to go from here to here , and if you're listening to this it's a little hard for the visuals here but you know , if I want to go from this point to that point , then I have to surround myself by people that are above that point At least some of them , because the average right .

It's math , so , yeah , it's leveling up to that point , it's learning from those people . It's hitching your wagon , possibly , but opening the opportunities . You know , my first job , um out of school , about the exact same time that you're talking about I .

I ended up working exclusively with the senior designer , and so I got opportunities , museum of contemporary art and you know things like that versus tilt up , concrete distribution and things like that versus tilt up concrete distribution centers . So there's a lot of truth to that . We talk sometimes about your latest book , the Intangible Enterprise .

We don't talk so much anymore about your book . What you Know About Startups Is Wrong , and in that book you tell a lot of stories from startups you know from your startup days Similar . I don't remember if this , this exact story , is in in the book or not but , but similar .

So what would you pull from what you know about startups is wrong into this conversation ?

There are a lot of companies that I started that had okay outcomes , but I should have just like shut it down . I think also in my book I talk a lot about like my personal challenges , including almost dying and stuff like that , and I think a lot of that stuff it wasn't from . You know , I was working hard . I work hard now .

I think the difference is I still prior . I work hard at kind of everything . I work hard at my health , which is , you know , this age is always a challenge . I work hard at getting exercise and hydrating and all that stuff . So I think when I was younger , it was work hard at work and everything else I could let slip .

I think now I'm probably one of these people that works hard , plays hard . I mean I haven't watched a TV show in a year . I mean it's been a long time . Everybody's talking about White Lotus . I'm like what's that ? I mean there's just certain things that I have opted out of .

In terms of that , I consider sedentary and not adding a lot of value to my well-being . So I think that I think there's a lot of parallels there from a lot of the stories in my book . But I think one of the things I think in being ambitious is also like knowing when to move on , and that could be a boss , a startup or whatever .

Like hey , this startup's really mean you know , I had started a consulting business and we got to be like 50 people and I shut it down because I like , hey , this startup's really mean you know , I I had started a consulting business and we got to be like 50 people and then I shut it down because I was like that's not what I want , like I don't , I don't

want to build a thousand person consulting company . I mean I could , I don't . That doesn't sound like very good use of my time , so to speak . So I think there's that . But I think when you look at you know , you know you do those like performance reviews and your boss sits down with you and says , hey , where do you see yourself in five years ?

You should turn around , ask your boss like hey , where do you see yourself in five years ? You know it's like I need to see if you're a good fit for me .

teams about them . Oh my gosh , he's so high energy . Oh , he's just like all over the place . Oh my gosh , he's selling work that I don't even know if we can do it , and I'm like those are all like really positive . As far as I'm concerned , that sounds amazing , right , but they view it as a negative .

You know the energy and enthusiasm around expanding and growing and learning and that kind of thing . So I think in the post I even said not just ambition but curiosity , a boss that doesn't want to keep learning . I joke around with all you guys , right , like you'll never catch up . You can read all my posts .

I'm consuming so much more information and you still have to catch up with all the other stuff I've already done , right ? So unless I just stop , I stop reading , I stop listening , I stop interacting , I just kind of go into a hole somewhere for a couple of years . Then you have a chance of catching up , but as long as I'm consuming and doing .

You're just not going to catch up . So I think even as much as ambition is super important . I think the curiosity aspect too . You know the boss that comes to you and says , hey , what do you think about AI ? Hey , what do you think about this ? I was reading this article . Those are the ones you want to hang out with .

I mean , we know we talk about this for people that listen to this podcast . We know we talk about this for people that listen to this podcast .

Maybe they're bruised sometimes by some of the things that we talk about , but we know that the AEC world , for all the things that we're doing here in this industry to change the world right , the world right Designing , building , developing those are different , by the way operating the places where we live , we work , we play , we worship , all those things For all

of that . We also know that this is a pretty conservative industry . We know that oftentimes , when it comes to tech , fairly laggard and the innovation roles that we're talking about , one of the reasons we started the Innovation Leaders Mastermind Group was because there are so few of them and most of them are in the first . They're the first of their kind .

They wrote the job description or the job description was written for them and they're sort of forging new ground . So what do you think this looks like in the future ? Right , if we were to say that to all of the innovation leaders that participate in our two innovation leaders mastermind groups ? Where do they go ?

Or did they become the boss that hopefully at some point inspires the next ?

I don't think it's conservative Like we use these words about risk and this and that and pride that we stamp drawings like is some big deal . It's not a big deal , really , not . You know , um , it's made to be a bigger deal than it is .

I think we use a lot of these words and we say , oh , it's very conservative and risk and that , but I think it's it's as much as it as it being complacent , right , and , and I think that , but I think it's it's as much as it as it being complacent , Right , and and I think that's that's where a lot of this , this narrative around , like , oh well , you

know you can't do that , you know you can't grow like that .

So I think for these , for people that are ambitious , I think you have to decide like stay at the firm you're at , go to a different firm where the boss there is ambitious , or go do your own thing , Because I'll tell you , I talk to a lot of these CEOs not the founders , but CEOs of these firms and a lot of them are very ambitious and I will tell you

they say things like yeah , I stopped trying to get people to get on board .

That's where the blind spots are , that's where um architects , engineers , contractors , whoever it is that we're talking about , that's where they get passed up , forgotten about , disrupted , you know I think to me that's . That's where the real danger is , the complacency

.

And an hourly rate job the customer has to be a good steward of your money . Yeah , and an hourly rate job the customer has to be a good steward of their money .

Yes , because if it was lump sum , then they got to work differently , rate thing I'm like there's a lot of people that really love the hourly rate thing . Yes , because if it was lump sum , then they got to work differently . Right , they have to be creative . Uh , they have to work harder . They got to do more with less in order to be profitable .

Where I'm coming from is you have to understand what your costs are , and this is where I see the fear of for most about about lump sums is well , we're going to , we're going to throw a lump sum and you know what if ? What if we go over ? Well , what if you go over starts with , do you actually understand ?

You know from historical data that you had , from other , you know the last bridge project that you did or whatever it was . Do you actually understand so that you can put together a legitimate right and an accurate lump sum number ? That's where it starts . And , yeah , sure , if you've got people sandbagging on it , then you're in trouble .

Certainly , but it's also where the opportunity is . Hey , we understand it . Now we've incorporated this new tool where we can be more efficient , and that's you know what you're talking about the creativity and everything . That's where we can start to open up margin .

I'm like okay , like hide your job numbers , don't let people know about them that's a pretty crazy culture , by the way I don't know that it's that different in some of these mega firms . I mean , we were kind of a mega firm , you know . And if you have some IDIQ contract with federal agency where you just kind of bill hours .

have a little bit of a reckoning within our own companies . What people are doing , you know , are they you know ? And I think if you take that narrative with the return to office narrative , there's like a real question of like , what are people doing all day ? Right , I think there's back to the being a very conservative industry .

You could sit in your cubicle all day and produce nothing and your boss is like , oh , they're working hard . You can be remote your boss doesn't see you and produce effectively . Your boss might say like , oh , I don't know , that guy's never here .

You know , they want to come work for me and do ambitious things and companies they were at were not . You know they were not doing ambitious things . They weren't , uh , doing curious things . They weren't doing like , hey , go try out these four ai engines and break them . Yeah , you know , they didn't get it . It's like oh no , I'm too busy .

I gotta go work on a project , right ? Yeah ?

It goes beyond the goes , goes beyond the workplace , but , um , when we can incorporate it in the workplace that's important .

They just let go of 9% of their staff Autodesk , autodesk and interestingly enough , the biggest fear a lot of those folks are having is that they were so deep into the Autodesk system , doing Autodesk things the Autodesk way , that their skills aren't really that transferable . The world has changed right With AI .

You know they still had , you know , droves of people doing content writing and messaging and social media , this and event that . And they're starting to realize , as they've kind of coming out to the workforce , content writing is a part-time job because you have AI to help you out . Content writing is a part-time job because you have AI to help you out .

Graph , I mean , I think being a graphic designer at a corporate these days , I don't think it was ever a great place to be , but I think it's . You know that stuff's like kind of tough these days , right , like do you ? Is that a full-time job ? If you go to another company , someone is someone .

I mean the specific example they said said yeah , like I'm a master at you know , adobe , illustrator . I'm finding out that outside of autodesk , like a lot of these mid-sized companies , they're all using canva , they're all using these other tools .

Yeah , and they started talking about sound engineers and sound boards , yeah , and like we had to fly in to do it . And I was like what ? Like yeah , this is how we do it . And it was like you and I were like you want us to fly in and you're gonna have a sound engineer in a booth . And are you kidding ? Like since when ?

yeah yes , I also doing that I .

Everybody thinks they need a podcast now , um , I don't disagree with them , the , but we've got to be very clear on what , the , what the goals are , et cetera , and so we'll , we'll do a lot of consulting on hey , how do I get this started ? What do I , what equipment do I need and need , and all of this .

And recently I was talking with a firm leader and said hey , gather up , gather up all the responses to your RFP , if you will , and I'll help you analyze them . I'll go through and we can mark out the things you don't need circle of things you do need .

Because and it's what's to me specifically in the podcasting world is , this is like this is not new , right ? We , we record right now on stream yard um , and we're not getting paid or sponsored by stream yard um , we , we use this um . It's not a new's , not a new platform , but it eliminates the need for us to fly around .

Right , their technology is decent . I mean , it's good enough that you're listening to this right now . Riverside's a great , great example as well . You know they started in two different places , but probably two different desired outcomes would decide which one of those you pick .

But , like you said , whether it's graphic design or it's content writing or it's producing podcasts or whatever , the need for change and keeping up and upskilling and all of those buzzwords that we love , that's more necessary every single day .

We talk about this in terms of our mastermind groups and other places To me , everything comes down to growth mindset . Do you have a growth mindset ? Are you willing ? And this is job , this is relationship , this is personal .

You're talking about health and things like that If you don't have a growth mindset and the way I think about growth and mindsets is , there's three lenses . There's personal growth . There's relationship growth . There's business , career , professional . However , you need to couch work .

If you don't have a growth mindset in all those and I think you need at least those three lenses for a holistic person , those three

lenses for a holistic person If you don't have a growth mindset in each of those , you're in trouble , right ? If you don't have a growth mindset in terms of your health , you're in trouble , maybe not today , yeah , eventually , eventually . If you don't in relationships , you're in trouble .

If you don't in work , again , whatever that realm looks like , you're in trouble If you're at Autodesk and you're using Adobe , first of all , that's that's gotta be a punchline . There's like a bartender in there somewhere .

But if you're at Autodesk and you're using Adobe rather than Canva , and you can't even get a job at Adobe because they're using Canva , that's telling .

First of all , and then I upload them to a shared folder , like that's my job and you know things come in , I do some process and then but if you're not ambitious and curious , like you know , it was interesting .

I was out with one of my investors and they own , like I don't know , 50,000 , 70,000 apartment units and he's like he's like you know what the best thing that he got out of the pandemic was . He started coming into the office because he wasn't traveling as much .

He's like I found out I have four people whose job is to open checks and put them in the right folders for someone else to deposit , and I was like what ?

And he's like yeah , that was my reaction Because you know what's funny is people think that , like the old guy CEO and he's a little bit of an older gentleman that they're not aware of innovation and technology . They're very aware . It's just that if you know their operations working , don't ? They don't worry about it .

And if they're too busy flying around on their private jets , they're definitely not thinking about how they take in checks , right , they just assume they have someone in place that is looking at that . And so he just told me he's like yeah , I walked around the office as we started getting back into the office after the pandemic . I'm walking around , I'm around .

Well , we have four people whose jobs are to like , go through the mail , get rent checks and post them to their and put them in folders for someone else to post to the right property . He was like I was blown away that we and I'm like what'd you do about ?

He's like I fired three of them I'm blown away that they got checks no apartment episode apartment dwellers .

Yeah , there's the whole thing , right , um , if you , if you live in an apartment , it's , um , you know , unless you're using one of our platforms like magic door or something else , or stake , you're probably paying by check at the policing office , still very prevalent , um .

So , anyway , but you know , there are these jobs that exist that are , like , sure , my job is to open up checks . Now , what I'll tell you is anybody that's been in that job for a minute is probably not that ambitious at their work life , or curious .

Like I'm gonna try to find a way to do it better and replace myself so I can do something else . I had four people , four people doing this full time , full time , and I was just like this is wild .

And he was like yeah , so so my point is my question around like , if you are not ambitious and you're not curious , I don't think you have 10 years well , no , probably not at the speed that we're moving now .

Drasticity is probably not a word , what's the word I want , I don't know , but it's the drasticness of the change , I think , is the real key . Now it's moving very quickly and the change is vast .

And , yes , if you are one of four that are sitting in an office and all you're doing is opening checks , again I have , I have questions , but if that's all you do , yeah , it's , it's not going to take long .

There's a lot of companies where there's someone sitting at a desk opening envelopes and sitting next to the paper shredder for an hour a day , like just all this stuff , right ?

and now we're talking about people's next job or last job . Maybe the post goes like this In my first engineering job , I walked into my boss's office and resigned . He responded it's about time . He always understood my ambition . It's about time he always understood my ambition because it matched his own .

At some point he said that my ambition was exceeding his ambition and he knew that he was holding me back . Your ambitions should be clear to your boss If your boss isn't at least as equally ambitious as you find a new boss .

In AEC , I see a lot of innovation roles reporting to people that are not ambitious or curious , which has been a big point of our conversation here , especially towards the end Yet they stick around . Don't do it . Move on and find a new boss or be your own boss . All right , I think we could probably do an entire another episode on this .

We're going to wrap it up right here . As you're listening to this , let us know what you think . Wherever you're listening to this or watching this , this comes out in a variety of different mediums . Wherever it is that you're consuming this drop into the comments , your thoughts , your questions , questions , your challenges to what we're talking about .

If you have them , let us know . If your job is opening envelopes or putting checks in folders , we want to know who you are , not to call you out or put you on the spot , but also know that everything that we've talked about that needs or deserves the link will be in the show notes down below .

Whether this is an audio wave or it's a video , our production team will be putting the links in the show notes below . So thank you for listening . We do this every week . Every week , I get to ask KP hey , what were you thinking when you posted that on LinkedIn ? This has been fun . It is . We were talking about this before we went live .

It is fun talking about the personal stories , the personal experiences . So look forward to hearing more of these and also all the different formats of this unpacked podcast , and also all the different formats of this Unpacked podcast .

As soon as KP and I log off here , I'm going to log on with Frank Lazzaro from our team , another senior advisor , and he and I are going to unpack some AI tools , and next week , I'll be unpacking some posts with some of our Mastermind members .

There's lots of different formats that we're rolling out of this Unpacked podcast , so I hope that you'll give them all a listen . I hope you'll let us know what you think , what you want to hear more of .

Let us know what your questions , your comments , your thoughts are in the comments , wherever you're consuming this , and we'll be back again next week we are still the number one podcast in aec , I think as far as we're concerned , we always will be Just tune in here , you don't need to go anywhere else .

All the rest of them are stuffing envelopes using Adobe .