Success at Work is Your Choice

“When I joined Hudson’s department stores in Detroit, I remember being told that I would never be a vice president because a black person prior to me had never been a VP,” recalls Michael C. Hyter about his first job out of college. “I’m happy to say I became a VP 11 years later. I was the first one ever.”

Raised in Detroit by working-class parents, Hyter, now president and managing partner for the talent management firm Global Novations, a Korn/Ferry company, is not sure what trajectory his career might have taken had he not participated in efficacy training with social psychologist and corporate adviser Jeff Howard, Ph.D. “Before that, I was preoccupied with being better than everyone else, working longer than everyone else, and being good at my job. And I was frustrated because I wasn’t getting promoted faster.”

He learned in the program that likability and influence were often the strongest determinants of workplace success, and that hard work was just one part of it. Most importantly, Hyter realized that managing and executing choice were crucial. That’s the message he delivers in his latest book, The Power of Choice: Embracing Efficacy to Drive Your Career (Global Novations; $21.95).

“We’re not clear about the power we have. We’re not clear about strategy. What you need can be learned and taught, but most of the time managers, especially if they’re uncomfortable with you and me, aren’t going to teach us anything that will make us better,” Hyter says. “That’s why this book is so important to me.”

Here he discusses how employees have more influence in developing their career than they realize.

Why was the Jeff Howard program such a game changer for you?
It was a personal responsibility message. We’re always complaining about what is not happening, but rarely do we look at what we can do differently and what we can own. It really isn’t about what happens to you, it’s how you respond. I learned about being in strategic relationships and being liked and how important that is. I began to appreciate the significance of my value going up when I am good at influencing people to do things and not just

being a really good worker. The efficacy program gave me a blueprint. I became less frustrated with not being promoted and more fixated on what I could do to make myself more promotable. It was a mindset shift.

Your book lays all the responsibility on the employee.
We can choose to be mediocre or to let others limit our lives, or we can choose to find out just how great we can be. That’s a choice. [One also needs to] accept responsibility for the choices one makes. Sometimes there’s a struggle between work, career, ambitions, family obligations, balance. If you really want to be an officer for a company, you have to choose the strategy that’s going to help you get there and accept that there may be a balance cost in the short term. People don’t always want to pay the price for their choices.

What would be an example?
I want to be promoted, I have an M.B.A., so why should I go out and have drinks with these people I work with? Why can’t my work be enough? Well,

let’s accept the fact that if you are not known and people don’t have a sense of you personally, your name will rarely surface, especially compared with someone people are familiar with. So accept that if you don’t want to socialize, your career ambitions are limited–period.

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What about employees who have bad managers?
You can influence your manager’s perception of you more than you think you can. Every manager has priorities that take up the vast majority of their time. To the extent that you’re  recognized by that manager as someone who makes their life easier, helping them to advance their brand, you are in with them. Promoted into an assistant personnel manager job,

I was working for a white guy who had been demoted to personnel manager who was working for a store manager who had also been demoted. Both had admitted–to my face–that they didn’t think black people were smart. I felt that I didn’t have a chance. But my customer service scores went up and my boss got credit. He started to get accolades for things I was doing, so I became this invaluable resource. Our relationship switched. He might have thought I was the exception, but it didn’t matter, he promoted me. I worked for someone everyone in the organization thought was a monster, yet he advocated my abilities. Whether I was invited to his house was immaterial. I wanted to get ahead; he was the ticket. I needed him to look good for him to be my advocate. That’s the key to your success.

So, it’s inaccurate to say, “There’s nothing I can do to please my boss.”
It’s inaccurate 90% of the time. The vast majority of us aren’t even conscious that we’re not doing what our bosses would require, because we haven’t been taught how. There are a lot of people who choose to let their managers limit them emotionally. What would make your boss happy? “Well, I can’t do that; they don’t like me.” I didn’t ask if they liked you. What’s their priority that if you did it well would thrill them? You don’t have to be liked to be respected.