10 tactics to help make that change at work you keep promising yourself
Just because we know what to do, doesn't mean we'll do it. Here's a few handy hacks to get things going.
These days I'm mostly in the business of helping people change either how they work or where they work. Occassionally both.
Sometimes they're trying to kickstart a career that seems to have lost its momentum.
Sometimes they're working out how to succeed in a new company, or at a new level.
It’s all about change.
They might not be able to say exactly what they want - but they know that what they've got isn't it.
We all kind know what we have to do.
Decide what we want
Work out what we need to do it
Track our progress and adapt accordingly.
But that's a bit like knowing that all you need to do to lose weight is move more and eat less. We might know it, but it doesn't mean we actually do it.
To help, here's 10 tactics or hacks that I've found can help. Hopefully one or two will be helpful for you..
1. Define your red lines
If you can articulate what you want - then you're off to a flying start. But often we’re much clearer about what we don’t want, or what we want to change from.
To get things moving, the best starting point is often to be very clear about your red lines: the things that are utterly essential in any change in how or where you work. Your P0s. Your must haves or must avoids.
When I left Sky, I really didn't know what I was going to do next, but I had two red lines.
I needed to earn a certain amount of money (which happened to be much less than I was earning at Sky).
I wanted a job outside media.
As my search went on (and on!) the detail of exactly what I wanted, where I'd be useful, and - vitally - who would consider me all started to take shape.
But those two red lines simultaneously stopped me going off at impractical tangents, and forced me to explore a whole load of areas before I eventually ended up at the RAC.
Often our red lines are financial. You need to earn a certain amount.
Or it might be a thing about time: for the next 2 - 3 years you need to be able to drop the kids off at school.
It might also be a positive (the obvious one now: I need to be much more hands on with AI)
The point is - you need a short list (1 - 3 things) and you need to stick to it.
To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes..once you've worked out what's impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is up for grabs.
2. Write the CV you'd like to have
Now we're clear about what we don't want - it's time to accentuate the positive with a bit of visioning, or working backwards.
In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey encourages us to write the obituary we'd like to get as part of his 'Begin With The End in Mind' habit.
That’s a great exercise, if you're having a fundamental rethink about your life, but it's perhaps a little dramatic if you're just thinking of moving job or changing how you work.
Instead, write the CV you'd like to have in 18 months' time. Three years at an absolute push.
What achievements would be on there? What experiences? What do you want to be able to say about yourself?
Now - write the CV you think you'll have if you stay as you are.
The difference between the two is what you need to focus on.
It should feel credible, but not comfortable.
I'd quite like to be CPO of Open AI. But I can accept that won't be happening in the next 18 months. Or three years. OK - or decade. Or two. So that’s not going on. But I do have a clear sense about how I want to develop and help others. That’s what I’m focussing on.
3. Start with one thing
There may be a dozen things you need to sort out in your current role or as you start chasing your next one.
Your skills, your stakeholder relationships, your external profile, your network, your understanding of the business, your CV and LinkedIn profile. All might need work.
Don't try to fix everything at once. Pick the one thing that's causing you the most frustration right now and focus exclusively on that.
Better to make meaningful progress on one front rather than minimal progress on all of them.
If you're pushing for promotion - get your promotion blinkers on and think about that.
If you’re pushing for a new job - get your CV in shape.
If you want to develop your network - just do that.
Whatever it is - do just that for a month - which brings us to..
4. Set monthly goals. Review them weekly
This is the simplest of simple hacks, but I've seen it work time and time again - especially when managing people who find it impossible to crawl out of their day to day stress-fest.
Annual goals are great, but often meaningless a few months into the year.
Thinking quarterly is better, but still a bit baggy when you're trying to create momentum.
Meanwhile just lurching from week to week is chaotic, and a recipe for busy work that amounts to a lot less than the sum of its parts.
Monthly goals are the sweet spot. Long enough to achieve something meaningful, and accommodate for the unpredictable stuff that clutters all our lives, but short enough to stop you procrastinating indefinitely.
Reviewing weekly keeps you honest about whether you're actually making progress or need to change tack / invest more time.
The secret sauce: It's entirely possible for you to miss your goal each month - but still end up in the right place.
5. Carve out your 'change' time
I often say that planning a change in where you work or how you work is like having a part-time job.
The counter to that is it's only a part time job.
So, yes, you need to commit some time to it, but you have to box that time in in order to get on with the rest of your life.
Unless you're actually unemployed and now giving your full attention to looking for a new role - I'd suggest thinking about 2 - 7 hours a week for whatever you're planning.
Let's say you want to get up to speed on A/B testing; or understanding Evals for AI. Or you're expanding your network. Put some time in your calendar to do this. Or if you're just starting to think about a new move and you're in research mode. Give yourself a month of doing 3 x 40 min sessions a week focused on that.
If you can get a decent break for lunch at work - committing 3 lunch times a week to whatever it is you're working on, can make a massive difference.
This is especially potent if you’re not loving work that much. And yes, I speak from experience.
6. Expand your horizons
I saw a post from Daniel Pink recently where he said 'if you read the same things as everyone else, you'll think the same as everyone else.' I guess lots of people read that now think it..which proves the point.
The world of product is incredibly broad - but it's very easy to make it feel narrow, by only thinking about your company, your sector and your particular set of problems.
If you reading the same books as every one else, and following the same people on LinkedIn as everyone else - you’re effectively putting in a ton of effort just to keep up.
Yes, if everyone zigs - you kind of need to show you can zig too. But having a bit of zag about you can be a massive help.
Think more broadly. Read outside your sector. Follow people from different disciplines. Fill in your broader business knowledge, or of adjacent fields like psychology and economics. Read some fiction. Lots of fiction! Get out to a gallery. Watch a You Tube lecture about something you've always been interested in.
This isn't just for the sake of your personal growth. Although there's a bit of that. It's to give you more reference points when you tackle problems.
A big part of this is just speaking with people / friends who work outside your sector and listening to what's going on in their world, which brings us to..
7. Talk about it - with humans
Don't keep it all in your head and on your screens.
Speak with people. Catch up with old colleagues and friends from school and Uni.
Spend time with someone at work you think you can learn from - even if they do a completely different job.
Articulating what you want and what you’re thinking - hearing the words come out your mouth and feeling comfortable about them is both a useful exercise in itself, and a vital part of getting your story right.
Only one rule: don’t be a bore - remember to listen in return.
8. Talk about it - with AI
There was a brilliant story in the NY Times recently about Allan Brooks, a corporate recruiter from Canada, who got caught in a 300-hour, three-week conversation with ChatGPT (the transcript ran to 3,000 pages) during which he was led to believe he'd made an earth-shattering breakthrough in Mathematics—despite having no real Maths experience. Only to find out it was utter nonsense (which he discovered, ironically, by asking Gemini).
Don't be like Allan. But do use your LLM of choice to kick around ideas and get guidance on ways of working.
ChatGPT's memory capability, in particular, makes it great for keeping tabs on an ongoing project - such as a job hunt.
Tell it what you're trying to achieve and what you've done over the last week, what you need to do over the next week. Make part of your weekly review a bit of back and forth - about what you think has worked and what not.
This isn’t a substitute for spending actual time with actual humans. But it’s a handy complement. Tread carefully.
9. Accept it'll take time
There's a reason I started banging on last week about planning 2026.
Whatever you're trying to achieve it’ll take longer than you’d like.
Heres a quick ready reckoner: think how months you'd like something to take and then assume it will take that many quarters, and then add one more quarter just to be safe.
Particularly when you're more senior and looking for a job, things can take time.
Similarly, if you're looking to change how you work, you can do some stuff differently tomorrow - but what matters is how you change over months, quarters and yes, years.
Our mental problem here is that we will benchmark ourselves against people who have already got what we want. And when we see them, we want it instantly.
What we can’t see is that they probably either had to work for it much harder than you imagine; or they have some set of circumstances that means you simply can't compare yourself to them.
So, give yourself time. If you get the right job, or turn yourself into a product strategy ninja, or achieve whatever it is you're trying to do, the fact it took six months longer than you'd hoped will be an irrelevancy.
10. Get a little awkward
If you’re a shameless extrovert - you won’t even know what I’m talking about here. But if you’re like the rest of us, this is vital.
'Growth starts once you leave your comfort zone' is a classic self-help mantra. Cheesy as it is—there's definitely something in it.
If you're looking to change your career, get more money, tackle something you’ve always found challenging, you're going to have to put yourself into situations that you have mostly avoided until now.
Asking for feedback on your weaknesses. Approaching someone senior you don't know well. Admitting you want something you're not quite qualified for yet. Doing the thing that you’re worst at.
The conversations that change careers are usually the ones you're slightly nervous about having. Lean into the awkwardness - it's usually a sign you're heading in the right direction.
Useful?
I do hope so… no excuses now…time to get on with it!