Are You In the Right Zone - or On the Right Path - in Your Career?
In a very candid conversation, tech industry leader Tim Stoddard shares the best way to steer your career and life so that you become who you want rather than who others want you to be.
How often do you compare yourself to other people? To your peers or competitors? Once a day? Once an hour?
According to Tim Stoddard, your answer should be, “Never.”
You should only be comparing your performance today to where you want to be tomorrow. That’s how you get better. That’s how you succeed in life and business. By getting better – doing better – each day.
It’s how he’s risen from a university graduate with no clear path defined to a senior vice president and general manager of a Fortune 1000 tech company’s EMEA operation.
When Tim joined Zebra over 20 years ago (by way of Symbol Technologies), he had just received a degree in accounting and realised accounting wasn’t the career for him. He’s a fan of numbers, but he just didn’t want to spend all day, every day, for the next several decades crunching them. So, he leapt at the opportunity to join a general business-focused graduate program at Zebra, served in the equivalent of a customer success manager role for a bit, and then proactively found new doors to walk through.
Since moving from services to sales, and from individual contributor roles into leadership roles, Tim has very much put himself into what he calls the “stretch zone.” This is the zone where he feels you should be most of the time.
Why the stretch zone versus the comfort zone?
Hit play to find out why you might actually find yourself more uncomfortable in the comfort zone, no matter your career or life path:
Tim also explained why our lives – and our career journeys – simply can’t be as neatly planned as we’d like sometimes, and that’s okay. As he’s proven, leaning into the unknown – embracing ‘sliding door’ moments – can land us in a far better place than we were aiming for in the first place.
So, check out what Tim had to say about …
- the pros and cons of planning – or not planning – your career.
- knowing when it’s time to do something different (and how to know what the right move is for you.)
- how to balance your personal objectives with your employers’ objectives – and whether you should even try.
- the need for business leaders to encourage more horizontal change rather than vertical change and reward people for individual contributions rather than pushing everyone to be a leader.
- the traits that make everyone a leader – and what influences one’s ability to be a leader more than anything else.
- protecting your authenticity.
- who you should look to for mentorship. (It may not be who you naturally gravitate to.)
- the leadership style he’s adopted (and why).
- how to shake that ‘graduate’ label early in your career and show others what you are capable of beyond the responsibilities and skills defined for the roles you are in.
- how he’s stayed driven and motivated to keep growing, learning and improving every day for over 20 years.
LISTEN NOW OR DOWNLOAD TO LISTEN LATER
If you prefer to read the Q&A, you can check out the transcript of our conversation here.
After listening to Tim, you may want to hear what these other smart people shared about making the right career (and life) choices:
- Women Who Wow: Colleen O’Sullivan Shows Us the Power of Pausing and Pivoting in Both Our Professional and Personal Lives
- “Can’t is a Cuss Word.” I Swear.
- Worried You Lack the Experience or Expertise to Get into Sales or Start Down a New Career Path? Take It from a Luddite Turned High Tech Sales Leader: “People Buy People”
- Women Who Wow: Low-Key, High-Profile Lawyer Carrie Plater Proves that Women Really Can Do It All, Including Parent, Mediate and Assemble Fabulous Flower Arrangements
- Women Who Wow: Jenna Stanley is Proof That “It Never Hurts to Ask” for What You Want in Life (Especially at Work)
- The One Mistake Some Companies Make When Trying to Support “Early Career” Employees, According to Three Experts
Laura Kennedy
Incredibly passionate about people, culture and well-being, and a keen advocate for all things related to equality, diversity and inclusion, Laura is a Senior Advisor for Global & Inclusion & Diversity at Zebra, focused on fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging, where all employees can be their authentic selves. She supports Zebra’s Inclusion Networks and culture-shaping efforts, including increasing the focus on expanding allyship across the organization.
Prior to this, Laura has worked on multiple cross organizational strategic projects related to Sales Enablement, Channel & Distribution Marketing, and Channel Communications, both in region and globally during her five years with Zebra .
