Thread by @bbalfour

⚡️🧠Impact = Environment x Skill

A framework for making big career decisions by @iambangaly (Reforge Partner, Former Instacart, Instagram)

Full post -> reforge.com/blog/how-to-ma…

🧵 Thread...

1/ Career decisions about your next role/opp are the most impactful decisions you might make in your career. As an operator, all of your eggs are in one basket at a time, and we get a limited number of swings at the plate. So getting good at these decisions is important...

2/ At FB, Bangaly managed Rotational PM's. At the end of a rotation, he'd have the same convo: How are you going to choose your next rotation/role?

As a result, Bangaly got a lot of reps guiding this type of decision and created a framework to help with it...

3/ The framework is Impact = Skills x Environment

The goal is not to try and boil this type of decision down to a spreadsheet of inputs that spits out the answer, but rather it helps with 4 things...

4/ It can help with:

- Identify individual variables that are inputs into the decision.
- Evaluate each individual variable in a structured way.
- Understand the relationship between each variable.
- Narrow the decision down to the most important variable

...

5/ This helps avoid mistakes like

- Choosing to work on the shiny object
- Thinking you just need to improve your skills to progress
- Short-term thinking
- Solving only for brand
- Mixing perception and truth

6/ Impact = Environment x Skills means:

a. Impact fuels career progression. It is the thing you need to solve for.
b. Impact is the product of Environment and Skills
c. If our skills are great, but the environment is wrong (or vice versa), then we aren't set up for success.

7/ Environment = Everything that enables you to do great work that is outside of your direct control. This breaks down into:

a. Your manager
b. Resources
c. Scope
d. Team
e. Compensation
f. Company culture

8/ Skills = things that are within your direct control that enable your success. This breaks down into:

a. Communication
b. Influence/Leadership
c. Strategic Thinking
d. Execution

9/ Bangaly likes to give each of these a score from 0 to 2.

0 = Major Bottleneck
1 = Neutral
2 = Major Amplifier

...

10/ Here is an example of what evaluating your Manager on this spectrum might look like...

11/ Here is another example of what evaluating Resources might look like...

12/ In all of these cases, Bangaly recommends after evaluating each variable, to do a few things:

a. Identify the variable that matters most
b. Evaluate your ability to change each variable
c. Understand the time horizon it will take to change each variable.

13/ Throughout all of this, Bangaly (@iambangaly ) has a few keys. The first is that the most important variable in the equations is your manager. Here is why...

14/ "A great manager can influence your scope, advocate for more resources, help you develop your skills, guide you to better execution, and more. So even in situations where other variables are low if your manager is a major amplifier (1.5 to 2) give them time to figure it out."

15/ Also "Great execution with poor communication limits your impact over time. You could be doing great work, but without great communication then it won't receive the attention that it deserves. Embrace that communication is more influential than the other skill variables."

16/ We are doing a @joinClubhouse event with @iambangaly, @JoannaLord, @AKGrenier and other Reforge EIR's on making big career decisions Wed night at 7:30pm PT

joinclubhouse.com/event/M148kojp

17/ Get the step-by-step framework from @iambangaly here -> reforge.com/blog/how-to-ma…

Or learn more from Bangaly as a Reforge Member -> reforge.com