There’s no such thing as “above your pay grade”
One of the sayings at Facebook that resonates with me the most is, “Nothing at Facebook is someone else’s problem.” Swap out Facebook with your company. Internalizing that you should act like an owner and help wherever you can is an empowering perspective.
When I started my career, I accepted my team’s M.O. as the way things are. This was comfortable, but limiting. Re-orgs, process pivots, and strategy changes would happen to me. The everyday inefficiencies I’d encounter...well, I figured there must be some rationale.
As I’ve grown in my career, I’ve seen behind the curtain at big companies. Every org norm is the byproduct of someone’s thinking and work, implicit or intentional. Company culture is the aggregation of the actions of many people.
But you don’t need to be a senior leader to influence or drive things. While seniority begets authority, it doesn't ordain leaders with unique wisdom. If anything, the causal arrow goes the other way around: demonstrating the competence to tackle problems beyond your assigned scope is a path to promotion.
Facebook, for example, has a uniquely bottoms up culture. Some of our best stuff has come from the rank and file showing initiative.
Major Facebook features like Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Video were born at hackathons. Then there are stories of employees thinking outside the box: my former manager, when an individual contributor PM, identified a way to supercharge her team and initiated an acquisition. Even at the biggest companies, that’s not a conventional lever.
On a personal level, I’m most fulfilled when championing an idea. When I was an associate PM, I started a new team to reimagine how we share big events on Facebook, largely because I was personally unsatisfied with how my own engagement was represented on the platform.
These may feel like anomalous stories, but we can embody this mentality every day. Everyone leads if they want to. I read this advice from a Content Design leader, Kay Streit, I’ve worked with:
You don’t have to be a PM to drive product strategy. You don’t have to be a VP to make executive decisions. Heck—even EVPs have to insert themselves into meetings and projects. We excel from collaborative leadership. Where you might see levels, you should see partnerships. Where you might see lack of control, you should seek to grow your influence. Where you may not have power, you should take responsibility. These actions combined are what cause others to see you as a leader.
Consider upleveling yourself by embracing ambiguity. Evolve from executing on solutions that others have scoped, to identifying the solutions, to defining the problems to solve. Rather than asking, “What is the best way to get this done?” ask, “Is this the right thing to do?”
Now, this isn’t easy. Shaking the beehive is scary, and some companies are more top down than others. Moreover, bias makes it easier for some to sell in an idea – whether because of title, personality, or demographics. When navigating the corporate jungle gyms is intimidating, consider engaging mentors for advocacy and advice.
Because ultimately, there are few professional attributes as powerful as innovative thought coupled with the grit to execute.