From Wrong Fit to Right Fit

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth to help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with André Martin, who's a PhD, entrepreneur, operating advisor, board member and coach to top founders and C-suite executives. He’s helped with key C-level leadership in companies like Disney, Mars Incorporated, Nike, Target, and Google. Early in his career, he was an enterprise faculty member and senior researcher at the Center for Creative Leadership, which is an amazing organization and one of the top executive development firms in the world.

And he isn't just helping companies grow. Andre is a guest lecturer at top universities and coveted speaker on culture, engagement, design, thinking and innovation. A committed husband and father of two wonderful children and owner of a sustainable mushroom farm in the Ozark Mountains. Otherwise, he can be found hiking the rain soaked trails around Portland with his two English dogs, Birdie and the Fans.

And of course, today we're going to be talking about and I already read cover-to-cover, André, I really liked it so much. Wrong fit, right fit. What was astonishing to me is the amount, the economic amount of productivity that is lost or wrong fit. Before I continue to go on and on, Welcome and thank you for making time.

André Martin: Anita, thank you and thanks for having me on. It's a subject I care a lot about and am really happy to be here with you today.

Anita Brick: Tell us what? Let's not even go into the wrong fit. I think we've all experienced the wrong fit or trying to fit in, and it doesn't work in the long term. And you'll see from the questions that we receive from the Booth students and alumni and others, many people have had that. Define right fit for us.

André Martin: For me it was really through the interviews with the talent we talked to. Right fit is truly about a deep and unwavering connection to how a company works day to day, and it was interesting in the conversations that we had, because a lot of times we want to have this conversation around culture. What's a good culture, what's a toxic culture? What's a bad culture? And what we found was in the end, it really doesn't come down to values or purpose or mission. It comes down to how it feels to walk in the door on a random Tuesday. Does the place work in a way that makes sense to you? And that's really what the right fit is about.

Anita Brick: Okay, sounds very idealistic to me. I know what it feels like to be in wrong fit. And I also know, right fit , that I wish we had a formula, but we don't. So let's proceed. So an MBA student from Booth asked this question. I want to understand my ideal set, and yet my self-doubt leads me to edit out too much. And I do it very quickly. I would appreciate your perspective and advice on how others have gotten to their right fit.

André Martin: Fantastic. So again, when we talk to talents, one of the questions that we asked a great deal was when you found the right fit, what led to it?

And the starting point that in almost every single case, individuals have found a right fit company. They said it started with some really deep reflection about themselves. And so in the book, what we did is we took those reflections and turned them into excursions or exercises. And there are really a few core questions that I wanted to help talent ask before they ever start a job search.

The first one is getting really clear about what you value, and not the idealist values that we hold, but the values that guide the really big decisions that you make in life. And so indeed, I'll share an example from my personal story. It's that I would love to be able to describe myself as someone who values risk, innovation and taking chances.

But when I looked at the big decisions I've made, the jobs I've taken, the places I've lived, the big purchases in my life, I really value financial security. And it comes from growing up in in the Ozark Mountains with a father who didn't necessarily always give us that financial security. So it's been really important to me. I had to spend a lot of time getting really honest about what I actually value in my decisions versus what I wish I value, or what I would like others to believe that I value.

A secondary that came up, which I was really compelled by was this idea of what's the life you're trying to build? Because a career is just one element of a much larger life. It includes the place we choose to live, who we surround ourselves with, the communities were a part of the activities we take on, and often talent doesn't really put the job in the context of larger life.

The last exercise is what are you designing for right now? And again, if we don't think about that question of what matters most right here in this moment, we will often sort of make a wrong fit decision about the place that we join in terms of the job that we're doing day to day.

Anita Brick: Okay, now, not everyone has the luxury to leave where they are. Let's look at a few situations where it's clearly the wrong fit. They're looking for some next steps even before or maybe parallel to looking for something external. An MBA student said, I'm in a company where the environment, borders and hostile. I clearly don't fit in here. I understand that early stage companies need what we all call “unity”. That said, I love the work but I really don't like the way I'm treated. Your advice is greatly appreciated. How do you manage? You love the work. Maybe they have upside, they have equity or something that is keeping them there, but the hostility or fitting in is a high priority to the founders it sounds like. What do you do to manage that while you decide to stay or go?

André Martin: It's a fantastic question. And again, the first thing I'd like to say to the talent who asked this is that you're not alone. The number of people that I've talked to that are in a very similar situation. And it really came down to one of the definitions I heard for a wrong fit was this idea that feels like everybody has a secret decoder ring for success except for me.

And in that you start to feel really lonely. You start to lose confidence. You start to lose competence. You start to question whether all the previous success you had was real. That was part of coming through these interviews that really motivated me for the book is there's so many people out there in the world right now that feel like they are less deserving or less successful than they actually are, and that's why this wrong fit, right fit concept is so important is it's not about your success or your performance.

It's the fact that you're in a place that's making you feel like you're writing with your non-dominant hand. If you never try that. You should, because you end up feeling more stressed, more frustrated. Your quality goes down, it takes more effort. And that's what this feels like. One of the things that we did in the book was to talk about these buffers.

If you find yourself in a hard fit or a wrong fit situation, you can't always leave, right? We have responsibilities and duties and families and all those things, but you can put things into place that helps make that hard fit situation a little bit better. I'll share a few really quickly now.

The first one is, one of the things that we found in conflict situations is people tended to get in a fight or flight situation. They get stressed, they start working from their non-dominant parts of their personality, and in the end, they start making choices and doing things that are just about getting through the day. And if you can take a deep breath, take three steps back and say, there is a lot to learn in this situation. You can learn how to be successful in a place that doesn't work for you. If you can do that, you're going to be a great success no matter where you go next. So the first one is getting yourself into a situation where you walk in every day saying, hey, I'm in the greatest classroom on earth right now, and if you can bring that learning orientation, the days will feel easier because you sort of treat it more as a lab and less about a place that's just inherently making you depressed or sad or frustrated.

The second thing that was really important from the talents I talked to, was you got to make sure life outside of work is magic, and let me put a frame on that. Often in wrong fit situations are:  major reactions to the talents are “just work harder or successes don't come.” And the fact is that it just isn’t true, right? All day long with your non-dominant hand, you're never going to get as good as you would be if you just wrote with your other hand. One of the things you have to be careful of is you need to make sure that you're not sacrificing your life in order to try to make a wrong fit situation just a little bit better. So it's going to be about working smarter and not harder. It's going to be about making sure that things that are happening outside of work, which is still super important, that those things are where you're putting more of your attention, more of your time, that you're setting some real boundaries on your work. Otherwise you're going to hurt your relationships, and it's going to really be a result of the place that you're currently at.

I think the last one, and this is one I love, that was really interesting during the research was find a doppelganger. What is a doppelganger? It's a person in the company who has the same experiences as you, has the same competencies or skills, works in a similar area, and study them. Because if there's a person who has a very similar profile to you and they're being successful, it will show you a path that might allow you to make your days a little bit easier.

Anita Brick:That's great. There are questions about, oh my gosh, and you talk about this in the to, when I went through the interview process, it seemed one way. And when I got there, it seemed not at all the same. And this is super interesting because you and I both know that in interviews, both the companies and the candidates that you hire, talent are there to show their best, really their aspirational selves, whether it is the person or the whole organization. And even if you ask the question who succeeds here? How do you get past this aspirational haze and get to the reality without destroying your chances for an offer? And that came from another Boothie.

André Martin: I love the question, Anita, and it really was another one of those profound insights in the book. There's really three versions of most companies.

The first version, the company that you recruited. This is, as you said, the most aspirational version. It's the version that the company, if we were at our best, at our ideal, this is who we wish we were. Then there's the version of the company that you get to see on day one, and this is the best version of the company in reality: you get the best leaders coming in your onboarding, talking about what it's like to work here. You get exposure to systems, you get the best product stories. And then the third version is the version that you work in every day. And what we found in many situations is that we're losing engagement and productivity, because the company that we're hiring into is not the company that we're providing people day to day.

And so there's a really big piece of work for company leaders and HR executives to think about how much of a difference is there in those three types of company? But if you're a talent in that situation, the most important thing to do in the interviewing process is to do two things.

The first one is to make sure that you are finding a way to discern how the company works day to day. How do you make decisions, solve problems, socialize, give feedback, assess high performance, resolve conflict, develop people. Allow information to flow. Socialize. How do they treat time? How do they think about recovery? And those are questions you can actually ask point blank. And typically leaders will be forthcoming.

Anita Brick: I mean not to interrupt. Do you think so? I mean, if they're showing their aspirational aside and their day to day is less than that, why would they share that with you?

I mean, it seems a little counterintuitive to me.

André Martin: The reason is, is because, you know, most leaders, if you ask them the question of like, you know, what do you value or what's it like to work there? It's a big general question, right? So they're going to fill in the gaps with the most aspirational element because in the end they're trying to sell you a product.

If you get them into the more specific questions, it's harder to hide an aspiration. One of my favorite questions is to ask people, describe for me what's on your calendar for the rest of the day? Describe for me a typical day at work. Describe for me an example of a team working together on a project. How did they come together? What do they do? And so the more specific you can be about how work gets done, the harder it is for anyone on the other side of that to hide an aspiration. And the second thing was a real interesting point, and I love the question, even though you might not get the answer you want, is this idea of really asking the question of what type of person succeeds here.

That's a big again, general question. Yeah, but if you ask the question of, hey, tell me about an actual person, give me their name, give me their title, that joined in the last 90 days that has been able to find success quicker than everybody else. And so again, if you can get really specific and get them in a place where they're talking about someone, it gives you an avenue to ask much more pointed and very sort of reality based questions.

The last thing I would say is no matter what you do right now, the recruitment process is mostly marketing. We're all on our best behavior, both the candidates and the company. So if you're wanting to find out really a lot more about who the company is, I suggest you go to 1 or 2 places, either to LinkedIn, find a person who spent a high number of years of the company returning, rejoin, but they've recently left, and reach out to them.

If they're in their network, it's even easier. But most people are really willing to talk about a company once they've gone, and they're willing to give you the honest truth. The second thing you can do is pay attention to the employee review sites. Now, many of those are disgruntled employees, but in that entirety, the information you can find a great deal about how a company works.

And it's interesting. Anita, one more point before we let this go, because I think this is one of those fascinating pieces of research I've seen in a long time. The group at MIT, along with culture 500, just recently did a study on company values and what they found was that the espoused values of a company, what they publish versus the experience that employees have around those values day to day. There's zero correlation. And often in many cases, there's actually a negative correlation between the espoused values and the experience. And these are among some of the best culture companies in the world. And so I think there's just really this sense of whatever you can do to dig a little bit deeper, to triangulate your information, to make sure that you're going as deep and getting as much reality as you can. You're going to be better off.

Anita Brick: Okay, that's fair. I do think that maybe your approach is a little idealistic in this way, because not everyone is that forthcoming. But I do like the idea a lot of speaking to someone who's was there a long time recently and way how disgruntled they may be because things change and people leave. Doing all this, and I love the idea of triangulating the data that you collect as a candidate so that you don't get swayed by the first thing you find that carries through, so that you really have a good base of data. And if it does counter what you've learned first, please pay attention to it. That's super important. So let's talk about two people who've been in the company a while. And neither is super happy right now because self-proclaimed decisions that they've made. So one is a student and you talk about side gigs and being able to grow and develop through that. And she said, I'm not interested in creating a side gig to expand my knowledge, skills and experience. I'd like to focus my resources at my organization. That said, my company wants me to stay where I am and do my job. I feel like my best self is languishing and largely wasted. How have you seen others resolve this issue without leaving the organization?

André Martin: It's a tough question, right? It really comes down to how long have they been in the in the position? How long have they been at the company? Because what I can tell you is that the thing that I heard a great deal from talent is when you're in a wrong fit, it feels like I'm on a Ferris wheel, like the work never ends, but I don't feel like I'm going anywhere. It feels like being punched in the face every day. I didn't want to go to work. And so if you find yourself in that situation, my best advice is to do two things. One is, I think you have to do a real, honest assessment about whether this is simply about your current team or your current job, or is the company——does it work in a different way than you do? I think secondly is I would always encourage people to say, hey, if you feel like you're languishing, if you feel like you are not progressing, you have to own your career and you may not be able to do the job right away， but often I see people want to get in a victim mentality around those things.

They want to come up with all the reasons why they're stuck or they can't move. And the reality is that within companies, you have a great deal of opportunity. And so my first advice is to say, hey, what in the current job isn't working for you? Is it the leader? Is it the actual job you're doing? Is it the team then to be able to sort of take a step back and really ask the question, what are you looking for then? You know, what is again a life you're trying to build?  What is the company that you want to work for? What is the job that you want? And then you have to start searching that out. I would tell you that there are within companies people who will help. There are mentors and there's storytellers and there's best friends at work.

Start the process by just getting out of putting your energy towards what's wrong and starting to ask questions. Hey, what do you want that you don't have? Start building a profile for your ideal job. What would it look like and really write that ideal job description for yourself, and then start paying attention to opportunities where you can put that into play in small and big ways.

Sometimes there might be a position available to that you can interview. For other times there might just be a project that you could start working on. It gets you a step closer because careers are about the next right step, not about these big leaps or jumps. So that would be my advice to start with.

Anita Brick: I like that idea. And I think within large companies, maybe in smaller ones too, there are, I would call them work adjacent committees and groups that are doing things where you could develop additional skills, knowledge and experience alongside your job. That may just motivate you, but I really think you made a very, very important point. If you make yourself a victim, others will jump on board and you'll be stuck for a really long time and being able to find what is working, there have to be things that are working. Clearly, the person is acknowledged for the work that she's doing because otherwise they would probably want to go somewhere else in the company or outside of the company. So maybe that's a place to start.

André Martin: That's exactly right. And I do want to I do want to land this point of need is that again, to this talent out there who can feel very lonely in those moments. You're not alone. 30% of new joiners leave their job in the first 90 days, 50% of managers are in burnout. 40% of employees feel isolated at work. This is a large systemic problem that's happening. Really, what we have to stay focused on is making sure that we are doing our due diligence in understanding what it is we actually want, what we're looking for, because over time, the universe and I believe this will help us get there.

But if you're if you're not focused on the right set of questions, if you're not focused on things you're actually driving toward and wanting, then nobody else can be either. And so get really clear about your ideal job, about the talent story you have, about the life you want to create, and then start telling that story. And people will tend to align towards it, and you're going to find yourself in a little bit of a better spot.

Anita Brick: Agree. So here's someone who did align earlier in his career, his jobs and his next steps. And all of those things with his values, his real values, and also the life he wanted to create. And he realizes that was probably a mistake, or at least it is today. But he can't move forward. And he said, I've made safe decisions in my career so far, focusing on greater security and fitting in, not finding a right fit. Now, I don't know where to begin to turn that around, because my reputation is really focused on fitting in better and I really want to find a better fit. André, where do you coach other individuals to start to make this change?

André Martin: I would start here. Indeed it is. Once you join a company into a role, we often become a really narrow version of ourselves. It's really a strange phenomenon that you walk into a company with all this breadth of experience and skill, and then you take this very narrow role, especially in bigger companies, because you're very specialized and that becomes the entirety of who you are. Over time, because you're doing this very narrow thing, you can tend to lose certain skill, certain capabilities, certain knowledge. You can build our muscles atrophy over the course of your career. You will make different job choices for very different reasons. With this individual, it sounds like there was a time when the job had to be a provider of stability for him and his family, right? So we are sub optimizing the job to optimize our larger life.

And then as we move forward in life, those things change. So again, when we look at this idea of right fit, wrong fit, this is something that we need to be assessing almost on a quarterly, if not yearly basis. With the pace of change both within companies and also in our lives. But we tend not to do that. We tend to take a look at ourselves before we maybe jump into a new job or a new company and then we just don't pay as much attention. And I'm a big believer that, hey, you need to re-recruit yourself back to your life every single day. My advice to this person to start with, is it might be time to again just open your eyes really wide, take three steps back and go back and look at what do you value today? What are you looking for out of your career? What is the life you're trying to build? Are you a company? Are you a craft? or are you cause? Of course, if we do that a little bit more often, I think we'll do two things. One is we'll have a lot more alignment and commitment to the place that we are, and we'll be able to see opportunities that are out in front of us in a different way because we're we're sort of paying attention to it a little bit more. We need to really pay attention to that as much as we can to make sure that we're walking in to the office every day. We're walking in with purpose.

Anita Brick: Really agree. And actually, you laid the foundation for a question from another Boothie about company, craft and cause. And she said, I love the idea of company, craft and cause. How do I get and keep all three of them. I can't wait to hear what you have to say, because this is super important to me.

André Martin: Well, I would say this is unfortunately, that is the giant purple unicorn of a career. To be able to have all three at one time. It's possible, but the real nature of that question is about understanding which is primary for you. If you think about individuals who are of company. And I'll give you an example of a place that I worked for Nike for many years, and there are so many ex-athletes and lovers of sport that work there. They will be there their entire career because they love the brand and they love the product so much. If that's the case, there's a certain way you have to build your your career. If you're going to start a company for the entirety of your time, you need to work in as many functions and locations as possible, because the way that you are going to be successful is to gain as much broad knowledge about how the company works and who works in it as you can.

Now, it's very different than a career that's built on craft. I'm a craft person. I knew from the minute I was 26 walking to grad school wondering what I wanted to do with my life, and for me, I needed to be able to gain as many diverse experiences inside the area of town and culture as I possibly could. So that almost guarantees that I can't stay at the same company for 20 years, because the more systems that I see, the more places that I can practice talent or culture or leadership, the better I'm going to be at the craft.

And then the last one is the cause, and cause is about this idea that there is just a large injustice or problem that you have to see saw. And if you're, of course, you have to follow the energy, you have to follow the groups that are doing the best and most important work in those spaces that might be one company for your entire career, or it might mean you have to move or follow new and greatest thinkers and doers in the space.

Could you have all three? Yes, for short periods of time, but you really need to know which is primary, because that's going to dictate how you think about your career, where you work and what you do.

Anita Brick: I love it and that is aspiration. But I think it's good to keep in mind that you can have all three at times and to keep that as an aspiration, because if we do, it'll be in our sight line, pick up the things that allow us to add one two or for going from really bad fit all three.

André Martin: Exactly right. It's a great aspiration, but the places that sometimes people get stuck is they're trying to optimize for all three. And so I think of it very differently, holding the aspiration of finding the place, the absolute greatest company for you to work out where you can do the thing you love to do in a company that you care about, that happens to work in the cause that you find most important to solve.

But when you're thinking about your career steps, the next thing you might know, make sure you know which of those things is primary, because it helps you take the next right step to continue to build out your skill set and your and your core experiences.

Anita Brick:I love that because it's true. If you try to optimize for all three, you ends up with something that probably isn't very optimal at all.

André Martin: Or you just miss really great opportunities to learn. You know, I mean, there was a number of companies I went to and I loved them all for different reasons. Mars is a great example. I loved working at Mars. I loved that company. Was I a believer in producing dog foods the most important thing to do in the world? No, but there were many things in the company that resonated with me around how I could learn to be better about my craft, how I could work with tremendous general managers that are global in their orientation. And so, you know, just making sure that you're holding that so you can see the opportunity in front of you in the right way.

Anita Brick: I agree. You have time for one more question?

André Martin: I've all the time in the world.

Anita Brick: Awesome. So you've given us a lot to think about the book. It's very practical and tactical and also makes you think. But that all said, for those who are listening, what are three things that a person can begin to do today to move from wrong fit to right fit and create more success, happiness and positive growth?

André Martin: I would say the first one, and we've talked about a couple times and I'm going to reinforce it again, is before you start looking for your next job, make sure you're really clear about who you are and what you're designing for, because the minute you open that first job that you're in the marketing machine, you're looking at aspiration, you're looking at ideas, and we start to suffer from confirmation bias when we don't know what we're really designing for. We get attracted to bright, shiny things, interesting brands, really cool people, micro kitchens filled with all these great snacks. Like all these things start to blind this a little bit. What actually matters to us as individuals in the everyday.

I think the second thing I would say to you is, no matter where you are, whether you're in the wrong fit or right fit, make sure that you're paying attention to the buffers that allow you to hang on to this great experience you have, or make a hard thing better. Make sure that you're connecting to the purpose of the cause of your company as much as possible. Make sure that you're finding ways to learn and grow every day. Make sure that you're building deep connections in the customer that you're serving. Find the best friend at work. Find a doppelganger. Lean on company storytellers and mentors and role models. And really, more than anything, never lose this idea that the ultimate goal is to make life outside of work magic. Sometimes when you do that, you're doing a job because you need financial security. Sometimes you're taking a job because your spouse or partner got this great gig somewhere, and you're following them to help them achieve their dreams.

Sometimes the job is simply a means to allow you to get out in the rain soaked trails in Portland, Oregon. But if we don't really know, or we're not paying attention to making sure life outside of work is magic, there's no way that life inside of work can ever be.

Anita Brick: That’s really profound. Anything else that you want to share with us?

André Martin: The last thing that I would say in general and and I want every talent listening to know this is there is a right fit company out there for you. There is a place where you can come to work almost every day and feel seen and valued. You can bring your experience, you can do your best work. And I think the real trick in this is being able to be authentic in the interviewing process. So the person on the other side can see the real you and help make the choice about whether or not this job, this company, this leader is the right leader for you to work with. Be really careful. The only thing you control is how you show up. Be really careful of showing up either in the interview process or in your first days as someone other than who you want to be for the rest of your life.

And if you do that, you're going to find a place that works for you. And if you don't do that, you're going to actually find that you're probably going to end up in more wrong fit experiences, because that's the data people have.

Anita Brick: It's a great point. And I would say something that you do talk about in the book that we didn't talk about is that the company as it was the day you joined is dynamic. So it's important to keep an eye on things, like you said, not once a year if you notice things changing, if you notice people leaving, if you notice priorities changing, all those things that ultimately, in aggregate, could change a right fit into a wrong fit or vice versa for that matter. But keeping that in mind so that you are more in control of your future than being like, oh my gosh, what happened to this company used to be perfect for me.

André Martin: I mean, I'm really glad you brought that up because, you know, the truth is, is that companies are dynamic. And so our people yeah, the company that we joined five years ago is not the company we're part of today, but we often want to hold on to the first moment that we met you. Right. The first moment that I joined. And that's just not true. And that's I think part of that is we just don't do enough consistent re-assessment and consistent re-recruitment. Make sure that the company reported today is a place that you can be as committed to as you were that first moment you joined. And the same is true for individuals. To your point is, we are dynamic, lives are the greatest classroom on earth. We have the opportunity to learn unbelievable lessons in every 12 to 15 hour in a day that we're awake. I look at that. I'm like, I'm a different person today than I'm going to be tomorrow. And some have different needs, different expectations, different hopes, different skills, different knowledge to work from. And so I have to, before I walk into my job every day, really ask the question of what do I need now? What do I want to learn now? What do I want to do now and walk through that door looking for that? And if you can't find it, well then take some time and figure out your next, your next gig. But if you can find it or you have it, just don't do what a lot of people do, which is forsake it for the bright, shiny things.

You know, the truth is, is that the new thing that's exciting? Where is the old thing that's right for us that actually feels more like a really warm heart. And we sometimes mistake something that feels comfortable and is actually healthy for us, for being bored or not being excited. And so just keep an eye on that as well as you go out and build these wonderful careers that I'm sure most people coming out of Booth are going to build.

Anita Brick: That's right. And I wish it was not ambiguous. And it is. And so, you know, it takes deep, critical, strategic self-reflection on a regular basis. And you've laid out some very concrete, actionable things that we can all do. And I thank you very much. I really appreciate your making the time to share your wisdom with us today.

André Martin: You got it Anita. Thanks for inviting me. Thanks for reading the book, and thanks for making this such an easy discussion to have. Really appreciate you.

Anita Brick: Thanks. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth, keep Advancing.