A Lion Needs To Hunt

Are you comfortable in your career? Are you looking forward only to Friday and the start of the weekend? Is the highlight of your week going to lunch on Wednesdays because its half price Burger Day? Are you whining everyday about your lack of opportunity, poor pay and how you are never getting anywhere in your current role? If this is you, I feel sorry for you because your career and life is passing you by. You are office prey as you lurk in the shadows and avoid lions.

Or, are you looking for ways to improve the performance of your organization? Are you taking professional risks that will benefit your career and subsequently improve your skill set and compensation? Do you take the initiative to leave organizations that are a poor fit for you rather than staying there remaining idle for years on end waiting for a miracle that will never happen? Do you make your own magic by taking action and moving forward? If this is a description of you, I am getting out of your way before you run me over. You are a lion and are taking control of your career!

Well, which paragraph best sums up your career and work life as it stands today? If you are sitting in a job like a sailboat on the ocean without a sail and being pushed all around by the waves, you are prey and are allowing your circumstances to control you. You are probably sitting in a role that is at risk because you are not actively contributing to the success of the organization and are merely collecting a paycheck. For some, these roles suit them fine, but for others they are trapped in these roles by artificial restraints within their mind which prevent them from leaving these life-draining jobs and crossing over into another job that will be more life giving. If you are going to work fired up and thinking constantly about how to tackle the next task in order to add value to your organization, you are a lion.

Just a note here for my National Geographic and Animal Planet watching friends (and my kids), I recognize that the lioness does most of the hunting and the male lion's main job is to protect the pride including the cubs but work with me through this article and note that “Lion” in this instance is the “King or Queen of the Jungle”. Now back to the article…….

If you are a lion, then you need to hunt. You cannot sit still and wait for something to happen. You are wired to get out there and make a contribution to the team, create something of value or complete a necessary organizational task. Organizations with lions crush their competition because the lions are driving organizational change, improving processes and doing whatever it takes to succeed.

However, when a lion is in an organization and is surrounded by prey (see first paragraph), they will lose their roar and ability to hunt. They stop looking for opportunities, get lazy and stop looking for projects to complete and often sleep walk around the office. If you are a lion and notice there is prey around you, it’s critical for you take an environmental scan of your surroundings and ask yourself the following:

• Is the prey in your domain?

• Are you tasked with the same projects as the prey?

• Are you beginning to act like them (lazy, complaining, not tackling difficult projects)?

• Are you going to work late and leaving early?

• Are you seeking to improve or are you just happy at maintaining the status quo?

However, the key question you need to ask yourself is whether or not the environment changed or did you change? If the environment has changed then it may be time for you to find a different savanna (i.e., workplace) so that you can become who you once were in the past. If the change occurred within you and the environment is the same, then you need to identify why you changed? You need to figure out the causes because then you will be able to return to your previous state as a lion.

To sum, lions need to hunt! They need to go out and prowl around the proverbial workplace landscape and rule it to ensure the organization is poised for success and growth while mitigating both internal and external risks. What are you going to do tomorrow at work? Are you going to look to see if the cafeteria is serving your favorite soup or are you going in there to tackle a project that will add value to the organization and establish yourself as a lion?

ROAR - you know what to do!

Dave