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This summer, we ate a lot of bread from Earth, Sky, Time, a local Vermont community farm.
Earth, Sky, Time; three words that beautifully summarize the collaboration of three necessary elements to create the gifts of delicious bread, produce, and farm products.
These words got me thinking about the rule of three and why it’s so effective. It turns out that humans gravitate toward threes because our brains are wired to process information through pattern recognition. Three is the smallest possible pattern, which makes it highly memorable. When you start looking, the rule of three is everywhere.
In the way we organize our lives:
- Time: past, present, and future
- Stories: beginning, middle, and end
- Meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner
- Primary colors: red, yellow, and blue
- Laws of motion: Inertia, force, action
- Atoms: protons, neutrons, and electrons
In communications:
- I came, I saw, I conquered
- Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll
- Of the people, by the people, for the people
In marketing and advertising messages:
- Just do it
- Snap, crackle, pop
- I Love NY
And on and on.
Today’s focus is a rule of three based on Aristotle’s unity of action, time, and place. Typically used for the dramatic structure of a play, the unities of action, time, and place translate beautifully for anyone wanting to excel and get promoted at work. Let’s break it down.
Action
Singular action means understanding the elemental driver of business, what defines the ideal customer experience, and your role in that process. If you understand the ideal relationship between the customer and your product or service, you can organize your work to feed that relationship.
Getting clarity: Connect your projects and workflow as closely as possible to customer or client experience. Work tied to customer or client experience is the most visible to managers as it directly impacts their performance goals and has a direct line to promotability for you. Seek out colleagues whose work represents another link or adjacency to client experience and look for ways to collaborate. Collaboration creates a larger footprint, showcasing a more connected scope of work and making you and your collaborators visible to senior leaders.
For organizing action for promotability, you can use this rule of three
Client: How does this project connect to or improve client experience?
Company: How does this project connect with the organization’s business goals?
Career: How does this project elevate my skills or career goals?
These filters keep you focused on what’s most important for you and your organization’s long-term success.
Time
Time is the span over which action takes place. It sounds like a simple concept, but at work, time is often compressed with competing deadlines, fire drills, and unanticipated new projects. Managing the unexpected puts pressure on daily productivity. This can lead to distraction and result in prioritizing what’s urgent over what’s important.
Getting clarity: Use your 1-1 meetings to prioritize projects and clarify the areas where your skills will move the work ahead and where help from your supervisor or a peer is needed. This will help you manage your time efficiently. When asking for help, prepare in advance and be specific about where the roadblocks lie, what help you need, and who you believe is the best person to help.
When faced with issues you’ve never seen before, there is no need to go it alone. The longer you are in the workforce, the more you realize that very few issues are unique. Tap into the experience of others for help and reciprocate in areas where you shine. When reaching out to colleagues, ask pointed questions for clarification so you can be efficient with their time and yours. (Please don’t ‘pick their brains’. No one enjoys this activity!)
Finally, be efficient with how you plan your professional development. Focus on filling skills gaps first and then build in new competencies.
For promotability related to time, preparing a plan shows problem-solving and critical thinking skills, not transferring the issue to your manager. Demonstrating insight and foresight against projects and challenges shows that you are efficient with your time and focused on delivering success.
Place
Place focuses on a singular location. In today’s hybrid world, that can be in person or online, so the focus is on the moment you are together. Use the idea of place to set the stage for a conversation. How is everyone showing up? How visible are you within the group?
Getting clarity: When you are with others, be an active voice. If you are more introverted, you can offer suggestions that build on an idea being discussed using the Yes, And technique (Example: ‘and then we could’) or ask a question that takes the conversation in a new direction (Example: ‘what if we’).
If you feel stuck, fall back on a question or assertion about how the discussed issue benefits the client or customer. Give yourself a personal goal of asking one connected question or building on the ideas discussed in every meeting you attend.
Visibility counts if you are looking for a promotion.
Use the interconnected rules of action, time, and place to organize your work and keep your visibility high with your managers and colleagues.
Focused work, collaborative thinking, and active participation get you noticed and increase your ability to be promoted.
If you know or have a young person starting out in their career, or if you hire them, this book is for you.
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