Michelle: Here’s a terrifying thought for your Monday morning: What if being excellent at your job is precisely why your career is stalled? What if all that hard work is actually making you less influential? Mark: Whoa, hold on. That sounds completely backwards. How can being good at your job possibly be a bad thing? That’s the whole point, isn't it? You show up, you do good work, you get rewarded. Michelle: That’s what we’re all taught. But today we’re diving into a book that blows that assumption right out of the water. It’s called Influence and Impact: Discover and Excel at What Your Organization Needs From You The Most, by Bill Berman and George Bradt. And their central argument is that countless competent, hard-working people are failing because they are absolute experts at the wrong job. Mark: The wrong job? But they were hired for that job. They have a title, a job description… Michelle: Exactly. And that’s the trap. What's fascinating is the author combo here. You have Bill Berman, a master executive coach who deals with the psychology of leadership, paired with George Bradt, a former top exec from giants like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. He’s seen the brutal corporate reality. Mark: So you have the therapist and the general in the same room. Michelle: Precisely. And they came together to diagnose this one massive problem: the great disconnect between the work people do and the work the organization needs. And that disconnect, they argue, is a career killer.

Mark: Okay, I’m intrigued and a little bit scared. What does this 'great disconnect' look like in the real world? Michelle: The book has this perfect, simple story that I think everyone can relate to. It’s from one of the authors, Bill, back when he was 15 years old. In 1970, he gets a job at a camera store in downtown Washington, D.C. He’s an aspiring photographer, he’s thrilled. His goal is to earn enough money to buy a top-of-the-line Nikon camera. Mark: Right, so he wants to talk shop. He wants to sell fancy lenses, talk about f-stops, all the cool stuff. Michelle: Exactly. He envisions himself as this camera guru. But what actually happens? The store is in a high-traffic tourist area. So, day in and day out, people come in not to buy a new camera, but with the one they already have, asking incredibly basic questions. "How do I rewind the film?" "My flash isn't working." "How does the zoom on this thing work?" Mark: Oh, I can feel the teenage angst from here. He wants to be a professional, and he's stuck on the help desk for amateurs. Michelle: He gets more and more frustrated. This isn't the job he signed up for! He’s disgusted by their lack of knowledge. One day, a customer asks a particularly simple question, and he just snaps at them. The owner of the store sees the whole thing, pulls him aside, and says something that changes his perspective entirely. Mark: Let me guess: "You're fired." Michelle: Almost. The owner says, "Bill, what do you think your job is here?" And Bill says, "To sell cameras." The owner shakes his head and explains, "Your job is to make customers feel taken care of. Our real money isn't in selling a few expensive cameras. It's in selling roll after roll of film and, more importantly, film developing. If you make these tourists feel smart and supported, they'll come back to us for all their film needs for the rest of their trip." Mark: Wow. So Bill thought his job was being a high-end camera expert, but his actual job was to be a friendly, patient film salesman. The disconnect. Michelle: That's the perfect summary. He was focused on what was interesting and prestigious to him, not on what was mission-critical for the business. The authors argue this exact dynamic plays out every single day in the corporate world, just with higher stakes. Mark: I can see that. I've totally been that guy, focusing on the 'cool' part of a project and procrastinating on the boring but essential administrative part that actually keeps the wheels on. But this isn't just for entry-level jobs, right? This happens to executives too? Michelle: Oh, absolutely. The book gives a powerful example of a leader named Tommy, a tech genius who ran a 1500-person business unit. He was so smart and experienced that he could see the solution to any problem instantly. So what did he do? Mark: He told his team the answer and moved on. Michelle: Worse. He’d tell them the answer, and then he’d hover over them, correcting their work, making adjustments, essentially doing their jobs for them. He was micromanaging on a global scale. Mark: And the team must have loved that. Michelle: They resented him. They felt demoralized, under-challenged, and untrusted. Meanwhile, Tommy was working 80-hour weeks, feeling completely burnt out and underappreciated. He thought his job was to be the chief problem-solver. But his boss brought in a coach who helped him realize his actual job was to focus on enterprise strategy, long-term reorganization, and building his team's capability. He was doing his direct reports' jobs instead of his own. Mark: He was still in the camera store, just a much, much bigger one. He was focused on the familiar, comfortable task of solving technical problems instead of the ambiguous, difficult work of true leadership. Michelle: Exactly. And the book is full of these archetypes. The person who tries to do their colleague's job because they think they can do it better. The person who sticks rigidly to their official job description even when the company's needs have completely changed. They're all doing 'a' job, and maybe even doing it well. But it's the wrong one.

Mark: Okay, I'm convinced. I'm probably doing the wrong job. My team is probably doing the wrong job. We're all just happily selling cameras to each other while the store is on fire. It's a bleak diagnosis. What's the cure? Michelle: This is where the book moves from diagnosis to a really empowering solution. The authors say you need to throw out your official, outdated job description and create what they call a 'Working Job Description.' Mark: A working job description? What does that mean? Is it just a to-do list? Michelle: It’s much deeper than that. Think of it less as a document and more as an intelligence-gathering mission. Your goal is to become a detective within your own organization to figure out what the actual job is. The book provides a framework for this, a kind of reconnaissance plan. Mark: I like the sound of that. It feels proactive. So what's on this mission checklist? Michelle: It starts with understanding the big picture. First, the business itself. What is the company’s mission? What are its strategic priorities for the next 18 months? Where is it trying to win? You have to know the destination before you can figure out your role in the journey. Mark: That makes sense. You can't be a valuable sailor if you don't know where the ship is going. Michelle: Second, and this is huge, you have to understand the organizational culture. How does work actually get done around here? Is it collaborative or competitive? Is decision-making top-down or by consensus? Is communication direct and blunt, or indirect and polite? Acting against the cultural grain, even with the best intentions, can completely undermine your influence. Mark: Right, like the story in the intro about the banker, Ian, who insisted on wearing casual clothes in a formal Zegna-suit environment. He was competent, but he didn't look the part, so nobody took him seriously. Michelle: Exactly. And finally, you have to understand the people: your manager and your key stakeholders. What are their biggest pressures? What does success look like for them? What do they need from you to achieve their goals? Your job is to make your boss successful. Mark: Okay, so you investigate the business, the culture, and the key players. That sounds like a lot of work. How do you even start? Michelle: The book gives a fantastic high-stakes example with a CEO named Dana. He was hired to lead a company that was backed by a private equity firm. Dana was an inspirational, visionary leader. He thought his job was to build a long-term, amazing culture and a grand vision for the future. Mark: Sounds like what a good CEO should do. Michelle: It does. But the company's revenues were lagging. The board, controlled by the PE firm, was getting nervous. A coach asked Dana one simple, devastating question: "What is the PE firm's exit plan?" Dana had assumed they were in it for the long haul, maybe five to seven years. But after a few discreet inquiries, he discovered the brutal truth. Mark: They wanted out. Soon. Michelle: They wanted to sell the company in the next 12 to 18 months. Suddenly, Dana's job wasn't to be a long-term visionary. His actual job, his 'Working Job Description,' was to be the company's de facto Senior Vice President of Sales. His mission was to juice the top-line revenue and cash flow as quickly as possible to make the company look attractive for a quick sale. Mark: Wow. So he had to completely pivot from being a marathon runner to a sprinter. Michelle: Completely. He shifted his focus to the day-to-day tactical activities of the sales force. He got into the weeds. And it worked. The numbers shot up, the PE firm got an attractive offer, and the company was sold. If he had stuck to his original, 'inspirational' job description, he would have failed spectacularly. Mark: That's a great story for a CEO, but how does someone like me, a mid-level manager or an individual contributor, do this? I can't just walk up to the board and ask about their exit strategy. Michelle: That's the beauty of the framework. You don't have to. You gather intelligence in two ways. First, through 'overt data.' This is just asking smart questions. You can ask your manager, "What are your biggest priorities this quarter?" or "What does success look like for our team by the end of the year?" You can ask project partners, "What's the biggest obstacle you're facing that I might be able to help with?" Mark: So, just being curious and having strategic conversations. Michelle: Yes. And the second way is by observing 'implicit data.' This is watching what actually gets rewarded in the organization. Who gets promoted? What kinds of projects get funding and attention? What behaviors are praised in public meetings? The organization is constantly telling you what it values, but you have to learn to read the signals. Mark: It’s like learning a new language. The language of what actually matters. Michelle: That’s a perfect way to put it. You're decoding the organization's true priorities. And once you do, you can write your own 'Working Job Description' that aligns your unique skills directly with those priorities. That’s where real influence and impact are born.

Mark: So the big shift here is moving from being a passive 'employee' who just follows a job description to becoming an active 'consultant' to your own role, constantly diagnosing what the business needs. Michelle: Exactly. And the authors, Berman and Bradt, argue this isn't just about selfish careerism. It's about making a genuine impact. You can't have a real, meaningful impact if your efforts are misaligned with the organization's core needs. It's like pushing with all your might against the wrong wall. Mark: You just get tired and the wall doesn't move. And it’s why the book has been so highly praised in leadership circles, right? It takes these concepts that are usually reserved for expensive executive coaching and makes them accessible. Michelle: It really does. It gives everyone a practical playbook. It’s about taking control and moving from a mindset of "What am I supposed to do?" to "What is most needed, and how can I be the one to provide it?" Mark: That feels so much more powerful. It changes the entire dynamic. So for our listeners who are feeling that disconnect, who feel like they're working hard but not getting anywhere, what's a good first step? Michelle: The book suggests many, but here’s a simple, powerful one you can do this week. Schedule a few minutes with your direct manager and ask one simple question: "Thinking about the next 90 days, what is the single most important thing I can deliver that would make the biggest difference for you and our team?" Mark: And then just listen. Really listen. Michelle: The answer might surprise you. It might not be the project you thought was most important. It might be something completely different. But that answer is the first clue in your mission to uncover your real job. Mark: I love that. It’s a small action with the potential for a huge insight. I'd love to hear what our listeners discover if they try it. Let us know what you find out. It’s a fascinating exercise. Michelle: It really is. It’s the first step toward building real influence. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.