When you begin your career, you’re what I would call a "taskmaster" or “order taker.” At least, to some extent, you should be if you want to be successful. You don’t have a lot of real-world experience to glean from. It’s a stage where you are learning how to have a job, manage yourself and potentially manage other people.

You weren’t necessarily brought on to rock the boat. You are there to get stuff done.

What about as you grow in your career? When do you move out of that role?

No matter where you are in your career, you are likely going to fluidly move back and forth in those positions. I know I certainly have over time.

The Appeal of Order Taking

Staying in an order taker mode does have a certain level of appeal. After all, you don’t subject yourself to any perceived risk. You are doing exactly what you're told. Most of the time, you aren’t going to lose your job. I once heard a person tell me “I just do what I’m told to make them happy and I get to keep my job.”

But there is another angle. Doing what you’re told and just following orders could feel like an act of service. The intent is really good! You just want to help get what other people feel like they need!

What’s wrong with that? On the surface: absolutely nothing. Every company needs teammates like that!

If you dig deeper, positioning yourself to have more of that strategic partner mindset is a true act of service. You get a boss, colleague, or client in a place where you are helping them get what they need and not what they just want. It takes way more effort. It involves more risk. But sometimes service (and growth) require degrees of risk.

So where do you start? I’ll share my approach using personal experience.

Step One: Build Trust By Order Taking

I’ll admit, that probably sounds like a contradiction. But, to be a trusted strategic partner, you have to build trust. The best way to do that is to build up trust by getting the little things done. You don’t want to come into making the change with guns blazing. Show the people you’re working with that you have the competency to be trusted with bigger ideas.

When I started at Womble, I didn’t try to make a lot of digital changes on day one. I took time to learn how the team did things from a digital marketing perspective. My first several weeks were just making sure the basics got done, taking on smaller asks, and not rocking the boat too much. Over time, I started finding ways to implement change and took a crawl-walk-run approach to our change management.

Step Two: Get Quick Wins

This is more of a Step 1b but it’s important. You may have big audacious plans going into a new situation. Maybe you are a strategist at an ad agency and want to help your client take some big swings. You could be like me, going into a large firm and seeing some long-term projects you want to get underway.

The people around you need to know you’re capable of getting stuff done. So, in addition to a brief stint of order taking, find projects that are more quick turn efforts that can also turn heads.

I should note that you should balance quick wins with not being overly reactive to requests. It’s more art than science making this delineation but it’s important to do well here.

Step Three: Ask Good Questions

Often the best way to help someone isn’t to have all the answers but to ask the right questions. Many requests or demands are solutions in search of a problem. Take time to understand the needs of the person requesting something from you. Make sure to diagnose the true need rather than just a want.

If things shake out well, you may help that person come to a different conclusion on what they need you to deliver for them. It better serves them and helps you make much better use of your time and resources!

Things may not always shake out differently and you may have to grin and bear it on a project. Even when this happens, just the act of asking great questions helps the other person feel heard - and they’ll better trust your feedback on a later project.

Play the long game. This leads me to my last point.

Step Four: Pick Your Battles

As I noted earlier, there are some projects that you’ll just have to grin and bear. It’s a reality. You have to be an order taker because the fight to position yourself as a strategic partner isn’t worth the return on effort. If you have competing priorities you have to be strategic pick where done is truly better than perfect.

You won’t always get those judgment calls right but don’t beat yourself up when you don’t. It’s part of growth. Learn from it and move on.

Plus: you don’t want to push back on everything. That’s not a partnership. That’s just being a jerk.

Less Volume. More Impact.

One appeal of being a taskmaster is that you've measured the volume of work. The more tasks you can check off, it’s more straightforward to quantify your value. This approach, while necessary for a season, will plateau.

Challenge yourself to be a strategic partner. It’s where career advancement happens in the long run.

It’s also scary.

Being a strategic partner may mean you have a shorter to-do list. But you have more skin in the game. You’re adding more value but also held more accountable for your ideas. Trust me: you’ll have days where you’re nostalgic for the old days of being the trusted taskmaster.

What would you add?

What other ways have you moved from being a trusted taskmaster to a valuable strategic partner to your bosses or clients?

How To Move From "Order Taker" To "Strategic Partner"