This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Startup of You" by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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How do you grow your career like a startup? What are three entrepreneurship principles everyone should follow?
There are three principles you need to treat your career like a startup: developing your competitive edge, becoming adaptive to changing circumstances, and cultivating a network of supporters. By applying these principles, you can stand out from your competitors, make bold career decisions, and navigate unexpected obstacles.
Continue reading to learn how to grow your career, according to Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha’s book The Startup of You.
Principle 1: Develop Your Competitive Edge
To learn how to grow your career, the authors suggest you develop a unique competitive edge—something that makes you different and better than other people. In a global work economy, you’re competing with many people with similar capabilities. Success relies on making yourself seem more valuable and desirable than others. According to the authors, your competitive edge is made up of a foundation of valuable assets, a guiding set of personal values and ambitions, and an understanding of your market’s needs.
(Shortform: Hoffman and Casnocha’s strategy for developing your competitive edge involves asking yourself what you have, but it’s equally important to assess what you lack when trying to stay on top of the competition. Consider doing a personal SWOT analysis, a technique often used by businesses when planning out their strategies. Using this framework, you identify not only your strengths but also your weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. When thinking about opportunities, for example, you might notice that your current company offers free training for a new technology that you can take advantage of to build your competitive edge.)
Principle 2: Be Adaptive
In addition to developing competitive advantages, like successful startups, you must also become adaptive in your career. When you prioritize adaptability, you can not only survive unpredictable challenges but also seize unexpected opportunities. To fashion a flexible career path, the authors suggest you create backup plans, open yourself up to more opportunities, and take calculated risks.
(Shortform note: Research supports Hoffman and Casnocha’s suggestion to be adaptive, with one study finding that adaptability leads to higher career satisfaction and performance. Psychologists determined four traits that can be used to measure career adaptability: concern (how much you prepare for future challenges), control (how much effort and discipline you put into your work), curiosity (how open you are to exploring new and different opportunities), and confidence (how well you believe you can overcome challenges). These traits—concern and confidence, in particular—predicted more career satisfaction and success over other measurements like demographics or personality traits.)
Principle 3: Build a Strong Network
Now that you’ve learned to be competitive and flexible with your career, let’s look at another key tool successful startups use: a strong network. Without supporters and advisors, you can only make decisions based on your limited perspective and knowledge. A network, however, exposes you to many different perspectives that can help you make professional decisions and provide you with a wealth of opportunities, insights, and support. Even further, Hoffman and Casnocha point out that the people around you affect the kind of person you become, so you should network with people you want to be like.
(Shortform note: Groups are even more intelligent when they’re diverse, argues Matthew Syed in Rebel Ideas. This is because groups whose members come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives have greater overall knowledge to draw on than groups whose members all think alike. As a result, diverse groups enjoy enhanced intelligence and innovation as long as each individual is competent. When building a network as Hoffman and Casnocha recommend, consider how diverse your connections are.)
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Startup of You summary:
- Why you must approach your career as if it's a startup company
- How to overcome unexpected career obstacles
- The three entrepreneurship principles you should adopt
