Opinion
The crude piece of career advice I think about all the time
Tim Duggan
Careers contributorLike anyone who’s ever had a job, I’ve been through hard times at work. Those moments when every small thing feels like a drain, or when there are so many glaring problems that you get overwhelmed with even thinking about where to start.
Many of these moments occurred when I was running the business I co-founded with some of my friends. There were a few occasions when our sales hopes didn’t meet our expectations, when internal staff problems overshadowed actual work, or when we had to keep a forensic eye on our daily cashflow to ensure we didn’t run out of it.
If you’re struggling at work, this piece of advice could help you get ahead.
During times like these, my colleagues and I would huddle inside our offices, making plans, and then making plans about how to implement those plans. It was exhausting work, occasionally overwhelming and is something fairly familiar to anyone who manages people at work or has to make difficult decisions that affects others.
It was in the middle of one of these periods that I first heard the best career advice I’ve ever received that I swear I still think about at least once a month.
My business partner had just read The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. Ben is the co-founder of one of the most respected venture capital firms in the world and has made billions of dollars investing very early in companies like Airbnb, Slack and Twitter, now X.
His book details how to survive and manage through challenging situations in business, like revising revenue forecast numbers down when you know you’re going to miss them, or deal with burning issues you’ve been putting off. None of these things are easy, and no one enjoys having to do it.
It was never enjoyable, but it was usually better than the alternative.
Ben’s advice in the book was memorable, and yes, somewhat crude, about how to deal with tough problems we all need to occasionally make: “If you’re going to eat shit,” he wrote, “don’t nibble on it.”
A lot of us could earn degrees in avoidance. We put off our problems for another day, rationalising to ourselves that maybe by the time we get there it might have gone away. However, it’s in moments like this that we actually need to adopt another, more direct strategy.
We need to own up to the hard parts of our job and fully commit to owning them. It might be a mistake we’ve made and need to rectify, or a problem we must tackle head on before it gets even bigger. In these circumstances, making small changes around the edges, or “nibbles”, can be harder than dealing with it in one go.
Career advice can sometimes be clichéd, delivered by well-meaning people with little experience on the job, but this simple statement on how to deal with problems directly is advice I’ve thought about in countless situations.
Like when I had to have difficult conversations in the workplace, or fess up to making honest mistakes. Whatever it was, I vowed to eat the entire shit sandwich in one horrific mouthful. It was never enjoyable, but it was usually better than the alternative.
This worthy advice was passed on from Ben Horowitz to everyone who read his book, including my business partner, who then passed it on to me. I’ve since passed it on to dozens of colleagues, staff, mentees, friends and anyone else who needs to hear it.
And now, I’m passing it on to you. You can choose whether to listen to it or ignore it of course, but the next time you find yourself in a sticky situation at work, I hope these ten little words can help make those hard times a tiny bit easier.
Tim Duggan is the author of Work Backwards: The Revolutionary Method to Work Smarter and Live Better. He writes a regular newsletter at timduggan.substack.com
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