Breakthrough Loop
5-steps to rapid career growth and great relationships
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My new manager, Kimberly, knew little about internet communication protocols. This was a problem because our startup made high-speed network equipment.
It was my first job after completing my Master’s Degree and I had almost no work experience, but I did understand our products at a technical level.
Between Kimberly asking me questions about our technology and my offering to teach her about it, I quickly developed a short curriculum to explain the basics of our technology stack to anyone in the company. At first, teaching the technology was just informal communication between me and my manager, but as we hired people I became the go-to teacher and mentor for each new team member.
By simply volunteering to help my new boss learn about our technology, I accidentally discovered the core of the breakthrough loop:
Ask your manager how you can help them.
I only worked for Kimberly for about 2.5 years, but in that time I grew from new hire to Lead Engineer to Engineering Manager. My salary doubled and I climbed the ladder. In addition, Kimberly became my mentor and advocate, pushing for my promotions and putting me forward for opportunities.
That all developed because I showed her value first.
In my final review with Kimberly, before she moved to a new team, she gave me the top rating in our system. I was surprised, since I was a new manager, and asked her how that could be right.
“You’ve done everything I’ve ever asked you to do,” she said.
That is the power of implementing The Breakthrough Loop.
The Breakthrough Loop and Building a Collaborative Relationship
The Breakthrough Loop consists of 5 steps.
These steps will require time and effort, but they lead to rapid career growth and great relationships.
The 5 steps:
Do your current job well.
Ask your manager how you can help them.
Do what they ask.
Ask your manager if you could help in a way that also grows your skills toward a particular goal.
Do as they suggest, and repeat in a loop from step 4.
The core of the Breakthrough Loop is in step two: Ask your manager how you can help.
This step is the core of the loop because it is where we establish a positive, collaborative relationship with our manager that will support our growth later on.
No individual has as much impact on our careers as our direct manager, so creating this supportive relationship is essential to our growth.
Step two is based on the fact that it is human nature to help those who help us. So, when we go beyond our job requirements to help our manager, it starts a relationship where they are likely to invest in and support us in return.
In my experience with Kimberly, I was six months out of college while she had over a dozen years of work experience. Normally, a new graduate wouldn’t be expected to recognize that their manager needs help learning their job. They would be expected even less to create a plan to systematically teach their manager about the part of the job they needed help with. Instead, the normal dynamic is for the manager to figure things out for themselves while the employees wait around and wonder what to do.
My instinctive choice to help out and share my knowledge immediately set me apart and created a new dynamic that was more of a partnership than an employee-manager relationship.
The Second Step: Ask Your Manager How You Can Help
Once you are seen as doing great work (Step One), ask your manager what more you can do to help them.
I’ve surveyed more than 1,000 managers, and they all agree they need and want help.
These managers tell me that offers of help from their teams are rare or non-existent and that employees who volunteer to help them immediately stand out.
Because offers to help are so uncommon, some managers may need a bit of prompting to actually give you something new to do. They may not have an idea right away, or they may even be slightly suspicious of your motives. In a workplace where no one volunteers for anything, an offer to do more work might make your manager wonder what it is that you really want.
In such cases, offer to check back in a week or so, giving them time to think about it.
Often, once a manager knows you are willing to help, they will come to you with a request the next time a need arises.