Getty/Klaus Vedfelt
- How do you know if you're in the right job or if it's time to quit?
- Bangaly Kaba, director of product at YouTube and alum of Facebook and Instagram, offers a framework.
- He assesses impact as a product of your work environment and skills. Here's how he breaks it down.
Choosing jobs is one of the most important decisions we make in our careers. There is, after all, plenty to consider when deciding whether to stay in your current job or leave for another.
In the famous words of The Clash, "Should I stay or should I go?"
Bangaly Kaba, Director of Product at YouTube, devised a way to capture all of the variables that go into such a big decision, helping to zero in on any problems and drive conviction in determining any changes. Prior to joining YouTube, Kaba had also worked at companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Instacart.
As he wrote in a blog post on the subject, Kaba follows a simple formula to help asses if he's in the right job or not.
Impact = Environment x Skills
"The impact is only achievable by looking at two sets of variables, a set of variables related to the environment, a set of variables related to your skills," he said on a recent episode of "Lenny's Podcast" while describing impact as the most important part of the framework.
Kaba said "most people overlook" their work environment when thinking about career decisions. He breaks this down broadly into six categories: resources, scope, team, company culture, compensation, and your manager, which he says is the most important of these.
Kaba said he reviews these every year, ranking each on a scale of zero to two, divided in increments of 0.25. Zero means he's "not in a good place," one is "neutral," and two means he's "greatly benefiting from this situation."
Every year he asks himself, "What is the state of each one of these and to what extent do I believe that they can and will change?" He stresses that it's important to be honest with yourself when making this evaluation.
As for skills, Kaba thinks of four buckets, which are "communication, your ability to influence your leadership, strategic thinking, and then execution." He views communication at work as the most impactful and says it's important to focus on the "consistent evolution of your abilities."
In doing his evaluations, Kaba looks for roadblocks and identifies what is and is outside his control in the job.
"You're really breaking down each and understanding what's happening in the environment bit by it and what's happening with your skills," he said. "Where are you hindered structurally within the environment? Where are your skills kind of lacking? What do you have control over?"
Kaba says developing this framework "came out of a personal struggle that I had when I was at Facebook and trying to decide what my next move should be."
"I knew that I needed a change, emotionally I understood that, but I couldn't really have an objective way of thinking about it," he said. "So I really pushed myself to figure out like what is actually going on with my situation, how do I create a way that I can rely on objectively to understand what is actually going on."
In his blog post on his framework, Kaba wrote that the goal shouldn't be to automate the decision-making process to spit out the right answer, but rather to "narrow the decision down to the true problem," which can "help build conviction behind a decision."
You can see his full step-by-step breakdown over on Reforge.