Photo: Ido Yoshimoto by Justin Chung
Resourcefulness is one of the top 7 life skills, period.
It's actually probably #1, because resourceful people are facilitators who can get anything done.
The mainstream approach to getting things done:
Talking about getting things done, researching the nuances of getting things done, highlighting the lack of resources to get things done, blaming someone else for not getting things done, holding a meeting to discuss getting things done.
The ability to bypass all that mess, and move straight into the getting of things done…. That’s resourcefulness. And it’s in demand.
90% of a job interview is just the interviewer trying to assess, in a very roundabout way, how resourceful you are. Their only real question is “if I hire this person, can they really do all the things I need them to?”
Here are 5 key characteristics of resourceful people, to help you identify one, or become one:
They adjust their thinking as facts change. The solution is more important than being right.
They think clearly. Know the objective, assess the mess, distill the solution, ignore the irrelevant.
They don’t wait to be told what to do. Good leaders give step by step instructions, great leaders give guidance, excellent leaders train people to think for themselves.
They laugh at setbacks. You knew this would happen; why get discouraged?
They learn on the fly. The most valuable type of learning is learning how to learn.
There’s another characteristic of resourcefulness that trumps all of these, not just in effectiveness, but in enjoyment:
Having friends.
If you’re talented and pleasant and you live in a high-stakes environment, your opportunities to build resourcefulness are endless, because the best resources are other people.
In Art for Money I wrote a paragraph about building your personal Board of Directors — punching above your own weight class to build an inner circle of people smarter than you, to trade ideas with.
A real life example, from my friend Virginia:
“I created an encrypted group chat and named it The Woofs of Wall Street. I added people from big tech, fashion, private equity, and law. It became a group of disarmed brilliant people who might never have met each other but deserved to know each other. We laughed, we all made a little money and eventually ended up sharing a table at someone’s wedding.”
Virginia has tapped the Woofs to review legal matters, analyze opportunities, and advise her on matters way out of her own depth. Behaving this way has made Virginia one of the most capable people I know.
(Stay tuned to the Intro Limited newsletter for a full interview with her.)
If you can only work toward one thing, work toward becoming resourceful. You can measure your own resourcefulness by how often people ask you for help, and the difficulty of the help they’re asking for.
The most enjoyable way to bulletproof your career is to become the go-to person for… just about anything.
