How do you create as many options as you can? A conversation with Lazlo Bock, VP at Google

The following is an excerpt or agglomeration of ideas from a conversation with Lazlo Bock, VP of People Operations at Google, Inc.

The most important thing in your career is to pick your industry carefully. The industry you choose determines how many opportunities you can create for yourself. Following Jonathan Rosenberg’s ideas (another blog post pending on his talk), we all want to catch waves, find industries where there are tons of waves, and find a big one to ride. Technology is ours.

A lot of people say they want to work for nonprofits, since they have passions for things of charitable value. Do it, I’m not saying not to, but chose your priorities in life. You can have a very big scope of impact without staying always in solely nonprofit. As Vice President of People Operations, Lazlo Bock has the power to give millions of dollars in scholarships to touch people.

Pick your company right. “When I was in consulting at McKinsey, I would flip through thick resume books and take out the ones that had impressive companies on their resumes like Google, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and focus mainly on those candidates.” When you’re getting started in your career a big company is better. It doesn’t matter what job you have, but the fact that you’re there. Once in, you can find more opportunities for yourself that are better fits given the huge waves of opportunities flowing through everyday.

It doesn’t matter so much what you do, but whom you’re with and what opportunities you create for yourself.

The next important thing is about how you manage yourself. I see careers as managed in ten-year pockets. The first 10 are very experimental, jump from pond to pond, and try companies out, roles, and grad schools. Now, once you hit the 10-year mark you better settle, and excel! It’s like declaring a major. You don’t want to say “I could have gotten there” one day. Become known for that major you choose, the best at it, the expert in the field- have the potential to have real impact and establish yourself.

The other notion about how to manage yourself and your career goes back to an interview Lazlo had at Pepsi. “What are your three core values?” was the question that he got asked. Lazlo fumbled it, but was interested enough to ask Rusty (cool name for a Pepsi exec, ha?) what where his. There’s one that stuck with Lazlo over the years: always go above and beyond, because then they have no choice but to reward you.

One of the things I have been frustrated about is the quality of leaders around me. At McKinsey, they had this thing called obligation of descent. If you disagree, you are obliged to disagree, to stand up and fight back. Leaders should be inspirational, well-versed and truthful. “As a leader I put my money where my mouth is, and strive to build leaders like I envisioned,” he concluded.

Don’t be disappointed in your career at managers, don’t judge too harshly. Leaders are human. You will go from one manager to the next, but focus on the work you do because that is what matters.