{"id":235,"date":"2026-03-18T10:36:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leenewman.us\/posts\/?p=235"},"modified":"2026-04-05T20:39:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T03:39:54","slug":"debugging-your-career-what-makes-you-tick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leenewman.us\/playbook\/debugging-your-career-what-makes-you-tick\/","title":{"rendered":"Debugging Your Career:  What Makes You Tick?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In any high-functioning system, performance depends on the quality of inputs. In your career, those inputs are your <strong>motivators<\/strong>. Whether you are an Individual Contributor (IC) or a Manager, a lack of visibility into what actually matters leads to vague, unactionable career conversations.<\/p>\n<h2>The Concept: Personalized Impact<\/h2>\n<p>Over my 25-year career in tech\u2014including 6.5 years at <strong>Google<\/strong>\u2014I moved away from <em>&#8216;one size fits all&#8217;<\/em> leadership style toward a framework I call <strong>Personalized Impact<\/strong>. I realized that team productivity and individual well-being aren\u2019t just HR goals; they are structural requirements. I\u2019ve seen this approach pay its highest dividends in high-scale environments, where precise alignment is the only way to sustain output and retain the talent that actually moves the needle.<\/p>\n<p>To help you apply this, I\u2019m releasing the tool I&#8217;ve developed: <em><strong>What Makes Me Tick?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>For ICs and Managers<\/h2>\n<p>* <strong>For the IC:<\/strong> Move past &#8220;I&#8217;m unhappy&#8221; to &#8220;I need technical autonomy.&#8221; Use data to audit your role and prepare for high-signal 1:1s.<br \/>\n* <strong>For the Manager:<\/strong> Transition from a &#8220;boss&#8221; to a leader who enables <strong>Personalized Impact<\/strong>. Identify high-leverage motivators and debug retention risks before they turn into resignations.<\/p>\n<h2>The Alignment Audit<\/h2>\n<p>Seeing data is the first step; architecting a solution is the second. I offer a specialized session(s) called the <strong>Alignment Audit<\/strong> where we perform a high-resolution analysis of your results to build a &#8220;script&#8221; for your stakeholders and a roadmap for your growth.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/15KiCrPCZZUMv27MwtNODJ5I9PJbLN7WN9k1xA01Pp_0\/copy?gid=1463659736#gid=1463659736\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Download the Tool<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/calendly.com\/leedurmentor\/30-minute-coaching-intro-calls?utm_source=leenewman.us&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=posts&amp;utm_content=%22Debugging%20Your%20Career%3A%20%20What%20Makes%20You%20Tick%3F%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Book An Intro Call<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In any high-functioning system, performance depends on the quality of inputs. In your career, those inputs are your motivators. Whether you are an Individual Contributor (IC) or a Manager, a lack of visibility into what actually matters leads to vague, unactionable career conversations. The Concept: Personalized Impact Over my 25-year career in tech\u2014including 6.5 years at Google\u2014I moved away from &#8216;one size fits all&#8217; leadership style toward a framework I call Personalized Impact. I realized [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career-planning","category-mental-health"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Debugging Your Career: What Makes You Tick? - Lee Newman&#039;s Career Playbook<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/leenewman.us\/playbook\/debugging-your-career-what-makes-you-tick\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Debugging Your Career: What Makes You Tick? - Lee Newman&#039;s Career Playbook\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In any high-functioning system, performance depends on the quality of inputs. 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