{"id":17017,"date":"2026-09-04T00:39:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=17017"},"modified":"2026-09-04T00:39:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:39:53","slug":"best-advice-for-working-your-way-up-in-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=17017","title":{"rendered":"Best Advice for Working Your Way Up in Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"gate-check piano-check\">\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/joedrygas\/\">Joe Drygas<\/a> is charged with connecting a massive number of people in a vast array of industries. As Vice President of AT&amp;T\u2019s Global Enterprise Business,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>his efforts link up everything from healthcare to retail to sports to energy. His key to conquering so many different spaces? \u201cThe best employees treat their careers like how elite athletes treat training,\u201d he told <em>Entrepreneur.<\/em> \u201cIf you\u2019re a quarterback, your career evolution often changes how you play the game \u2014 how much you run versus throw, where you focus your training on speed, strength, or flexibility, and how your role shifts from starter to mentor for the new QB.\u201d In short, he says, \u201cEvery new role requires a new version of you.\u201d Here are Drygas\u2019s keys to transformation within a company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Bova: What are some of the keys for successfully reinventing yourself in new roles at the same company?<\/strong><br \/><strong>Joe Drygas: <\/strong>It starts with a mindset \u2014 the best employees realize that they need to constantly change and reinvent themselves, like refreshing their skills, their network and operating rhythm. It\u2019s the same way an NFL quarterback evolves his game and role within the team. I\u2019ve been at AT&amp;T for 25 years, and I started in inside sales and worked my way up through the organization. The only way that\u2019s possible is by accepting that every new role requires a new version of you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s something small, like a daily routine or mindset shift, that changed the way you lead or perform?<\/strong><br \/>It sounds counterintuitive, but paying attention to your schedule for an extra minute or two a day, and scheduling all the personal things, like workouts, meals and sleep, makes a leader much calmer. The uncertainty of \u201cWill I get in this run?\u201d or \u201cWhat time will I really get to sleep?\u201d is reduced if you schedule it, and the cognitive overload of \u201conce I\u2019m done with work, I can think about what my evening or weekend looks like\u201d isn\u2019t creating optimal clarity or stability. Your mind can release, your confidence grows, and especially when you\u2019re on the road\u2014it gives you a clear arc for your day.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell us about your problem-solving method.<\/strong><br \/>We have to move faster and more efficiently than our competitors, and a recent challenge is getting a very experienced team to change the way they work in the AI era.\u00a0I\u2019ve realized that driving real adoption of new technologies and tools requires a top-down approach.\u00a0 Transformation isn\u2019t a memo\u2014it\u2019s a pattern of visible behaviors that start at the top. If you want adoption, you need to use the tools live in front of them, not just talk about them. I do skip-level sessions with managers where I walk them through the tools in real time and show exactly how I\u2019m using them to run the business and hold myself accountable. They need to see the pace car right up front.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you think AI will transform the healthcare industry?<\/strong><br \/>AI can close the care gap because data can both bring down costs and expand the way we understand the patient, from the hospital to the clinic to home and on the go. It helps us train and give care remotely, allowing that care to travel long distances. For entrepreneurs, this teaches you that heuristics are key, but they can keep things local. If you can turn them into rails, they become universal and can travel farther distances. If we are pioneering remote surgery for regions where there aren\u2019t the same specialists, then any business can take their offerings global too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And what\u2019s your appraoch to the customer side of solving pain points?<br \/><\/strong>Customers want to be heard, and building your meeting agenda around what could be improved is a really strong way to let them see it\u2019s a priority. I go back to things they\u2019ve asked for before and ask if they\u2019ve improved; I research how their industry or business is doing and ask if these are things they\u2019re seeing and how we can help; I make clear that we should talk about it in the meeting and that we can\u2019t fix everything on the spot so I\u2019ll also follow up with them with a plan. Ironically, building an agenda that\u2019s about them is the best way to show you\u2019re not blinded by your own agenda.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"piano-meter-body tw:hidden\">\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/joedrygas\/\">Joe Drygas<\/a> is charged with connecting a massive number of people in a vast array of industries. As Vice President of AT&amp;T\u2019s Global Enterprise Business,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>his efforts link up everything from healthcare to retail to sports to energy. His key to conquering so many different spaces? \u201cThe best employees treat their careers like how elite athletes treat training,\u201d he told <em>Entrepreneur.<\/em> \u201cIf you\u2019re a quarterback, your career evolution often changes how you play the game \u2014 how much you run versus throw, where you focus your training on speed, strength, or flexibility, and how your role shifts from starter to mentor for the new QB.\u201d In short, he says, \u201cEvery new role requires a new version of you.\u201d Here are Drygas\u2019s keys to transformation within a company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Bova: What are some of the keys for successfully reinventing yourself in new roles at the same company?<\/strong><br \/><strong>Joe Drygas: <\/strong>It starts with a mindset \u2014 the best employees realize that they need to constantly change and reinvent themselves, like refreshing their skills, their network and operating rhythm. It\u2019s the same way an NFL quarterback evolves his game and role within the team. I\u2019ve been at AT&amp;T for 25 years, and I started in inside sales and worked my way up through the organization. The only way that\u2019s possible is by accepting that every new role requires a new version of you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s something small, like a daily routine or mindset shift, that changed the way you lead or perform?<\/strong><br \/>It sounds counterintuitive, but paying attention to your schedule for an extra minute or two a day, and scheduling all the personal things, like workouts, meals and sleep, makes a leader much calmer. The uncertainty of \u201cWill I get in this run?\u201d or \u201cWhat time will I really get to sleep?\u201d is reduced if you schedule it, and the cognitive overload of \u201conce I\u2019m done with work, I can think about what my evening or weekend looks like\u201d isn\u2019t creating optimal clarity or stability. Your mind can release, your confidence grows, and especially when you\u2019re on the road\u2014it gives you a clear arc for your day.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/treat-your-career-like-an-elite-athlete-treats-training-the-best-advice-for-working-your-way-up-in-business\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Drygas is charged with connecting a massive number of people in a vast array of industries. As Vice President of AT&amp;T\u2019s Global Enterprise Business,\u00a0his efforts link up everything from healthcare to retail to sports to energy. His key to conquering so many different spaces? \u201cThe best employees treat their careers like how elite athletes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-green-brands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}