Carter Cast Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Kellogg University writes that you need to plan your own career and as such proposes this 8 point DIY guide to career growth.
Develop goals and performance objectives. Establish clarity of your destination through specific goals and objectives with metrics that measure and track your success.
Solve for blind spots. Seek feedback as widely as possible to gain insights into how others perceive you. Reach out to peers, subordinates and your boss. Ask open questions about what you could improve or could have done better.
Reduce gaps. Look at your role and reflect on the key skills required to do the job well and assess your current competency level. Then build a plan to develop and refine those skills.
Seek a mentor. A mentor is someone who you can learn from, they understand your purpose and have experiences, skills and networks that are important to help you develop and achiever your career objectives. Consider also developing a personal board which is a group of experienced leaders from whom you might regularly seek counsel on your career.
Create a learning circle. Your peers have plenty to share, networking, knowledge sharing and collaborating can help you learn from others.
Codify knowledge into learning. When you learn a new skill or process, document in a way that helps you synthesise, reinforce and transform the knowledge into a skill.
Increase your C-Suite visibility. Become visible to the executive team. To get considered for promotion they need to see you and to believe you are ready. Sign up for projects and take opportunities to present whenever they are offered.
Become an expert. Build deep domain knowledge in an area important for the company. When others are seeking you out for that specific knowledge you become a precious resource and your value increases.
Key Takeaways
- Your career growth is your responsibility so treat it that way, build a career plan, develop goals and measure your performance. You need to know that you are doing well.
- Invest in developing skills and experience that is relevant to the organisation. Even better become the expert on a specific domain.
- Make sure you are visible by presenting to the C Suite whenever the opportunity arises.
DIGEST of a article from KelloggInsight A DIY Guide to Career Growth - Eight ways to develop your potential—instead of waiting for your manager to take the lead. By Carter Cast Published: 3rd November 2015 https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/a-diy-guide-to-career-growth