- What have I accomplished this year?
- What value have I brought to my organization? Can I quantify it in any way?
- What do colleagues and others say about my work?
- What work has brought me the most joy and satisfaction?
- What work bored me or lacked challenge?
- What new projects or activities would “light my fire” over the next few months?
- Where do I want to be in three to five years?
- Is what I’m doing now going to get me there?
Mastery and contribution walk hand-in-hand. They are a tremendous source of energy. When we feel that we’re making contributions in our lives, we have a sense of purpose and meaning. When we’re on a path to mastery, we’re desirous of learning more and more about our profession. Once you’ve answered these questions, talk with others to see how they see you - especially your manager and colleagues. If you need to be on another path, in another job, on another project, engage in conversations with your manager. Build support for your long-term goals and make it happen.
2. Confused – Don’t Know Where You Are in Your Career
You’ve gone to all the right schools. You’ve worked in some of the better organizations. You’ve had steady progressions in responsibility and compensation until recently. You’re an avid learner and a natural learner. You realize you’re not happy and don’t understand why.
| Maria has fifteen years of experience in IT and security in the Defense Industry. She has advanced degrees from top notch schools. She has gradually moved from technical support to project management in a variety of projects. She has worked for several government contractors in the industry. She realizes she has fifteen more years to work and eventually wants to lead a small company or agency. After some career coaching, she realized that finding the “right place” is more important right now than finding the “right position.” To excel in her profession, Maria needs to find a place where she can work with some of the best people in the industry to hone her project management skills and build her reputation for leadership. Choosing an organization where she can excel and a manager who is not threatened by her skills is critical for her future. She has to raise the learning bar by choosing those kinds of environments and those kinds of bosses. She’ll find the “right job” once she has the “right place.” Otherwise, she can’t excel at what she does best – leading and managing in a technical community. |
ACTION:
It’s important to know where you are in your progress toward professional mastery. Read each of the following descriptions and check the ones that best fit your current situation. Then consider the suggested actions beneath each description you marked.
Choosing a profession. You’ve been doing a variety of jobs but haven’t yet thought in terms of choosing a profession and what it takes to become best in class.
- Review your job history. In which professions have you worked? Were some more fulfilling than others?
- Ask several people who know you well what profession they see you working in for the future.
- Determine parameters of your ideal work. What profession is it in?
- Scan websites, professional associations, magazines and want ads to broaden your knowledge of various professions.
- Reflect on your most satisfying jobs. Which profession or professions were they in?
- Reflect on your major work accomplishments to date. In which profession do they fit?
- Look at the style and personality of people in the different professions in which you’ve worked. Do you identify more with one style or setting than another?
- Which basic human needs seem most compelling to you? What professions do they suggest?
- Work in an organization that excels in your profession. If you’re not in one, research and find organizations that do.
- Identify some of the masters in your profession. This is another way to find organizations that excel in your profession. Talk with colleagues to check your assumptions.
- Do you have a mentor? If not, whom could you ask to be a mentor in this profession?
- Identify five or six trends in your profession. Talk with your mentor and colleagues to understand the implications for your future.
- Join associations in your profession.
- Identify the “best of the best” in your profession and follow their work.
- Create opportunities to work with masters in your profession.
- Spend time with your professional colleagues discussing problems, new technologies, or new ways of enhancing competencies in your profession.
- Structure projects, presentations, positions, experiments, or research that lets you work at the frontiers of your profession.
- Talk with colleagues who are self-employed and see what it takes to make that happen. Clarify the pros and cons in your profession.
- Review your top ten values and decide which avenue is more in keeping with them. Discuss this with your significant other, colleagues, family, and close friends.
- Interview five colleagues who are entrepreneurs and get a list of the pros and cons of this approach from them.
- Evaluate your financial needs and see how many different ways you could meet those needs – being either employed or an entrepreneur.
Decide where you are on the path to professional mastery. When you have a good grasp of where you stand, what you need to do next to reboot your career will become evident. Mastering a profession will give you confidence. You will know your value and worth to society and hiring organizations. You will find it easier to take charge of your own career.
What’s the learning? Professions endure. Positions disappear. I coined the phrase – “Take a job and you’ll work for a day. Master a profession or trade and you’ll work for a lifetime.” And I still believe this. Professions are the organizing principle for any organization – large or small. And they are the centerpiece for masterful careers.
3. New Program Installed - Lack of "Fit"
Every leader and manager have their own style, values and vision. Sometimes they are a continuation of the previous leader. Oftentimes, they are not. They were brought in or promoted because there was a need for change. A hope that they could make things better, more profitable, more strategic, more competitive, etc. Employees and customers can be jarred by the new culture that begins to emerge. The organization you joined is no longer the same. What do you do?
| Caesar Torres joined a growing consulting firm three years ago. He was an ace of a project manager and an extremely skilled facilitator and executive coach. His skills were valued. He was promised the organization was moving in a new strategic direction that caught his passion and needed his skill sets. One year into his new role, a new president and leadership team was announced. They held onto the strategies of the past and Caesar’s role squished backwards to traditional projects. Within five months, he left and started his own consulting firm where his skills, passion and values live. |
Not everyone needs to leave their organizations. But feeling a strong “fit” and emotional connection to the mission and strategies is critical for meaning and fulfillment.
ACTION:
Assess changes in your organization in four areas. You may discover through inquiry that you’re going to be just fine. Or, you may gather the data that supports your gut feeling that something’s not right here.
