New Assignments: Development, Rotation, Promotion

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 15:19:03 GMT

Climbing the Career Ladder

It can be easy to get caught in a trap thinking that by putting your head down and doing a good job that you’ll naturally be noticed by your boss and upper management, and that before long, that promotion you desire will just happen. I mean surely others see how well you’re doing your job and naturally will just want to promote you to the next position….won’t they?

While it is possible that could happen at some point in your career, in my experience it’s more likely that you’ll need to map out and drive towards your career progression. This includes taking on development experiences and usually some broadening roles to round out your skill sets and prepare you to take on and be successful in that next level opportunity.

For example, you may be exceptional in your current role having mastered the skills required to succeed and consistently achieving high performance ratings as a result. It’s clear that you are very good at what you do and that you are a strong contributor to the team. However, are you also demonstrating that you can go beyond what’s required in your role to gain skills that position you for other, more significant roles? Perhaps you’re skilled as a technician and provide great support to your customers. Are you able to coach some of your lesser skilled peers so they become more effective at the job? Have you reached out to your customers outside your normal support activities to better anticipate their future needs and how you and your team can better serve them? Have you initiated any natural project teams with partner groups to improve your collective work processes?

These may sound like areas that are above and beyond your job description, or frankly out of scope of your objectives. While that may be true, they are examples of how you can develop new skills while in your current position and how you can showcase your broader capabilities to your supervisor and other leaders.

I would strongly suggest that if you do aspire to such in role development, you share your aspirations with your supervisor as well as possible growth areas such as these to ensure alignment and agreement with the development path. It is highly possible that he/she will suggest other areas of training or even new projects that could provide the development they believe will better position you for the future or have a higher return to the business.

Don’t be surprised either if taking on a rotational assignment is suggested to gain the required learnings. A rotational assignment is typically a position at the same level you currently hold, but which offers new areas of focus leading to enhancing your skills and broadening your horizons. While this may seem disappointing at first especially if you believe you deserve a promotion now, I’d suggest you seriously consider the option. Not only is it likely you will gain new insights and skills, but you’ll demonstrate to leadership that you’re willing to learn and do what’s required to be a future leader, including moving to a position where you are not an expert. With a little patience and perseverance, I suspect it won’t be long before you’re performing well and that promotion comes your way after all.

So in summary, while doing a great job in your current position is often table stakes for advancement, share your broader aspirations with your supervisor and gain concurrence on a development plan. Seek out opportunities to demonstrate growth in your current role or beyond it. If you have the opportunity for a development experience or even a rotational assignment, take it and knock it out of the park in that role too.

Have you had similar experiences as you advanced in your career or maybe helped someone else with their journey? I’d love to hear your experience and insights.

Until next time, Steve.

Individual Contributor vs. People Manager

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 18:25:03 GMT

The Techy or the Manager?

Early in my career, I aspired to develop skills and become an “expert” in an area of technology. I soon found an affinity for database management and began to dig in to deepen my knowledge of both the technology and the popular products of the day. While I may not have become an expert, I did get involved in outlining strategy for database products at my company, contributed to some industry standards such as performance benchmarking, and even published a few articles in the trade press.

This expertise helped me to gain internal recognition at my company and as a result I had some modest advancement at work. Soon after I was faced with the decision that many technical professionals face. Do I continue to deepen my technical skills or consider a move into “management”?

Over the holidays I spoke with a young man who is early in his career and deeply technical. He has an engineering degree and has always been highly talented technically while growing up. He has been doing well at his job which is a great fit for his skillset and education. While catching up he surprised me by saying he wanted to talk about possibly taking on a new role to lead a team at work, and not being as hands on anymore.

Leaning back on my own experience I was happy to share my thoughts with him. It’s great that his leadership has confidence in him to take on a role in management. Had he really thought about whether that’s what he wanted? Is he ready to shift from being the technical expert to the team leader, and perhaps to not be doing the actual technical work every day? Does he feel ready to take on the role of team leader and what skills does he need to develop to be successful?

A shift such as this from individual contributor to manager/leader offers much promise in terms of advancement within the organization and the compensation potential that comes with that. It is in my opinion, however, one of the most important decisions a person can make in their career. Fundamentally they will need to be comfortable with moving from “doing the work” to “directing and guiding the work”, and that involves developing people skills such as coaching, inspiring, communicating, and redirecting team members to achieve an outcome or vision. While it’s certainly possible to remain a “technical leader” it does require letting go of some of the work that got you to this point, and you probably enjoyed doing. We’ve all known people who were great individual contributors but didn’t have the skill sets or desire to successfully transition into managers.

In my case, I chose to make this transition which I think was the right one for me. However, it required years of commitment, additional education, and jumping into roles well beyond my comfort zone where I was not the “expert” and had to earn the respect of the team to truly be accepted as the leader. That perhaps, is one of the biggest challenges for a new leader when you are asked to lead in an area for which others on your team have the domain expertise, but they require your leadership to move the business forward. The team may question why you’ve been brought in, and what you know about “their business”, and why they should follow your direction? This requires the new leader to dig in and do their homework to learn the business and bring the team along with them over time to achieve new heights. With an effective yet humble leader, this scenario can be mutually beneficial and can often result in growth for both the team as well as the leader’s capabilities.

I’ve also known other folks with deep technical talent that made the opposite choice. While they may have developed into great managers, they recognized their true passion was doing technical work and remaining hands on in their career. Most of these folks were considered subject matter experts and relied upon heavily to solve the most complex problems we faced. They realized great career success in their technical path and should be lauded for recognizing and being true to their passion, rather than believing they needed to move “into management” to get ahead. They defined success their own way and achieved happiness by doing what they enjoyed.

I’m sure many of you have made or faced similar choices one way or the other, and I’d love to hear about them.

Until next time, Steve.

candid-sense-eskpz

New Assignments: Development, Rotation, Promotion

Climbing the Career Ladder

Individual Contributor vs. People Manager

The Techy or the Manager?