Tag Archive for: career management

Understand Your Career Strengths and Opportunities: Part 3 of Become the CEO of Your Career

This series began by encouraging you to make a decision to take control of your career. It’s too easy to defer taking control, especially in the midst of driving results. You may have the anticipation that the boss will “just notice and reward” all of the hard work you are doing. Take the time to proactively manage your future direction. Taking control of your career puts you in the driver’s seat. It makes a difference to your future when you spend time following your own roadmap. You can achieve what’s most important to you, not just to your company.

Vision and Values are important determinates of your future.

You can use your vision and values to provide the destination for your career, as well as point out what is important to you about reaching that destination. Values provide a touchstone for what resonates most for you in the future.

The bottom line message…do not let someone else determine your next career move!!

As your career plan proceeds, it’s important to check in on yourself and identify your core competencies and opportunity areas. This provides a realistic balance of strengths and weaknesses in your career journey. This is strategic career planning and these elements are important keys to the analysis and process.

These aren’t things that you normally consider, except at performance review time, or for the purposes of putting a resume together, for example.

Core competencies are best defined as those items that are strengths for you. The competencies are also defined as specialties that others recognize your expertise in. It’s those things at which you truly excel; the unique accomplishments that over time have become a part of your career brand and persona.

It also helps to engage others in defining these. You can view 360-degree feedback or look at past reviews to see what others have defined as your strengths.

Also, thinking back to the self-assessment exercises described in Part 2 of this series, your values and strengths will guide you to your core competencies. The Strengthfinders assessment gives you the top 5 (and more) strengths that you use in your work and life. I mentioned that the strength called, Restorative, is my number one strength. Restoratives are strong problem solvers. They solve complex people and project problems and drive results. That’s definitely me!

What do you know well and can contribute effectively?

Think of the things you know best and list these out. Where are you sought after for your knowledge on a particular topic? What do you feel is a real strength for you? What could you give a Ted Talk on if you needed to?

Now you also want to assess your opportunity areas. Those places where you want and need to improve.

Go back and look at performance reviews, think about feedback from the past. None of us are too crazy about negative feedback, but are there nuggets there that can suggest areas for improvement? Do you tend to be too sensitive to feedback? Are you disorganized and/or not presenting well to others? Do you have a conflict with peers often? Are you not strategic enough? List these out.

An honest assessment of those areas for improvement is essential to assist you in shoring up and building strengths. It’s a starting point for where you want to go in the future, and coming up with a plan to work through opportunity areas is a great development focus.

Now you have a composite picture of you and your career. It should include:

The awareness of the need to take control of your career direction
A Career Vision
Values
Strengths
Core competencies
Opportunity areas.

All of these are essential in career planning. The next stage is taking all of this information and developing your personal road map…strategic planning of your career.

ACTION CHALLENGE

Take some time this week to assess your core competencies and areas of opportunity. Make a list of each for your career planning objectives. Review your materials to ensure you have the full foundation for career planning.

 

 

Up Coaching LLC.

Lupe S. Wood, MS, PCC, is a certified Career/Executive Coach. She coaches individuals and leaders to career fulfillment, transition, and advancement. She also consults for results with businesses and solopreneurs. Her background includes 12 years in senior leadership for a Fortune 100 corporation and 7 years as a coach, with a Master’s degree in Organizational Effectiveness and Executive Coaching.

 

For more information, please visit my website at www.upcoached.com

 

 

Create a Personal Career Road Map: Part 4 of Become the CEO of Your Career

Throughout this series, the theme has been to take control of your career and personally own the outcomes. What happens so often is that in the busyness of driving results, career planning may fall to the wayside, leaving major career decisions in the hands of others – your boss, your company, or even a recruiter. Now you can be responsible for creating your own career management roadmap for the future.

The strategic plan begins with elements of self-awareness including assessments of your vision and values and strengths and opportunity areas.

These are all tools for introspection and evaluation which is where the career map begins. Think of this as a road trip. Now when I was a child growing up in Los Angeles, our family summer vacations were 382 miles away, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Key decisions included:

  • Where exactly we were going (San Francisco plus Redwoods or Lake Tahoe)
  • How to get there (by car)
  • What path to take (Hwy 101, usually)
  • How ready our vehicle was for travel (maintenance, oil change)
  • What maps and stops along the way (my Dad was not a fan of stopping!)

In the same way, your career roadmap must contain elements including:

  1. Where you want to go and when. Whether it’s a career change, promotion, lateral move, or a new job, where do you want to go and by when? Reference the vision you developed earlier and put a date on it. I would like to become an entrepreneur by 11/1/2020. I would like to get promoted to Sr. Manager by 12/2/2021.
  2. How are you going to get there? Just as there are many paths from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and many side detours possible (beautiful Santa Barbara, or maybe explore Big Sur), decide on the best path for you. I want to achieve a promotion to Sr. Manager first, then Director. Or I want to network and understand what I need to do to become an entrepreneur before I quit my day job.
  3. Decide which road to take. The road will be those actions that you want to take in pursuit of moving forward. The decision on the best path can be determined in several ways:

a. Perform a Gap Analysis. If I’m currently a Project Manager looking for promotion to Sr. Manager, take a look at the skills and requirements of that targeted role and compare to where I’m at currently. What do I need in terms of education, experience, etc. If I’m looking to change careers, take a look also at skills and requirements for a new career and where I need to shore up my efforts.

b. Do a SWOT analysis on your career. This is looking at Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to a future pathway. Use these results to determine the next steps.
c. Look at strengths and opportunity areas that you developed earlier, and put together a plan to enhance these opportunities and/or maximize your strengths further.

  1. How ready are you for this journey? Go back and look at the values, strengths, and opportunity areas again. These provide clues on where you should be spending your efforts. Do you have an opportunity area to network with others to a greater extent? Maybe your career brand is good but now you need to incorporate it within your resume and Linked In profile.

a. This is a critical step to identify actions to take in pursuit of the vision.

  1. Get your maps lined up. Write down all actions and goals from the previous steps. Make these SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-bound). The dates are important in keeping you accountable.
  2. Where do you want to stop along the way to your vision? Are there steps and milestones you can identify on the way to the vision?
  3. Finally, assess any other items you may need to consider, such as values (work/life balance), salary requirements, location, etc.

Your finished product is a set of steps that lead to the desired vision. These are goals and actions for you to take to achieve success.

Review your finished product with a mentor/coach/trusted advisor. It helps to have an outside perspective. Make this a document with quarterly goals supporting goals for the year and look at it every week to ensure your actions are tracking with the plan.

Best of luck in your career journey.

ACTION CHALLENGE

Throughout this series, you have defined where you want to be in the future (the Vision) and where you are right now (Strengths, Opportunities, Values). Using the techniques above, create a road map of the next actions to take. Review these with a mentor, trusted advisor, or career coach.

 

 

Up Coaching LLC.

Lupe S. Wood, MS, PCC, is a certified Career/Executive Coach. She coaches individuals and leaders to career fulfillment, transition, and advancement. She also consults for results with businesses and solopreneurs. Her background includes 12 years in senior leadership for a Fortune 100 corporation and 7 years as a coach, with a Master’s degree in Organizational Effectiveness and Executive Coaching.

 

For more information, please visit my website at www.upcoached.com

 

 

Learning to Ask for Help can Change Your Career and Life

I was in crunch mode, for sure. I had a busy day at a writing workshop and needed to eliminate distractions and other priorities from taking center stage. At the same time, we had family visitors coming in that evening for a weekend visit and there was still much to do. I had to do it….there was no choice…I humbly asked my husband if he could please prepare the guest room. I needed the help, and to my delighted surprise, he agreed to do it.

When was the last time you really needed help but didn’t ask anyone for it?

In our society, many believe that you must go it alone and not ask for assistance. Or, that it would be faster to do it yourself rather than to train someone else to help. You may also consider that asking for help would reveal a sign of weakness or vulnerability. It can be uncomfortable to show that side of yourself. If I ask for help, then it will look like I can’t handle the job or don’t know my stuff, right? At the office, you’re assigned multiple projects or work assignments that aren’t familiar to you, and instead of asking for support, you tough it out. This can increase a lot of unnecessary stress.

Or, have you ever taken on something really big in your personal life…say organizing the holidays or maybe planning a celebration? You realize as you get into it, that you are overdoing but, since you didn’t ask for the help you needed, you find yourself in exhaustion and overwhelm.

Well, as Dr. Phil would ask, “How’s that working for ya?”

Help is not a bad word…you’re just not used to asking for it upfront. Many times, once you’ve exhausted all solutions, then you ask for help. Well, what if you asked for it before you get into the depths of overwhelm?

Here are a few ways to begin looking at how asking for help can really help you.

  1. Start with an honest and realistic assessment of the areas where you need some assistance. Where are you trying to do too much on your own? You may be surprised, as I was where help can come from if you only ask.
  2. Learn the art of delegation. Oh, I could write a whole book on this. Delegation is really a gift to others. You allow others to learn something new or take on greater responsibility. Delegation can be a growth or developmental experience for others and it gets more off of your plate as well.
  3. Asking for help can build greater trust and teamwork. It will mean so much to the person you’re asking that you trusted them to assist.
  4. Learn to say NO! (Another book I could write). This action can really help free you up to tackle so many other priorities. One of my favorite phrases that I like to share is when you receive a request, say “Probably not, but if I can do it, I’ll get back to you.” That has helped me many times not to take on just one more thing.
  5. Take a look at learning opportunities for yourself and give yourself some time to travel that learning curve. As a former technical person, I did some of my best work when I could ask colleagues to review my code or help me to see a problem solution differently. This technique always worked. A fresh set of eyes can find things that you just can’t on your own. Collaborative work areas are perfect for this.
  6. Understand and accept that you are not “Superman/woman” who has to do all of these things on your own. If your boss is overloading you, it’s because you are a person who gets things done but considers at what cost and whether or not it’s time to honestly assess the situation, reprioritize tasks with your boss, and ask for help.
  7. Consider professionals. Whatever you need, there’s someone out there to help. As a career/executive coach, I work with my clients to find concrete solutions to overwhelm and prioritized.
  8. At home, if you’re not a handyman/woman, stop trying to be one! There are professionals out there that can help, and yes you do spend money, but consider the time and aggravation you are spending on your own and make the call.
  9. Find someone to practice with! A trusted friend or family member can be great at giving you feedback as you master asking for help!

ACTION CHALLENGE

Is it time to ask for some help? Take some time this week to consider where you could use some assistance and reach out using one of the techniques above, or your own.

 

 

Up Coaching LLC.

Lupe S. Wood, MS, PCC, is a certified Career/Executive Coach. She coaches individuals and leaders to career fulfillment, transition, and advancement. She also consults for results with businesses and solopreneurs. Her background includes 12 years in senior leadership for a Fortune 100 corporation and 7 years as a coach, with a Master’s degree in Organizational Effectiveness and Executive Coaching.

 

For more information, please visit my website at www.upcoached.com

 

 

Is Your Career on Track? Part 1 : Assessing your Vision, Strengths, and Opportunities

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while and I do apologize. I’ve spent quite a bit of time creating my new website: www.upcoached.com. Please let me know what you think! And yes, I will gratefully accept any recommendation you wish to give on the website as well. Thank you.

Now, let’s get back to your career:

Is your career where you want it to be right now?

There are times when the day to day busyness of your job prevents you from looking at the big picture of your career and where it’s headed. It’s important to take the time to provide perspective into your profession as a way of increasing overall career fulfillment. This perspective allows you to determine what steps you need to take to move your career in the direction you want it to be.

Three factors are critical in the assessment of your career: Self-awareness, relationships, and networking. These are three factors that heavily influence your career now and in the future.

Self-assessment is a great place to start. This is about taking the time to be introspective and thoughtful about where you are and where you want to be in the future. What do you love about the career you’ve chosen? Is it fulfilling? What kind of feedback have you received about your strengths and opportunity areas? What do you want to work on? Can you set some goals?

At the same time, relationships with others are also critical. There’s a relationship with your boss…a A truly important person in your career. There are also relationships in building a support team, such as mentors or sponsors. All of these factors are good to take a look at as well.

This article begins with self-assessment. Next week, we will cover the relationship assessment, followed by networking.

Take the time to answer the following questions thoughtfully and honestly. No one else needs to see these answers. The whole exercise is designed to make you really think about where your career is and what actions are available to you now and in the future.

Are you ready? Let’s go…

Are you doing what you love? Is your career fulfilling you? A fulfilling career is one where you truly enjoy the work that you do. Yes, there are ups and downs, but for the most part, you enjoy the work assigned. You feel fulfillment in your work. What specific aspects of your career do you enjoy the most? If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, take a look at what’s missing for you. This could be an indication of the need to change jobs or careers.

Do you have the right amount of work/life balance? I once had a job that required about 14 to 16 hours per day. It was unnecessarily demanding and for all of those hours, I ended up receiving very little in return, in the long run. It’s always important to strike a balance. How’s your balance? Is it where you want it to be? Do you have a life outside of work?

Are you looking for a promotion? Who knows this? At one point in my career, I thought everyone in leadership knew that I was looking for my next promotion. Never assume! As it turned out, a chance golf game where I was paired with my VP enabled me to discuss this with her. Her reaction was shocking. She didn’t know I was working toward the promotion before this chance meeting. Leaders are very busy people and don’t know what they don’t know. Never assume that they do.

How’s your self-marketing? Doing a great job is just the “ticket to the dance.” It’s not enough to do an outstanding job. You need a self-marketing strategy that works. How do you self-market? Is there a peer that does a great job of this (there usually is!)? What techniques can you “borrow” from that person?

If you’ve ever done a 360 assessment, what are some of your strength and challenge areas? Or have you received feedback on performance reviews? What are you doing to address these? Constructive feedback should always be viewed as important and addressed in some way. Do you need to do anything differently? Behaviors? Knowledge? All important to look at. Do you have a plan to work on these?

What do you need to learn more about? We all have some knowledge gaps. How do you work to close these gaps and expand your knowledge?

Answer these questions and pay close attention to the insights you have about the state of your career.
What are you seeing in your answers? What actions, if any, do you want to take?

ACTION CHALLENGE

Take the Career Track assessment and share your results with a trusted friend, advisor, or coach. Think about this as the beginning of constructing a Career Road Map. Determine what strategies and goals you can address from this assessment.

 

Up Coaching LLC.

Lupe S. Wood, MS, PCC, is a certified Career/Executive Coach. She coaches individuals and leaders to career fulfillment, transition, and advancement. She also consults for results with businesses and solopreneurs. Her background includes 12 years in senior leadership for a Fortune 100 corporation and 7 years as a coach, with a Master’s degree in Organizational Effectiveness and Executive Coaching.

 

For more information, please visit my website at www.upcoached.com