Leap Forward

How does one take a giant leap to his or her next role or job? It is imperative that a stint in any organization helps in adding value to our resume. Skill development and career transitions are two critical data points people seek in a resume. These two eventually make the stint meaningful and help in taking giant leaps in careers outside of current organization too. Within the context of an organization it is often challenging on how one could go about doing it. Two incidents, years apart and a lot of thought in between, helped me think through this. In 2002, my reporting manager, took me to a meeting with his boss. When questioned on rationale of having me join in, he told me, it was to get me exposed to his challenges, and how he handles them. I couldn’t still piece together the relevance in my head, back then. In 2015, one of my team members asked if there was a way for one to plan their growth within an organization and if there was a way to accelerate it. When I played this question in my head for some time, I traced back my entire career from 2002 when I made my first move into middle management till 2015. I was able to put together the following model as a summation of all those thoughts. I prefer to use following three phases as part of the model that has enabled me to plan transitions into my next role / job or even next company. · Phase 1 - Establish phase · Phase 2 - Enable phase · Phase 3 - Leap ahead Establish phase – Deliver on the current job description This phase is all about settling into the role. It is to live the current role / job.  In this phase, we need to understand the role dynamics, expectations from a role and deliver it. We need to set ourselves up to deliver on that job description and KRA (Key Result Areas).

In order to do this, we need to equip ourselves with basic skills like structured thinking, people management, operational excellence & manage ourselves along the way (self-management). All these are key ingredients to deliver in any role and that is what I had written about earlier here https://nitinnag.wixsite.com/vichaara/post/4-foundational-blocks-in-business-management.

Delivering on all 4 pillars are extremely critical. Over delivering on one cannot compensate for being slack on others. I have usually seen this phase last from a few months to 2 years. If this gets stretched beyond, it is critical to evaluate fitment to the role or job. The timeframe of 2 years doesn’t preclude us from assessing the fitment sooner. On succeeding in this phase, we move to the next. Enable phase - Develop influencing capability We set ourselves up for a career transition in this phase. This phase exposes us to the classical management dilemma of two steps ahead and one step back. At all times in our jobs, we need to have a view and think of jobs two steps ahead of us, while we simplify lives for people one step behind us. This is a classical management dilemma. Balancing these two, requires us to be ambidextrous.

Clarity on challenges beyond current role and empowering people to influence decisions of next role are very useful in inducting ourselves into the next role or job.

This phase is a test for how well we have showcased our skills against the four building blocks in the establish phase. If we are unable to meet the demands of this phase, we need trace back to the previous phase and start all over again. Without a successful exit out of establish phase, we cannot succeed here.

Stakeholder management gets added as a new dimension to this phase.

Influencing decisions beyond our current roles always relies heavily on strong stakeholder management skills. When we show excellent delivery to expectations or exceed it, we could bank on us to play key influencers to decisions. This is the time for us to consider taking a giant leap ahead of our current role. Leap ahead – Take that giant leap This phase is about equipping ourselves to leap ahead. This is the last phase before we take that giant leap. It is a time, when we know the expectations of the role or job ahead of us. We would have demonstrated ability to influence decisions in the next role and let the pressure of that role sink into us. We should inherit the job description, accountability and compensation of that role we seek now.

I have usually seen the job description arrive first, followed by accountability and finally compensation.

Once the job description comes through, we have to turn on the switch in our own minds to be able to live and deliver the next job. Whenever I have consciously gone past establish and enable phases, I have seen this switch to next job happen seamlessly and unconsciously.

Over the last two decades, first 3-4 years was about finding my feet. Ever since, I have had multiple career transitions within a company, across companies and across industries. I can distinctly map these three phases having unfolded in all those career transitions of mine. If we construct our careers this way, growth more often than not will happen.