Create Your Career Compass to Weather Rough Business Waters
By Clay Primrose, MBA ‘89
Success is no longer defined as simply reaching income goals and achieving a leadership position at any cost. We also want to be happy, to feel that our life has meaning and that the work we are doing taps into our greatest talents. It’s easy enough to evaluate a job based on salary, title and perks, but judging other elements that often lead to true satisfaction can be tricky. A Career Compass can help you find those career intangibles. It points you toward your “sweet spot,” the point where three critical variables intersect: your strengths, your interests and the environment where you will flourish.
"Bill W. was introduced to War Games by his father, and—unlike his brother— he was instantly intrigued. He loved the fast pace and the strategy required to understand the capacity of his own troops as well as the possible thinking of his enemies. He studied the leaders of the past, adopted and altered the solutions that had worked for them. He learned to see situations from many angles and look for the best solutions with the least cost. He turned his natural talent for strategy into a strength that serves him well in his position as the VP of a NASDAQ data communications company."
STRENGTHS are what you are naturally hardwired to do. They begin as natural abilities that can be supported, trained and nurtured to become a strength on which you can depend.
To understand your own strengths, ask yourself where your focus is when you first approach a work-related problem. The strategy? The relationships involved? The task? The numbers? The research? The technology? Where do you go first, and what is your fundamental approach? These are the first signs of primary hard-wired strengths.
INTERESTS are what naturally attracts and fully engages you. When you see a situation that fits your interests, finding motivation to move forward is never a problem. Acting within your area of interests gets you excited, engaged, creative and self-starting.
To determine your interests, ask yourself what activities get you fully engaged with emotional commitment, high energy and enthusiasm. Commanding? Planning? Learning? Persuading? Innovating? Analyzing? These are the signs of strong interest areas.
"Seth D. was the kid with the screwdriver who had to know what was in that clock—how the pieces fit together, why they worked, how they worked. He was a good student until he was introduced to mechanical engineering. Fromtherehis interest exploded and he leapt to science and a study of surgical technology. Today he is one of the premier designers of technology- supported surgical instruments."
ENVIRONMENT refers to the elements of
a motivating workplace. The culture of
your environment has many components:
how people treat each other, how tasks are
assigned, your managers’ communication
style, whether you work in collaboration
or alone, the level of detailed instruction
or amount of autonomy you have, the
actual physical environment—do
you have a window or are you
buried in the middle of a building.
These elements, and many
more, combine to create your
work environment. Whether it is
motivating depends on individual
needs, which requires a sophisticated
assessment to sort out.
To find your motivating environment, look around your current work circumstances. What does a high-performance environment look like for you? Teamwork or independence? Vigorous debate or low-key relationships? Insistence on the way things are done or an expectation of creativity? These begin to define the kind of culture in which you will produce well.
FIND THE INTERSECTION
Finding the intersection between these three components is the key to working in your sweet spot. You may find something you are interested in, but you may not be hardwired to do it. Or you may be doing something in which you have a natural ability, but it does not excite you. Or you may find yourself in a working environment that sucks the life out of you and inhibits performance. To find your own right course, you must fit all three together. But how can you clearly define your strengths, interests or the many components that make up your motivating environment? By looking into a mirror—a career mirror, that is.
LOOK INTO YOUR CAREER MIRROR
We use mirrors because we can’t see ourselves without help. Sophisticated self-assessments provide the mirror you need to selfmanage with a more accurate and objective image of yourself—not one colored by ego, issues or the opinions of others. My personal choice for assessments is the combination of the Birkman Assessment and the Gallup StrengthsFinder. The Birkman Assessment is based on deep research and is very detailed (approximately 55 pages of results for each client). I have worked with thousands of Birkman recipients, and the accuracy, judged by the clients, is astounding. The Gallup StrengthsFinder is easy to use and is available to anyone who purchases the book “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Gallup. The StrengthsFinder used with the Birkman Assessment leads to refined details and will be the best tools for outlining your three core elements of strengths, interests and motivating environment.
"Cathy F. got her dream job in marketing— more money, more prestige, larger accounts. She was ready to make a big difference. Within the first week she knew she had made a mistake. She had the big office she craved, but found she was isolated from the creative energy she needed. She was expected to give detailed instructions but received almost none from her superiors. In fact, her superiors were aloof, not collaborative. In less than a month Cathy moved on to a position with another company. She took less pay and left the corner office behind, but she was more comfortable with the hands-on approach of management and the freedom to dig into the creative process on accounts. She worked more hours but hardly noticed. This was an environment that fed her—she could do her best work here."
DRAW THE MAP
Once you have a handle on your strengths, interests and ideal environment, boil it down to a simple elevator pitch. The goal is to be able to see an opportunity and—in just a few seconds—convey what you can contribute, how you work and what kinds of problems you love to tackle and why. Next, make an action plan. Review your key strengths and needs, noticing what kind of activity really increases your level of engagement. Then take concrete actions to put those strengths in play. This could be as drastic as career change or as minor as shifting responsibilities on a team. Over time, revisit and update your action plan, taking into account changes in interest, new opportunities and acquired skills. Just like a skipper who constantly checks his compass while guiding his sailboat across the ocean, a savvy self-manager revisits his or her Career Compass regularly, always striving to stay on course.
Clay Primrose, MBA '89, is an executive coach who works with the MBA Plus Program. www.primroseandprimrose.com
