By Dorie Clark and Bob Legge
Advancing your career within a company can be frustrating. The fact is, doing good work won’t be enough to get you noticed and move you ahead. You simply can’t rely on your manager or your company to move your career along; you have to take charge to make it happen. Here are five key strategies we’ve seen work in our years of consulting.
Learn the big picture. When working with a consumer goods company on their strategy, Bob wanted to be sure that the strategy was innovative and fresh, so he suggested that the CEO open up the strategy process to a cross-section of employees. The very first people she suggested were those who had shown an interest in the company’s strategic direction by asking questions. Learning the business strategy shows you think in broader terms and speak the leader’s language, both of which will help get you noticed.
Build relationships with people who lead key projects and initiatives. Years ago as a young consultant in an international firm, Bob realized that the path to success was to be wanted on projects. That meant getting to know the partners—building relationships with the people who staffed and led them. To succeed in the corporate world, as the research of Prof. Ronald Burt of the University of Chicago has shown, you need to break out of your silo and get to know key people in other parts of the organization and build relationships that will help you. By doing this, you will build key skills that will serve you well your entire career including listening, reaching out, cooperation, collaboration, communication, learning others’ needs, etc.
Get on the A-Team. Every organization has a fairly small group of employees who are regularly called on to address key business opportunities and problems. Being in this group means that you’ll get noticed regularly, and by working on real business issues, instead of seminars and conferences, you’ll accelerate your career growth. To get on these key projects, ask those employees who always seem to be involved in those projects how they got started. Always volunteer to be on cross-functional teams (a topic Dorie discusses in her book, Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future). Find out who assigns those teams and get to know those people. Build relationships with several of the people so that they recommend you. Be enthusiastic about it. And when you are chosen, do great work.
Surround yourself with positive, upbeat people. Often when we begin working with an organization we conduct interviews, and invariably we come across people who are cynical or just plain negative. Surround yourself with positive people and the tap the positive energy they generate. That will fuel your own energy to learn, achieve and grow.
Prepare for the next level. It’s important to be ready for the next level. Whether you move from an individual contributor position to a first line supervisor or from a functional manager to a division manager, you need to understand how the higher-level position operates and how it will be different. How you plan, assign work, motivate, coach, and measure the work of others will require new skills. For example, positions with greater responsibility cannot devote time to fighting fires and working independently. You’ll have to shift from doing work to getting work done through others. One way to prepare is to do some informational interviews. Ask high performers at the next level what they found challenging about the transition, what they did to prepare, and what they would do differently if they could. Pay particular attention to how they allocate their time.
While others can help you move ahead with your career, you’ll go faster if you make it easier for them to see you in action and if you prepare for higher levels of responsibility. These five steps are actions you can take now to accelerate the process within your organization.
Bob Legge is president of Legge & Company. He specializes in successfully implementing strategy, leading organizational change, and improving executive effectiveness.
Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is the author of Reinventing You and Stand Out, and you can receive her free Stand Out Self-Assessment Workbook.
