211: How Can You Strategically Manage Your Career?

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:10]:

Hello, and welcome back to the half here at work, the award winning podcast for anyone working in the talent space. I’m so delighted you decided to tune in today. And you may notice from my voice that I have a little bit of a cold at the moment. And if you’re watching on YouTube, you certainly can see that I have a cold as well. My apologies in advance for that. Now today’s episode is something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while because it’s something I get asked about all the time, whether I’m going in to speak to organizations, whether I’m running a training session or running a longer program. And that is all about career development and how we strategically manage our careers. And it’s something I’ve been doing a lot of research on.

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:56]:

It’s something I’ve actually been interested in for a very long time. Probably ever since I left my own corporate career, I’ve been highly interested in this very specific area around how do we actually manage our careers. And it’s not something that we were ever taught about. No one teaches us in school. No one talks about this when we’re at work. We’re sort of expected to learn for ourselves. So whether you are a manager who’s looking to develop your team, whether you are an individual who is looking to grow and develop in whatever role you have, this episode is definitely going to be beneficial for you. Now I wanted to start by talking about some of the myths, I suppose, that are associated with managing your career.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:41]:

And one of the big ones, and I’ve talked about this multiple times on the podcast before. One of the big ones is this idea that you have to become a people leader in order to progress in your career. And I wanna just challenge that myth upfront and say that’s not always the case. You don’t have to become a people manager or a people leader in order to develop, in order to progress in your career. You can go into specialist areas where you’re not managing people because I know for a lot of people, and maybe they don’t realize this before they become a manager, but managing people is hard and you’re dealing with people’s personal problems and the admin that’s associated with it. So just know that it’s it doesn’t have to be that way, that you don’t have to necessarily be the person who is managing people. You can go into much more of a specialized role. And I suppose throughout this episode as well, I want to really emphasize the importance of being proactive because oftentimes we leave it we leave it to reactivity.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:38]:

We leave it to whatever opportunities arise in whatever organization we’re working in. So we don’t really think about, well, what do I want for my career? And I was gonna include, maybe not such a a cliche, but this idea that, you know, when you get asked the question, where do you want to be in 5 years time? And it’s and you’re saying, well, I definitely want to stay in this organization, which is not really true. But, you know, you don’t you can’t necessarily plan for where you are going to end up in 5 years time, but certainly be open to other opportunities and being proactive about seeking out what those opportunities might be. The other area that I wanted to touch on before I go into the the main kind of part of the podcast is this idea that it’s always about progressing up through the ranks, that it’s always about progressing, in your organization to the next level, and that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. You can also make lateral moves, and that’s really important part of career development as well. Understanding how different parts of the organization work or maybe tapping into your strengths, knowing what your strengths are, and really doubling down on an area of strength for you as well. So it doesn’t always have to be an upper progression. It can be a lateral move as well.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:54]:

I wanted to share, I suppose, the importance of this as well, and I’ll share some statistics in a minute. But career development is so, so important as a leader for attracting and retaining talent And then as an individual for being able to progress and having a fulfilling career is really important. And oftentimes, as I mentioned, we leave it to other people to manage our careers without thinking strategically about how we want to manage our own careers. So some stats around that. So a a study from Gallup shows that 87% of millennials thought that professional growth and development is important at work. And then a recent survey survey by LinkedIn, from their workforce learning report show that 94% would stay at a company for longer if they invested in their development. Now because I speak about this so much, I have put together a framework. I’m not gonna go into a huge amount of detail on every single aspect of the framework, but I do want to talk you through some of the key elements to keep in mind when it comes to having those career conversations with your team or whether it’s thinking about yourself and how you personally can manage your career a little bit more strategically, manage your career better.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:16]:

So the first one really is having goals. Like, what is it that you want? And something that I often share is it’s a clip from Oprah where she says most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want. So have you taken the time to think about what is it that you really want? What do you want from your career? What do you want from your life overall? Have you given that some thought? Do you know? Or are you just kinda going into default mode of I wanna get to the next level and you’re not really sure why? So understanding the why behind what you want to get is really important as well. But building on that, linking what you want and your career goals with the goals of the organization, and so you can see how you can develop and progress in the organization that you’re currently in is really important as well. So understanding how what you want to achieve in your career is linked with what the organization is trying to achieve as a whole and see whether there’s a connection there and whether you can grow and develop in that organization that you’re in. Another important area is to get feedback. So being open to feedback, not all feedback is good feedback, and oftentimes feedback is not delivered very well. I do have a previous episode all about feedback that you can go and listen to, and I will put a link in the show notes to that as well.

Aoife O’Brien [00:06:38]:

But seeking out feedback proactively to help you to build your own self awareness, to help you understand more about how you are perceived is really, really important. And that brings me on to the next point in relation to, well, how do you want to be perceived? And I saw this brilliant video that explained about thinking about 3 specific words that you want to be associated with. And those three words can change over time as your career develops. But right now, how do you want to be perceived by other people? What are those three words? And how can you start using those words in conversations so that people associate those words with you? And one example I’ll use is strategic. So if you want to be viewed as more strategic, how do you bring that word more into your everyday interactions, into your meetings, and talking about things like strategy and saying that’s very strategic and just using that language. And then people will start to see you as being that person who is strategic because you’re using that language. I thought it was a really nice hack to be able to use. But have a think about how you are currently perceived.

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:55]:

And is there a gap between how people perceive you now and how you would like to be perceived as well? This is certainly something we talked about, but in a much more broad context. And when people gave feedback, I think the feedback wasn’t really that useful. If you can be really specific about the kind of feedback that you would like and the kind of person that you want to show up at as and be perceived as and understanding where the gap is, it’s so, so important to do that as well. Another really important aspect is to invest in your learning. So I know, certainly, if I think back to my own corporate days, they were really good at mostly, they were really good at providing learning opportunities. There was lots of resources online. But are you taking that opportunity to proactively seek out those learning opportunities? You know, there could be free resources online that you can access. And I know there’s certainly loads of stuff out there in the form of podcasts like this one and other things, you know, on YouTube.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:56]:

If there’s something specific that you want to learn more about and being proactive and going out and seeking out that learning opportunity, but continuously investing in your own learning and making that time. Because I know we’re all pushed for time and that this is the biggest thing. I’m not gonna go into huge amount of detail on that today, but it’s the big biggest thing that causes us to to deprioritize our own career development is we’re so focused on the day to day and it’s taking up so much of our time. But if you take a pause for a minute and think about what is it that you really want to achieve and is what you’re doing on a day to day basis related to what what it is that you want to achieve in your career? Another really important aspect is, networking. So, you know, there’s again, there’s loads of cliches around this. Your network is your net worth. One of the best things that I ever heard is it’s not about who you know, it’s about who knows you. So who knows you in the organization? Who can you connect with? Who do you need to connect with? And thinking beyond your own organization to the industry that you work in, how do you make more connections there? So really understanding about who it is that you need to know and and making those connections.

Aoife O’Brien [00:10:17]:

The other area that you can consider as well is investing in yourself. So can you get a mentor? Can you get a coach? Does your organization provide these kinds of things for you, or do you have to do that separately as well? So I think having that alternative perspective, having someone to be able to bounce ideas around, to get feedback from, and to really talk about what it is that you really want and help you to uncover what it is that you want from your career. Now I suppose with all of those things, it’s about thinking about being proactive, as I mentioned. So it’s not waiting for opportunities to come to you. It’s thinking about how you can take your career into your own hands. So that’s number 1. And then number 2 is taking time to reflect what’s working well for you at the moment and what needs to be improved. So what are you doing well? Are you are you connecting with people? Or maybe that’s an area that you struggle with.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:13]:

Okay. So how can you improve that specific area? And then the other area is acting on feedback. You don’t have to act on all feedback that you get. You can pick and choose as you like, but be really open to the fact that maybe you don’t have it all figured out or you have some blind spots, which all of us do. So being really open to that, I think, is important. In the context of everything that I’ve talked about as well, there’s this idea and again, I bring this into a lot of the workshops, the training, the speaking that I do is this idea of balance. And it’s not all about push, push, push, grind, grind, grind. And we’re just solely focused on getting the job done and moving up the ladder.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:56]:

It’s about enjoying the process overall and finding that sense of balance, feeling a sense of peace in what it is that you’re doing, enjoying the journey as you go along because it’s not just about the destination. And I and I’ll be happy when I get to this certain place, but it’s it’s enjoying the process. It’s having that time to enjoy it and not spending all of your time at work. Then, you know, if you’ve been connected with me for a while, you know I talk an awful lot about imposter syndrome. It’s about having the confidence to be able to do that. So do you feel confident enough to be able to take action on some of the things that I spoke today that I spoke about today. So having that confidence to be able to take your career into your own hands, to be able to move it forward, to be able to reach out to people that you don’t know with that fear of rejection that we all have and and still make progress and still be okay and have the resilience to be able to keep going even in the face of setbacks, even in the face of knockbacks from people and rejection as well. I spoke about this idea of self awareness and really knowing yourself, knowing what you’re good at, knowing what your values are is so crucial to understanding what it is that you actually want to have from your career.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:16]:

So again, getting an outside perspective and listening to feedback can really help you to grow in self awareness. And don’t forget to celebrate the wins. So what does success look like for you? What are some of the milestones along the way? And how can you celebrate those wins? So I hope that has, at the very least, given you some food for thought. Like I said, I’m not gonna go into a huge amount of detail on the entire framework that I have around strategic career development. It is something that I’m seeing a lot more of that people are realizing that in the past, we had our organizations to rely on that they were providing these opportunities. And now I’m not saying that organizations are washing their hands of their responsibilities when it comes to career development, but they’re very much placing the the onus and the responsibility on individuals to manage their own careers even though individuals don’t necessarily know how to manage their careers strategically. And organizations, some are really great at providing those resources or they have the technology to back it up. But sometimes it comes down to the mindset and, well, I don’t have a framework for how to manage my career, so I have access to all these resources, but I don’t know what to do with them.

Aoife O’Brien [00:14:33]:

I don’t know how to how to make it work. So hopefully, today’s episode has given you some food for thought in relation to that. Do let me know in the comments below whether you’re listening on one of the podcast forms or whether you’re watching on YouTube. I’d love to know what you think. As always, I’m open to connecting across social media. You will find all of my social links on my website, happier at work dot IE. I’m most active on LinkedIn, and hopefully, I will see you there.