Richard Kaloust Simple Ways To Progress Careers
Your Management Career is in Your Own Hands
Richard Kaloust Simple Ways To Progress Careers By Geoffrey J Norman.
So there you have it in a nutshell. The three ways to progress your Management Career is to do nothing, or compete on the same playing field as you peers or to take control yourself. Easy. The first thing you have to do is qualify yourself for progress. By qualify I mean intellectually so that your position is based on a firm foundation and seen to be so. Bear in mind that an intellectual qualification need not always mean a degree in this that or whatever, it could actually mean that you are able to demonstrate you aptitude for a new role. Once you are qualified you can get to work and plan you career progress.
You will recall the first option is do nothing and this may not be as silly as it sounds. For instance in an organisation of relatively few people 80-100 say, there are relatively few opportunities to create your own role, mainly because of financial constraints, however. Be assured in a Company of this size there is always a reasonable turnover of Management staff because the ‘high flyers’ move on to so say bigger and better things. Then lo and behold there is an opening. If you are qualified and prepared and you seniors are aware it may well be enough. Just one thing here though. If you are not prepared to take on a more senior role within a company of this size you do not stand a chance of progress. Small Companies tend to put their managers in a goldfish bowel where everything is visible and if you cannot be seen as prepared you can bet someone else will.
Actually and obviously doing nothing is risky, not impossible but risky. The second way is to compete on a level playing field with your peers using whatever facilities your Company has to offer. This works if you are best at everything. Can you imagine the scenario where you seniors have to make a decision and fill a gap in the Management structure and there are three candidates. The person making the final decision on who gets the job is a stickler for the correct use of language and one of the candidates has a broader vocabulary than you, already you are on the back foot. Yes it can come to that. Trust me being equal is not going to do it for you!
The third way is for you to take control. Yes you may well be required to conform with Company training requirements and you should consider this as only a starting point. If you remember the last course you attended and try to recall how your business behaviour changed as a result. If you are the same as the vast majority the answer is No Change! If you designed the programme you would be far more engaged and inclined to progress as a result. There are many projects that you can take on yourself and benefit from the work. The key is to ensure that just two things happen, one is to ensure that whatever you do is required by your Company and two you publish your work by way of a report. Here you have a win-win result and you have no competition.
