Objective self assessment is a wonderful thing. The moments where we recognize our strengths and weaknesses can lead us to the most impactful learning we will ever experience.
I had one of these moments a few years ago. I observed throughout my career that it always seemed that when I invested time in personal and professional development, an opportunity would arise where I could apply my newly found knowledge and skills, an opportunity that led to bigger, better things, or new challenges.
I was curious about this, and happened to be talking with my team about personal and professional development at the time. So, I put together a spreadsheet with the following headings:
Calendar Year - Year of my career, starting with the first year of my professional career
Personal / Professional Growth Activity - What kind of personal and or professional growth I did that year, ranging from going to college to physical conditioning to almost anything that helped grow my knowledge and abilities
Employer - The company I worked for
Career Activity - What happened in my career that year. Whether I was promoted, recognized, received additional opportunity or responsibility, etc.
Relative Development - A somewhat subjective asssessment of how much energy I put into self development. I used a 0 (no activity) to 5 (full time learning / college) scale.
Income - How much money I earned that year. I used my annual Social Security Benefits Statement to help with this!
Income Change From Previous Year - Simple calculation.
Income Change From Base - Treating the first year of my career (1981 for me) as the "base" level, what percentage change from that point year. Helpful to see how long it took to double, triple, etc. my income level.
Comments - Observations I have about my Personal / Professional Development activity and what happened.
I'be posted a sanitized version of my personal Career Tracking and Assessment tool in another post:
http://richgrunenwald.blogspot.com/2010/10/career-tracking-and-assessment-history.html
(I am having trouble with sizing this, so please bear with me!)
The results were fascinating. Some of the things I expected to see, and a couple things I didn't.
1) The General Benefits of Self Development.
When I spent effort on personal and professional development, something would happen that would allow me to apply my knowledge and ability. The most interesting part was that the specific development activity and the impact on what happened from a career perspective were sometimes not directly related.
For example, in 1995 and 1996, I studied Information Engineering and prepped for the PMI exam. I ended up being promoted to an operations management / recruiting manager role. Why? Because I was perceived as aggressive and driven to success and would figure out what I didn't know if I had to as demonstrated by my self study.
I compare self development to exercise. Pretty much all exercise is good for you, whether you are training to run a marathon or you are just looking to improve your health. The same goes for self development. Devoting time to your personal and professional well being is beneficial whether or not you have a specific end goal in mind.
2) Sometimes, You Have To Take A Risk
There have been a number of critical junctures during my career, where I conciously chose to take a risk:
- In 1983 when I left a secure and promising position with a great company to get experience to improve long term marketability
- In 1993 when I left a secure management position for the opportunity to grow as a Project Manager and learn other environments
- In 1996 when I left a revenue producing consulting position to go to an overhead, operations management position.
- In 2000, when I went into sales. 'Nuff said about the risks associated with sales!
- In 2004, when I left a company where I had been for twelve years to go to a company where I had to earn my reputation and value
In my mind, at each of these junctures I was presented with the trade-off of short term risk vs. long term reward. I had to evaluate whether going to something new would ultimately be better than the current state I was in.
We need to remind ourselves periodically that we have to force ourselves into this situation, to create our own "burning platform" for change and growth, to prove to ourselves we still have it. Early in our careers when we get that first job, we do it without thinking. Later in our careers, we tend to stay in our comfort zones and become risk averse because of what is at stake (disruption to our personal lives, perceived risk of failure, etc.). We stop pushing into new territory, and it almost always ends badly.
Have you ever met a person like this? That played it so safe and risk averse that they ended up having little market value? They end up with five years of experience and knowledge maybe three or four times over, rather than 15 or 20 years of valuable, progressive experience that reflects viability and the zest thrive in any situation.
You don't want to be that guy.
SUMMARY
I regularly suggest to people to do this analysis for themselves. It is very tempting to play it safe, particularly when you have a job where you are in good standing, that is interesting, and pays the bills. It is easy to lull yourself into becoming comfortable.
However, we do so at our own risk. The pace of change in the world of work is such that if we don't develop skills and knowledge to assist us with being relevant, it will leave us behind, talking about the good old days, rather than a vision of what might be, what we can create.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Developing Your Personal Inventory
An observation from the past 30 or so years of my career is that fate has put me into very different jobs and roles. I have worked for different types and sizes of companies, and currently work for a company that is the second largest in its market space from a global perspective.
What has been a pleasant surprise has been the fact that I have managed to be fairly successful in most all of these roles and environments. On the surface, "C Programmer" and "Account Executive" (aka "Sales Guy") would seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. I similarly have met others that have enjoyed a wide variance of activity in their careers. Some have turned their hobbies or passions into their full time jobs, and others seem to move from one industry and role to another with apparent ease.
This seems to fly in the face of most corporate wisdom that requests a higher and / or broader degree of expertise in one's chosen field, and often rewards for this by moving people up the promotional food chain.
Upon some reflection, I thought about the knowledge, skills, experience, aptitudes, and interests I have, and how I have (subconciously) been able to apply these things to roles and companies I have been at. This led to the creation of what I refer to as a "Personal Inventory" that brings all of our talents to visibility.
The premise behind the Personal Inventory (PI for short) is that we all have a lot more skills, talents, and knowledge than we typically give ourselves credit for. After 20 or so years in a career, do any of us remember the significant accomplishments we had early on? Do we even remember what made us successful at that time? Probably not, and we should as these talents are there, waiting, within us ready to be applied to the next challenge we face.
It's like having a big toolchest full of tools, and forgetting what we can do with them!
The approach I use for the PI is to start an inventory of skills, talents, etc., de-coupling them from the roles we used them in and the jobs we've held. Then, we can start to look at how these characteristics can be combined for endeavors we thought were never possible before.
For example, I once found myself interviewing for a Director of Business Development position at a skilled care / assisted living facility, and thirty minutes into the interview it was apparent to both myself and the interviewer that I was a viable candidate for the job. How could this be? I never worked in health care, and this was about as far away from my core field of Information Technology as you could get.
A few weeks later, I thought the reasons I would have succeeded at that job include:
- Desire to do something socially worthwhile
- Understanding of the challenges that caring for a loved one brings to the family
- Ability to talk to relative strangers about difficult subjects
These characterisitics as well as others accumulated during the past thirty or so years could all be combined and applied to do something totally outside of the field I have been in. This led me to the creation of my own PI, which is an active collection of skills and talents and knowldege that makes up what I bring.
My PI has the following column headings, and under each I simply add things as I recognize them.
Job Titles: The formal titles of the jobs (both professional and personal) I've held. Ex: Programmer, Resource Manager, Managing Director, Coach, Treasurer, Master of Ceremonies, etc.).
Roles: The roles I've played in my professional and personal lives. Ex: HR manager, strategic business advisor, BOD member, sales person, mechanic, supervisor, event chairman, IT application designer, project manager, etc.
Industry and Company Experience: Self explanatory. The industries and companies I have become familiar with. Insurance, Contract Research, Education, Mail Order Sales, Automotive, etc. i0
Subject Matter Expertise and Business Knowledge: The knowledge areas and subject matter expertise I've accumulated. Consulting, Project Management, Staffing, Hiring, Business Plan Development, Recruiting, Hiring, Strategic Business Consulting, Profit and Loss Management, Budget Management, Auto Racing, etc.
Technical and Professional Skills: The detail technical and professional skills I've accumulated. Ex: Sales methodologies, negotiating skills, C programming, COBOL programming, business analysis, social networking, marketing for small business, etc.
Personal Characteristics and Aptitiudes: The things that are naturally a part of my make-up, that others would say about me, as well as the things that seem to come easy to me or that I seem to be naturally good at. Ex: Easy to talk with, high integrity, like meeting new people, good questioner, math, dependable, etc.
Passions, Interests, and Hobbies: The activities that I get excited about and am interested in. Another way to look at it is that these are the activities where we would spend our time if we were free to choose. Ex: Helping people through life transitions, sharing ideas / public speaking, cooking, driving skills, writing, history and research, auto racing, auto and motorcycle repair and restoration, career coaching / job hunting and advising, sales and marketing, teaching, etc.
I advise people on taking at least a week to put this together. Start it with as much as you can, and then set it aside. Come back and add to it as you come up with things. Go back to all your old performance reviews and read them to see what you accomplished. Ask a close friend for ideas. Better yet, keep it as an active document that you are always enhancing.
Take a look and see what you've collected. I am betting that it is way more than you ever thought. At the very least, you've done a huge exercise in self affirmation - please, no Stuart Smalley jokes!
Now, start thinking about how these abilities and such can be called upon and combined to do things you never dreamed were possible. All of a sudden, the field of play from a personal and career perspective has just expanded exponentially!
Creation of a "personal inventory" is by no means a new idea. Scour the web for sites on career management and job hunting and the like, and you will find several that begin with a person taking stock in their skills and talents, leading to a job hunting exercise of some sort.
My belief is that a PI is not something you only do when looking for a job. Instead, you do it throughout your life and career in order to realize your potential and spend your energy and talent where you want instead of where you feel you have to.
A sample PI is included in another post.
What has been a pleasant surprise has been the fact that I have managed to be fairly successful in most all of these roles and environments. On the surface, "C Programmer" and "Account Executive" (aka "Sales Guy") would seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. I similarly have met others that have enjoyed a wide variance of activity in their careers. Some have turned their hobbies or passions into their full time jobs, and others seem to move from one industry and role to another with apparent ease.
This seems to fly in the face of most corporate wisdom that requests a higher and / or broader degree of expertise in one's chosen field, and often rewards for this by moving people up the promotional food chain.
Upon some reflection, I thought about the knowledge, skills, experience, aptitudes, and interests I have, and how I have (subconciously) been able to apply these things to roles and companies I have been at. This led to the creation of what I refer to as a "Personal Inventory" that brings all of our talents to visibility.
The premise behind the Personal Inventory (PI for short) is that we all have a lot more skills, talents, and knowledge than we typically give ourselves credit for. After 20 or so years in a career, do any of us remember the significant accomplishments we had early on? Do we even remember what made us successful at that time? Probably not, and we should as these talents are there, waiting, within us ready to be applied to the next challenge we face.
It's like having a big toolchest full of tools, and forgetting what we can do with them!
The approach I use for the PI is to start an inventory of skills, talents, etc., de-coupling them from the roles we used them in and the jobs we've held. Then, we can start to look at how these characteristics can be combined for endeavors we thought were never possible before.
For example, I once found myself interviewing for a Director of Business Development position at a skilled care / assisted living facility, and thirty minutes into the interview it was apparent to both myself and the interviewer that I was a viable candidate for the job. How could this be? I never worked in health care, and this was about as far away from my core field of Information Technology as you could get.
A few weeks later, I thought the reasons I would have succeeded at that job include:
- Desire to do something socially worthwhile
- Understanding of the challenges that caring for a loved one brings to the family
- Ability to talk to relative strangers about difficult subjects
These characterisitics as well as others accumulated during the past thirty or so years could all be combined and applied to do something totally outside of the field I have been in. This led me to the creation of my own PI, which is an active collection of skills and talents and knowldege that makes up what I bring.
My PI has the following column headings, and under each I simply add things as I recognize them.
Job Titles: The formal titles of the jobs (both professional and personal) I've held. Ex: Programmer, Resource Manager, Managing Director, Coach, Treasurer, Master of Ceremonies, etc.).
Roles: The roles I've played in my professional and personal lives. Ex: HR manager, strategic business advisor, BOD member, sales person, mechanic, supervisor, event chairman, IT application designer, project manager, etc.
Industry and Company Experience: Self explanatory. The industries and companies I have become familiar with. Insurance, Contract Research, Education, Mail Order Sales, Automotive, etc. i0
Subject Matter Expertise and Business Knowledge: The knowledge areas and subject matter expertise I've accumulated. Consulting, Project Management, Staffing, Hiring, Business Plan Development, Recruiting, Hiring, Strategic Business Consulting, Profit and Loss Management, Budget Management, Auto Racing, etc.
Technical and Professional Skills: The detail technical and professional skills I've accumulated. Ex: Sales methodologies, negotiating skills, C programming, COBOL programming, business analysis, social networking, marketing for small business, etc.
Personal Characteristics and Aptitiudes: The things that are naturally a part of my make-up, that others would say about me, as well as the things that seem to come easy to me or that I seem to be naturally good at. Ex: Easy to talk with, high integrity, like meeting new people, good questioner, math, dependable, etc.
Passions, Interests, and Hobbies: The activities that I get excited about and am interested in. Another way to look at it is that these are the activities where we would spend our time if we were free to choose. Ex: Helping people through life transitions, sharing ideas / public speaking, cooking, driving skills, writing, history and research, auto racing, auto and motorcycle repair and restoration, career coaching / job hunting and advising, sales and marketing, teaching, etc.
I advise people on taking at least a week to put this together. Start it with as much as you can, and then set it aside. Come back and add to it as you come up with things. Go back to all your old performance reviews and read them to see what you accomplished. Ask a close friend for ideas. Better yet, keep it as an active document that you are always enhancing.
Take a look and see what you've collected. I am betting that it is way more than you ever thought. At the very least, you've done a huge exercise in self affirmation - please, no Stuart Smalley jokes!
Now, start thinking about how these abilities and such can be called upon and combined to do things you never dreamed were possible. All of a sudden, the field of play from a personal and career perspective has just expanded exponentially!
Creation of a "personal inventory" is by no means a new idea. Scour the web for sites on career management and job hunting and the like, and you will find several that begin with a person taking stock in their skills and talents, leading to a job hunting exercise of some sort.
My belief is that a PI is not something you only do when looking for a job. Instead, you do it throughout your life and career in order to realize your potential and spend your energy and talent where you want instead of where you feel you have to.
A sample PI is included in another post.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Work Related?
I just returned from vacationing for 8 days or so in Lincoln, NE. Lincoln is not exactly a hotspot resort destination for the general public, but it is a mecca for a group of auto racing drivers.
To get a flavor for what motivates 1,200 or so drivers from all over the country to spend a week or more in Nebraska, check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzWGwBd0DBg
My experience is at
http://forum.ovr-scca.org/index.php?topic=533.0
Why bring this up?
There are passions that drive all of us and provide balance in a world full of activity. This is one of the passions in my world.
In my mind, the true definition of recreation is the activity that takes you away from your regular life, where you spend "me time", and do things that bring inner satisfaction. For some, recreation involves high energy and intense activities. For others, recreation is more introspective, thoughtful, calm. I am sure there are some deep psychological reasonings behind why some choose yoga and others choose mountain climbing.
For me, it is pretty easy. As a 6 year old, the guy next door had a '57 Bel Air that he was all the time working on, and I was the kid hanging around. Since then, I've always had an interest in things mechanical and racing.
The thing to remember is to remember is to make time for the passions you have. If you don't, your world will be consumed with everyone else's priorities instead of your own.
To get a flavor for what motivates 1,200 or so drivers from all over the country to spend a week or more in Nebraska, check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzWGwBd0DBg
My experience is at
http://forum.ovr-scca.org/index.php?topic=533.0
Why bring this up?
There are passions that drive all of us and provide balance in a world full of activity. This is one of the passions in my world.
In my mind, the true definition of recreation is the activity that takes you away from your regular life, where you spend "me time", and do things that bring inner satisfaction. For some, recreation involves high energy and intense activities. For others, recreation is more introspective, thoughtful, calm. I am sure there are some deep psychological reasonings behind why some choose yoga and others choose mountain climbing.
For me, it is pretty easy. As a 6 year old, the guy next door had a '57 Bel Air that he was all the time working on, and I was the kid hanging around. Since then, I've always had an interest in things mechanical and racing.
The thing to remember is to remember is to make time for the passions you have. If you don't, your world will be consumed with everyone else's priorities instead of your own.
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