Don’t Put Your Job Before Your Career
There may be a career vision you want to realize. You may even know how to do it. However, there is one obstacle: your current job.
It is possible for some lucky employees to be appreciated just by working hard and then to be promoted to the position they want. However, for many others, the heavy time requirements of your current role (and brand position) can limit your ability to progress, especially if the job you want most involves different skills or requires connecting with new coworkers. Over time this can become a serious hurdle. Marshall Goldsmith and Sally Helgesen call it “focusing on your job at the expense of your career.”
In my book The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, I talk about navigating two realities at once: meeting current short-term needs (i.e. working to pay your bills) and positioning yourself for long-term success on the one hand. Below are four principles you can apply to make progress, even if you are currently overburdened.
Analyze the value of your life.
There will be a Venn Chart for which goals of your business should most or less with your vision of the future. Your current sales in a circle, in use in the job description if the usage is in a circle. It will probably improve a bit.
They will identify futures who will continue this program (they will come in the future and will be relevant to new knowledge), those who will be able to advance (selections from students you will not currently do), and future students (willful future future impressions).
Find allies.
Often we cannot have complete control over our workload and responsibilities. So you will need the support of allies, especially your manager, to realize your vision. If you have a good relationship, you can go to your manager and explain how you want to shape your career. You might say: “I am determined to do a great job in this role and want to be positioned to be successful in the future. I would be very happy if you could help me on what strategy I would follow to achieve this.”
Then share your analysis with your manager and ask for help identifying new tasks or opportunities where you can develop new skills or gain new contacts. For example, your manager might send you to an industry conference or nominate you for an interdepartmental commission to gain new connections. You can also raise the issue of transferring jobs that you do not want. Of course, doing so may require extra work, educating other people about the necessary protocols. In addition, reaching out to supportive colleagues in your department or elsewhere can be helpful. These people may be aware of opportunities that your boss is not aware of.
Manage your brand.
One of the biggest challenges with advancing in your career is the need to re-establish your personal brand. In most cases, this does not mean that you are perceived negatively. People cannot imagine you are in a more senior role or in a new context because they are used to thinking about you a certain way and cannot question those assumptions. So, even if you continue in your current role, it’s time to change your narrative.
Raise the level of your speech as if you were in the position you want, as is the classic advice to “dress for the job you want”. For example, if you want to be promoted, ask higher-level strategy questions at team meetings. If you want to change the functional area you work in, find out about your new area and post about it on social media or mention it in conversations with your colleagues.
In particular, do something about your weak points that you fear will knock you out. If you’ve never worked abroad and your ideal position often requires it, show you’re fit. For example, take language classes or attend executive education programs in your desired region. You have to prepare in this way so that when your promotion comes up for discussion, people should say, “yes, I can see it’s possible”.
Experiment “120 percent of your time”.
It is well known that Google (now Alphabet) encourages its employees to use 20 percent of their time for experimental activities outside of current job requirements. This creativity bore fruit for the company, such as the creation of Google News. It also allowed employees who used this creativity to advance significantly in their careers. In my book The Long Game, I’m talking about a marketer who got a job at Alphabet’s innovation factory X (Moonshot Factory) thanks to a project that he volunteered using 20 percent of his time.
However, the vast majority of Googlers don’t actually use 20 percent of their time. Because their problems are the same as many other employees: Their current job has relentless demands. Marissa Mayer, ex-CEO of Yahoo and a former Google employee humorously said, “Let me tell you Google’s dirty little secret about 20 percent time. In fact, that’s 120 percent of your time because you’re working beyond your regular job.”
If you want to devote 20 percent of your time to creative or developmental activities, you need a collaborative manager and strict time management discipline. If you don’t have that, you should at least agree to work harder for a while. This way, you show that you are sincere and attract the attention of people who can help you move forward. Structurally, you may not find an extra 20 percent. Demands in other areas of your life can interfere. But even an extra 5 percent after intelligently reorganizing your current workload can make visible progress over time.
The gap between what we need to do now and where we see ourselves in the future can be frustrating. We want to move towards our goals, but are dragged by responsibilities that seem boring or unrelated to our vision. However, when you adopt the four strategies here, you can achieve what is necessary in the short term and improve your career in the long term at the same time.
