Far out thinking
February 25th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I’m working with a number of clients currently who are taking stock of career. It’s important work for them and their organisations and I’m struck by the difficulty many of us have in taking that far out view of our career things.
It seems we can do it more easily for the organisation than we can for ourselves. In the business context we know we need to have direction, a sense of where we are going. Just anywhere won’t do. And when we have that focus it’s amazing how things fall into place.
And yet when it comes to career….
For some it’s about discovering what is important for them, then using that to guide action. For others it’s about finding balance, and isn’t that hard when life is busy. Time for me? That’ll be last in line! And yet unless you take some protected time to think far out you leave yourself like the little cork at the mercy of the wind, taken this way and that.
Magic solutions? Now you don’t really expect that did you? Some fruitful areas to explore are:
Strengths – discovering these can be fun, and playing to them can be especially fruitful. It seems that it is only in organisations we get to focus on our weaknesses, rather than exploiting our areas of greatest talent. In any other context that would be just daft.
Competencies seem to offer others a way of thinking about what they have and how they might grow their repertoire in order to do other/greater things. I’m fine with that.
Broadening the type of conversations you are having with colleagues, mentors or your coach can be beneficial too. Had a lovely example recently where a finance guy discovered a strength with people that had lain unrecognised for some time. He felt that he wasn’t quite the same as colleagues, he stood out as different, got great results but was a bit of a sore thumb compared to others. His differentiator is that he is great with people, unlike many of his colleagues and discovering that was quite special.
I have a feeling that we might well return to this topic…
Meantime, be well, keep thinking far out as well as looking after the close in stuff.
Steve
