A jobs-first mindset can limit you in your career

You can’t buy a career GPS in the electronics store even though it would be an ideal gift.

Careers, after all, are complicated, as you anticipate the twists and turns, balance the short term with the long term and loyalty to your firm with loyalty to yourself, and contemplate opportunities that too often don’t come at the perfect time. “To navigate, women need a career GPS,” former PepsiCo chief operating officer Grace Puma and former Nike president of consumer-direct Christiana Smith Shi write in Career Forward. “That means not just a road map, but also corrective advice when you make a wrong turn.”

It would be handy, for men as well as women. But they single out women because even though there are more women in leadership roles than ever before and the gender pay gap is slowly narrowing, they argue women still find it more difficult to advance in their careers than men do.

You have to create your own career GPS. It starts with soul-searching about the factors that are most important to you in a professional life. You have to weigh issues like having financial stability, work-life balance, living in a specific city, what field you prefer to work in and how you feel about your current organization’s culture and the opportunities it offers down the road. Those factors help define your career “Cardinal Direction,” which in turn points you forward beyond your current job.

“We call that being Career Forward, which means to focus on your career path rather than your current job. If you chase the next job title or salary bump, you’ll take your eye off the long-range perspective that really leads to success,” they write.

Your current job still matters. Being consistently good at it is the price of admission to advancing your career. “But we also believe that being good at your job is not enough, and those who overly focus on job instead of career are likely to get stalled. Career Forward means having such a strong focus on the future that you’re always moving in the right direction,” they say.

This approach is vital for younger workers – not just women, they stress – who don’t strategize about their career and act on it other than updating resumes, scanning for open positions and occasionally networking. Too often they operate on a blind faith that good work speaks for itself, and pour themselves into their jobs, assuming a big reward will come – which isn’t necessarily true. They also assume that their jobs are secure and raises and promotions will come if they just are patient.

“All these assumptions are made by talented, hardworking, ambitious young people who are accustomed to excelling at everything they do. But they’re stymied by a jobs-first mindset, which leaves them waiting in the wings, no matter how talented they are,” Ms. Puma and Ms. Shi warn.

Don’t be casual about your job. But also don’t sacrifice everything for it. You need to do both, demonstrating commitment in your current position while looking ahead with an activist mindset. They stress looking forward does not mean chasing any open jobs and seeking lots of title changes or salary increases. Be strategic.

In the early years of your career, your job and your career can feel similar as you focus on making enough money to live on while establishing yourself. Job and career will essentially be overlapping circles. Then as you move beyond entry positions your career and job may diverge into two separate spheres. “If your job is going well, it doesn’t automatically mean that your career is moving in a satisfying direction or you’re meeting your long-term goals. You need to be alert to the right signs,” they write.

Develop your Cardinal Points and navigate through intuition, thought and astute calculation – in effect, your career GPS.

Quick hits

• If you struggle with being decisive, Ottawa-based consultant Shaun Belding urges you to accept that you are human and will make poor decisions. Be confident in your ability to adjust if the decision doesn’t work out.
• When trying to resolve conflict, consultant Greg McKeown advises asking yourself four questions: What is my counterpart’s desired win? What can’t they lose? What is my desired win? What can’t I lose? Then when conversing, initially listen closely to what they are saying, seeking to understand, and then try to formulate a question that can get both sides focusing together on achieving each other’s desired win without undesired losses.
• “The more time it takes to explain a course of action, the less likely it is to be a good one,” notes Ottawa thought leader Shane Parrish.
• Always ask for what you want but never expect you will get it, observes author James Clear. Everyone is busy and balancing multiple priorities, but many people are happy to help if the request is direct and specific. “In a surprising number of cases, something remarkable is possible if you have the courage to ask,” he says.

Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.