How many times have you heard of the word strategy? Do you know what strategy really means? Let’s explore the meaning behind the name and see if we are getting the full benefit of strategy as a concept. Wikipedia defines strategy as a general plan to achieve long-term or overall goals under uncertain conditions.
I specifically adore the way Prof. Richard P. Rumlet’s simple way of describing strategy as designing a way to deal with a challenge. He explains the core (or ‘kernel’) of a good strategy contains three elements, a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and a set of coherent actions.
I have seen strategy being used mostly for corporate planning and decision making. I would like to explore it in the context of designing a personal career strategy for students and working professionals.
With the help of the three elements described by Rumlet, I have thought of a couple of questions that we could consider for designing a career strategy.
- A diagnosis
- What is the real problem?
- What is the current situation?
- A guiding policy
- What principles could we use to approach the problem?
- What is the desired direction?
- A set of coherent actions
- What is the action plan to implement the guiding policy?
- How can you channel your resources in the desired direction?
Most of the career strategy guidance seems to direct us in getting to the actions. While I agree that action is the most important step to make progress, let’s explore how we could build the diagnosis and guiding policy to make our career strategy more sustainable.
Due to the pandemic, millions of people are re-evaluating their careers in an unprecedented scale and rigor. Having a good career strategy during these testing times is essential for students who are starting to launch their careers. It is equally vital for working professionals to weather the job market’s storms from time to time, so having a career strategy could support them immensely.
Strategy is more than planning or goal setting!
Based on this simple model, here are some key elements I invite you to consider when you design a sound career strategy. Whether you are a student starting your career journey or an established professional, this model would help develop a sustainable career strategy.
1) Having a career vision:
A career vision sees a clear picture of yourself in the occupation you chose to commit to every day. Students might find it hard to see a career vision easily. For many, the real problem they are solving doing their job is their own survival.
Invest some time to find why you do what you do and what motivates you to show up for your job, other than your salary.
Our career vision makes our priorities clear. It also serves as our pole star to find the best suitable path to our career destinations.
Ask yourself: What is the real problem I desire to solve, and how am I willing to solve them?
For some guidance on mission, vision and purpose read on: “Where am I heading?”
2) Assessing your personal values, strengths, and drivers
The Values you hold, express what really matters to you in the way you live and work. When you list down your personal values, strengths and drivers, you begin to understand yourself better. Drivers are those things that motivate you to go to work.
This awareness goes a long way in making long-term decisions in your career.
Ask yourself: What values do I hold on to most dearly? What abilities am I am most proud of that support me in overcoming challenges? What gets me out of bed every day?
3) Embracing a growth mindset
A good strategy has a guiding principle or policy that helps us to handle challenges effectively. In my experience, having a growth mindset allows us to learn and develop our talents and abilities continuously.
When we have a growth mindset, we view any setbacks or failures along the career journey as a stepping stone or a learning opportunity. When we embrace a growth mindset to be our guiding principle, we become more resilient and handle the challenges that come our way.
Ask yourself: How do I view my effort, setback, and failures? How do I rewire my thought patterns and get rid of the ones that don’t serve me?
4) Seeing possibilities and opportunities
With the career vision in mind, I believe it is crucial to expand our ability to see as many possibilities and opportunities as possible, leading to our vision. Usually, our conditioning and fears do not let us see all the options that exist.
Seeing the job market’s current situation and career opportunities is another major way to have a reality check. It is not realistic to expect to get our dream job overnight or perhaps even in the next few years.
We might not have the adequate skill set or capability expected for the job, or we don’t have access to the opportunity that lead us there. Carefully considering the macro environment around us and carving our unique path in the desired direction could be a slow process. Yet, I believe it is a sure way to manifesting our career vision.
Ask yourself: To manifest my career vision, what options exist that is not fully clear to me or that I am not prepared to see?
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
5) Identify and commit to the action plan
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Similarly, all the planning that goes into our career journey holds no good when we don’t act on it. Design a coherent action plan that brings all the above aspects together along with desired timelines. This is when you set goals based on what you know about yourself already.
Keep in mind your personal life milestones and space out the timelines to keep the plan realistic and less- stressful. Remember, it is your life and your list and that you are the boss!
It is essential to make a plan and, perhaps more important, to execute it. If you are struggling to stick to the action plan, have your friend or family member or mentor, or coach keep you accountable for implementing the action plan.
Ask yourself: What action would address some or most of the earlier elements in the career strategy? How can I keep my efforts effective and efficient?
6) Track, review, and revise
Keep a review scheduled in your diary every three months, for instance. Frequently reviewing what you have committed to do and reflect on what you have accomplished allows you to monitor and make corrections to the plan or your actions.
I believe this the most crucial element among everything described above. Doing this keeps or increases the momentum of action and keeps our attention on a career to take concrete steps to propel you forward.
Ask yourself: What has worked and not worked so far, and how can you address the gap?
My Reflections:
In my own career, spanning about 20 years, I have moved my skills domain from Accounting to Information Technology to Talent development, moved from Consulting to Industry to currently exploring Entrepreneurship, and moved countries to work in India, Switzerland, and Singapore.
All these moves have been delibrate and diligent. Each move helped me in every way to expand my comfort zone. All along, I had my own career strategy based on my career vision, and I am moving ahead towards my vision one step at a time.
Being clear on what I wanted and using my discretion to carve out a path for myself has an amazing and gratifying experience. Would you like to give it a try to create your unique strategy?
If you like exploring courage to take your unique path, read on “Do you have the courage to say yes?”
Questions to reflect:
- How do you think a sound career strategy could personally help you to co-create a fulfilling career?
- Which of these aspects have you already considered in your career strategy? You may not have written it down, yet you have applied it diligently. In what way was considering those aspects useful in your life?
- Which of these elements have you not considered in your career strategy or find it challenging to apply? What makes it difficult?
- What support do you currently have to help you navigate your careers so that it fully works for you? Have you considered having a mentor or coach as a sounding board to make career-related decisions?
If you are interested to jump right into setting career goals, read on for some guidance on simple goal setting for careers: “How to set career goals that help me”
