Building Our Careers from the Outside In
At one point in my career I had a boss who came to me and asked me to participate on a team whose mission was to understand the driving forces for changes to our industry and the impact of those changes on our business strategy. I thought shouldn’t this be a role for...
Two Keys to Greater Influence
People often ask me how they can become more influential. They are usually thinking in terms of influencing co-workers, such as getting them on board with a change process, or in working with senior leaders—perhaps to land a promotion or get a new career opportunity....
Four Assumptions We Make When Promoting High-Performing Technical People into Leadership
What’s one of the most classic mistakes in talent management today? I would suggest one answer is taking highly successful individual contributors and promoting them into positions where they now lead the work of others, without consideration as to whether the person...
Five Reasons Why Most Career Development Initiatives Fail
Many career development initiatives within organizations originate in response to employee survey data suggesting employees lack career opportunities or support. The organization’s leadership then says “we’ve got to do something about this,” followed by lots of energy...
How Do I Get Promoted? Start by Becoming a ‘Go-To’ Person
As a consultant, I facilitate numerous career development workshops. I will often ask the participants about their expectations for the day, and almost invariably someone makes the statement: “I want to know what it takes to get promoted around here.” Although I...