Holistic Career Progression

I am four months into my new position as sales/marketing/change/project ninja/pirate. I am behind schedule if I follow Watkins' First 90 Days. But I am building relationships, peeling back the onion and affecting change. Watkins seeks quick wins. I haven't seen or recognized the opportunity for quick wins. Everything is big. Everything I am working on is strategic. My natural tendency (dominant, aggressive) is to crave action and get those wins. They will come. Some projects are ready to be unvieled soon. And one is a project that I inheirited that I am building the business case against implementing.

I am working on two talent-related intiatives. I am examining our hiring process(es), compensation structures, and on-boarding/initial training processes. This has given me some time to reflect on my own career progression. It is time to develop the next stages.

My friend, Harry talks about a holisitic approach to business orientation being a Top 5 Trait when looking for a marketing candidate in a post over at Marketing Headhunter.com . This is something I believe in. Once I get a handle on marketing and sales in my current role (2-3 years from now), it will be time to start looking for the next opportunity.

I just finished reading a McKinsey Quarterly article that addresses talent management inside organizations. Making a Market In Talent provided valuable insights for me as I begin to transition away from line management to professional management.

Companies focus the greater part of their efforts on helping managers move up the line-management hierarchy and become better general managers. They usually spend less time developing people who have the talent required to cultivate distinctive client relationships, to tailor products for distribution channels, or to negotiate superior contracts with suppliers. The rewards of line management motivate talented people to seek line opportunities over professional ones.

Blammo! That hit me like a ton of bricks. I seek the transition from line management to professional management.

Sarah E. Needleman in Working With Executive Recruiters When Your Goal is the CEO Suite supports this holistic approach. In her CareerJournal.com article, she speaks to the qualifications she looks for when recruiting CEO candidates for her clients.

I want to see that they have run a significant profit-and-loss operation and that they have measurable achievements as leaders. I want to see that they have created significant change in an organization's approach to business and the results that followed.

She also wants to see a wide-range of functional responsibilities from finance, to product developent, to marketing and sales.

Beyond Code Review Published in The CEO Refresher

I recently had another book review published in The CEO Refresher! I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to review my friend, Rajesh Setty's book: Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps

Rajesh published a manifesto at ChangeThis and turned it into a book. We struck up a relationship, he sent me the book and I found it to be most valuable. Read the review at the CEO Refresher.

See Rajesh's link to the review on his blog: Life Beyond Code.

As I caution in the review, don't get too wrapped up in the IT focus. If you're tired of being just another drone in toiling away in your veal fattening pen day after day, you should start with Beyond Code.