Managing Your Career in Today' Workplace

Effectively managing a career - especially one of steady growth, with frequent promotions - has always been a challenge, but it's important to remember that no one will manage your career for you. The days when you could blindly place the future of your career in the hands of the company, and put your faith in the idea that "If I work hard and show up every day, I'll get my turn" are long gone.

Now more than ever, managing your career is up to you and it's still not easy -- whether you're just starting out in the workforce, you're in mid-career, or even if you work for a company experiencing the turbulent waters of a merger or acquisition. The post-millennium "workplace" encompasses countless trends and companies of every size and every industry, which makes it difficult to offer general advice.

Nevertheless, as someone who not long ago ran an internal career advisory service for a Fortune 500 company for a number of years and just went through the turbulence of an acquistion, I can share some fundamentals with you that will make successfully managing your career much easier. While career management trends continue to change, these essential fundamentals don't.

By focusing on these fundamentals, you will be building a solid foundation for your career. If you make these principles an ongoing part of your job, you'll be taking charge of your own future, and effectively moving in the direction of that next promotion or job.

Share your goals with your manager and director. Don't assume your boss knows your career goals. This may come as a surprise, but it's not their job to get you promoted or to help you land your next job. They can and should steer you in the right direction for career growth, but it is ultimately up to you to drive your own career. In most cases, of course, you are not the only person your boss is responsible for.

Focus on your current job. Like it or not, the recurring mantra of the business world seems to be, "What have done for me lately?" As a former manager myself, I can tell you from firsthand experience that I quickly grew very tired of hearing an employee tell me how great he would perform in his next job, especially if he was only an average performer in his current job. Instead, focus and work on your current position.

If you excel at your current position, you are in a much better position to handle your next job effectively. I know that may seem pretty basic but you might be surprised how often it happens. There is a difference between responsibly telling your manger your long-term career goals, and continually explaining how great you would be in that other job while you struggle or even neglect the responsibilities of your current position -- even if you're not motivated by this job.Get motivated because that is how you will get that next job.

Where do you fit in? The people I was motivated to help land their next promotion or sought-after jobs were the ones who saw the bigger picture. They didn't merely understand their position and how it fit into their department or division, but they saw how their decisions affected other departments, divisions and the company goals. It also increases my confidence that they could indeed handle the additional responsibilities and "bigger picture" thinking required at the next level.

Don't just be a top performer. There is nothing wrong being a top performer, and you should be proud of the accomplishment. The people who successfully land their desired promotion or job (especially a management job) did more than "hit their number," however. They helped the overall team's performance by doing things like mentoring new people on the team, sharing best demonstrated practices, and supporting their managers with their projects and responsibilities. Their actions demonstrated that they knew it wasn't about them but about the team, and they raised the overall performance of the team.

Know your next job. Make sure you really understand the position you seek to move into next. Really make sure you know the day to day responsibilities, hours, flexibility, financial data, personnel, and other details. When I was working in the corporate world, I can't tell you how many times people would tell me they wanted to go into marketing, for example, without doing much research on that type of job at that particular company. When I told them that a big part of a marketing jobis list and lead management, running test campaigns, and organizing direct mail projects, for example, they would look stunned. They had delusions of developing million-dollar global television campaigns.

I'm sure that if you keep these five principles in mind, and put them into practice, you'll be in a great position to land the promotion you're seeking. Also, if you'd like one-on-one coaching on achieving your desired career goals, I'd love to hear from you!

If you have a story to share about how you've used certain insights or strategies to succeed in your career, please e-mail with your story, so I can share it in a future newsletter!