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A key tenet of success - Approach to career planning
We all want to be successful, however, shy away from committing ourselves to a documented plan. In this article, let me touch upon on the importance o...
Raj GuptaLeadership · HR · Career
We all want to be successful, however, shy away from committing ourselves to a documented plan. In this article, let me touch upon on the importance of career planning in achieving progressive realization of our worthy goals.
Most of us are not sure of what career planning is? For every professional it would be different as every one has different aim / aspiration to grow in their chosen field. The baby step towards career planning is to have your SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) in place. Look for a Coach/Mentor- who can help you in achieving the desired professional goals. Coach can be your Friend; Philosopher & Guide. Speak with your friends, colleagues, peers- they will help you identify developmental needs for yourself.
In short, Career planning is a tool that help provide you requisite roadmap to achieve your worthy goals . Once you begin regularly reviewing and planning your career, you'll find yourself better equipped for whatever lies ahead in your career and in your life.
Career planning is not an activity that should be done one time - in school/college - and then left behind as we move ahead in our jobs and careers. Career planning is not a tough activity, not something to be postponed, but rather an activity that should be beneficial and satisfying, providing goals to achieve in your current career or plans for beginning a transition to a new career. Career planning if executed flawlessly is certainly a rewarding and fullfilling experience.
Once the analysis is done, you need to continue to strengthen your strengths while working on your weaknesses. Do not loose focus from OPPORTUNITIES, leverage them.Timelines are extremely important to track the changes in our own persona. You need to have 10% of inspiration Vis a Vis 90% of perspiration to achieve the targeted goal in future.
There is no short cut to success. Somebody shared with me a wonderfully stroy on this. One of young manager went for an interview with CEO of X company. CEO asked during the interview, how much you want to grow in life. He replied "just couple of feets". CEO said, what do you mean, can you please elaborate? Yeah, the young manager said, "I want to come across the Table". The CEO asked there are 2 ways to get their. One short cut and another long. Which one you want to go for. He said,"of course, short cut". CEO said, there are 2 ways when you want to be successfull through short cut i.e. either become in-law like me or become an out-law. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SHORT CUT.
While doing career, we must understand what makes us successful. We must understand that to be part of top management as an HR professional, it’s imperative for us to develop following competencies (in the highlighted order), in case we want to have a say in boardroom and want to lead : -
1. Business Acumen - The language of business is Finance and we can't afford to be poor at this. P&L outlook /understanding and our ability to anticipate environmental trends is imperative.
While doing career, we must understand what makes us successful. We must understand that to be part of top management as an HR professional, it’s imperative for us to develop following competencies (in the highlighted order), in case we want to have a say in boardroom and want to lead : -
1. Business Acumen - The language of business is Finance and we can't afford to be poor at this. P&L outlook /understanding and our ability to anticipate environmental trends is imperative.
2. Change Mastery - Competencies like ability to take all stakeholders along, cultural reinvention, facilitation etc.
3. Domain Expertise – for us it happens to be HR and related competencies i.e. HR strategy, performance management, employee retention and engagement, organizational development, talent acquisition, leadership development, capability building, HR service delivery etc to name a few.
Further to build a strong foundation, we must keep following points in view to levarege our skills & experiential learnings in a dynamic environment : -
Further to build a strong foundation, we must keep following points in view to levarege our skills & experiential learnings in a dynamic environment : -
Look over and beyond titles and focus on competency building. Every job requires a certain set of skills, and it's much better to focus on skill development than be so myopic as to focus just on job titles. Once you have skills, you will get what you want to get, if not in existing organization, may be in some other. To reiterate, let us focus on building COMPETENCIES!
Periodic analysis of career & job trends- Having information about career trends is vital to long-term career planning success. A career path that is expanding today could easily shrink tomorrow or next year. It's important to see where job growth is expected, especially in the career fields that most interest you. Besides knowledge of these trends, the other advantage of conducting this research is the power it gives you to adjust and strengthen your position, your unique selling proposition (USP).
In short, Career planning is a tool that help provide you requisite roadmap to achieve your worthy goals . Once you begin regularly reviewing and planning your career, you'll find yourself better equipped for whatever lies ahead in your career and in your life.