Brian McIvor - Planning Your Career

Oak Tree Press develops and delivers information, advice and resources for entrepreneurs and managers. It is Irelands leading business book publisher, with an unrivalled reputation for quality titles across business, management, HR, law, marketing and enterprise topics.

In addition, through its founder and managing director, Brian OKane, Oak Tree Press occupies a unique position in start-up and small business support in Ireland through its standard-setting titles, as well training courses, mentoring and advisory services. Oak Tree Press is comfortable across a range of communication media print, web and training, focusing always on the effective communication of business information.

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Brian McIvor is a management skills training specialist with over 25 years experience in the public service and financial service sectors. He has worked with a wide range of international organisations. His areas of professional interest include: career planning and development, interpersonal and communication skills, corporate communications, including corporate video and multimedia, and scientific management skills.

At the time of original print publication, Marion OConnor, John Cullen and John Mangan were Management Researcher, Senior Management Researcher and Director of Research respectively at IMIs Centre for Management Research and the editors of the IMIHandbook of Management, on which this ebook is based.

Planning Your Career is extracted from the IMI Handbook of Management (ISBNs 978-1-86076-292-5 hardback, 978-1-86076-293-2 paperback), edited by Marion OConnor, John Cullen and John Mangan, and published by Oak Tree Press, www.oaktreepress.com, in association with IMI).

The titles in this ebook series include:

Managing Your Time.

Getting Things Done.

Managing Stress & Your Health.

Planning Your Career.

Motivating Others.

Building Effective Teams.

Negotiating Effectively.

Facilitating Meetings & Chairing Discussions.

Managing People.

Managing Customers.

Presentation & Communication Skills.

Internal Communications.

Assertiveness.

Influencing Others.

Gathering Business Information.

Business Writing.

Managing in Changing Times.

Managing Outsourcing.

Doing Business Strategy.

Leadership.

Understand what a successful career means for you.

Undertake an inventory of skills, expertise and traits.

Identify career drivers and anchors.

Consider career options.

Set meaningful goals and action plans.

This eBook is about finding your ideal career. However, our careers need to be examined in the light of the balance between our work and the other elements of our life. The areas of working, learning, playing and giving are examined with the objective of finding the correct proportion and overlap between them. What we can do (our skills) and our knowledge (expertise) need also to be factored in, together with an understanding of the elements that will give our career meaning and satisfaction.

By now, you should have some clarity on the following:

Work / Life balance: Combining WLPG.

Skills: What are the four or five core skills that you have to a high level and which enable you to produce your best results?

Knowledge/Expertise.

Career Drivers: What gives your career meaning?

Optimum working conditions: Where and how you will produce your best results?

Rewards: What are the significant payoffs for you?

Remember that an ideal career is one that meets the needs of both the jobholder and the organisation they both belong to.

Copy all the data from the previous sections onto a large sheet of paper and ask yourself the following questions:

> Does my current career contain all or most of these elements?

> What role, organisation or environment would be best for me?

> What level should I be aiming for in the medium to long term?

> Am I going to specialise or become a generalist?

> What is the most developmental path for me to take?

> What changes do I have to make in my life and work?

There are four major options to consider here:

Expanding the horizons of your current job.

Moving to a new role or new organisation.

Moving to a new role in a new organisation.

Engaging in further development to add to your knowledge or skills.

Given the data you have identified above under skills, interests, drivers and values, you might consider doing a decision table based on a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of each of the options. Which of these options seem to meet your needs, the needs of the significant people in your life and those of your organisation?

Note that changing either job or organisation is easier than changing both job and organisation. It may be easier to find a different role inside your organisation than to find the same work outside it. To do this, you need to be proactive and to consider the potential contribution you can make to other parts of your current organisation.

It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting, said Goethe. How do you make the future happen?

There are three ways:

Visioning the future.

Networking.

Goal-setting.

An effective way of bringing your career plan forward is to construct a set of visions or scenarios of your future. These scenarios are a description of your WLPG (working, learning, playing and giving) at some point in the medium term (three or five years from now). The scenarios should include all the elements discussed above including your knowledge, skills, rewards, and working conditions. You should see your vision as one in which your career drivers have become central.

In the early 1970s, Shell Petroleum had constructed four alternative scenarios of what would happen the oil industry in that decade. In the event, they correctly identified a scenario in which the oil-producing nations imposed embargos on the exports of oil. This exercise meant that Shell was uniquely positioned to take advantage of the situation.

It is useful to regard your network as a medium of exchange of information. Inventory your main contacts and identify what you can do for them and what they can do for you.

Note the strength of weak ties: self-employed consultants report that some of their best business contacts and referrals come from people who they know only vaguely. How often has that happened in your life?

Goals are what you want to achieve as the expression of your values.

If you fail to set goals, you will not move very far:

Failing to Plan means Planning to Fail.

If you wish for the best you usually get it. (Somerset Maugham)