People often get tired of working on the same place or doing the same job over and over again for long period of time. In some instances, maybe you have outgrown your current role and want to look for new challenges. I see this happening every day. I had happened to me as I just went through a career change - after working for over 10 years in the eCommerce business I wanted to do something different and test my leadership skills in a different area doing something new where I could mobilize all the experience I have accumulated through my entire professional career.
Although I am not a career coach - I am a mentor and often people ask for my advice about career planning.
For some people the first step in the career planning process is to understand the relevance of their career goals in terms of their multidimensional Priority Wheel. But if you are like me and have already determined to make a change then let’s talk about some fundamental things that you should do.
1) Define your career goals. What are the things you want to do next? What attributes are you looking in your next role?
Sometimes career coaches in the organization will ask to mention what specific role you want next. However, I prefer to think in terms of attributes of the role rather than the specific roles because some of the roles you will enjoy could exist in another area of the organization that you are not aware of or will become available in the future.
2) Perform a self assessment of your abilities. Do you have the skills needed to perform this next role?
Good if you are already but if you don’t have all necessary skills then you will need to set realistic expectations and timeframes to develop these abilities or you will need to revise your goals.
3) Network with a career goal in mind. Do you know people that can help you or guide you to get into this new role? Do you have a mentor?
Do not underestimate the power of networking. Do your homework, develop a professional network and find connections that can help you get into your next role.
Last week attended the HITEC Latina IT Executive panel in Disney World where I shared my formula for success which I call the “4 P” and has helped me achieve multidimensional success.
4 P= Planning, Preparation, Perseverance and Passion
Develop a formula for success that will help you to connect your dots and plan for your next career move.
Showing posts with label career success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label career success. Show all posts
Friday, July 2, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
What Makes Successful Women Happy?
As I was reading a series of articles in Business Week about women, leadership and happiness I became very disappointed with some of the conclusions presented in the article.
Let’s take the following article “Why Are Women Unhappier than They Were 40 Years Ago?”, which is an excerpt from Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham. I disagree with the article’s claim that modern successful women are not happy with their life and success based solely on the premise that modern women are unhappier than women 40 years ago.
First, I think that setting realistic expectations for multidimensional success is an important aspect that will influence the level of happiness that women will find in their life as they get older and more mature. A large number of successful women I interviewed while I was gathering material for Connecting My Dots felt very happy and satisfied with both their career and personal success. Another important aspect to consider is that given the overall placement of women in the 1950’s and 1960s, women at that time didn’t have high expectations or goals to succeed as CEOs or Senior Executives, and if they did, society wasn’t too encouraging towards women to help them reach such achievements. It wasn’t until World War II when women were beginning to shift from stay at home mom to a working mom. Even then reaching the status of a Senior Executive wasn’t on the mind of women because in reality it wasn’t very plausible.
My grandmother was one of the first three women who graduated from the Medical School at the University of La Habana in 1920. She was one of the few who had the courage and self-determination to do such a thing even though society did not expect this type of achievement from women nor did it make it easy for women to gain such an achievement. She provided an example of women that wanted to have a professional career even when the society at that time did not encourage women to do those things. Was she happy ?
I wondered about what my 23 year old daughter would have to say. I talked to her and she asked if I was happy with my life and career achievements. In my book, Connecting My Dots, I introduced a tool called the “The Priority Wheel” that you can leverage to align your career, life and personal needs.
When I look at the female role models I had in my family and alone my career and I do encourage you to find role models that will inspire you to achieve your dreams and to Connect Your Dots !
Let’s take the following article “Why Are Women Unhappier than They Were 40 Years Ago?”, which is an excerpt from Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham. I disagree with the article’s claim that modern successful women are not happy with their life and success based solely on the premise that modern women are unhappier than women 40 years ago.
First, I think that setting realistic expectations for multidimensional success is an important aspect that will influence the level of happiness that women will find in their life as they get older and more mature. A large number of successful women I interviewed while I was gathering material for Connecting My Dots felt very happy and satisfied with both their career and personal success. Another important aspect to consider is that given the overall placement of women in the 1950’s and 1960s, women at that time didn’t have high expectations or goals to succeed as CEOs or Senior Executives, and if they did, society wasn’t too encouraging towards women to help them reach such achievements. It wasn’t until World War II when women were beginning to shift from stay at home mom to a working mom. Even then reaching the status of a Senior Executive wasn’t on the mind of women because in reality it wasn’t very plausible.
My grandmother was one of the first three women who graduated from the Medical School at the University of La Habana in 1920. She was one of the few who had the courage and self-determination to do such a thing even though society did not expect this type of achievement from women nor did it make it easy for women to gain such an achievement. She provided an example of women that wanted to have a professional career even when the society at that time did not encourage women to do those things. Was she happy ?
I wondered about what my 23 year old daughter would have to say. I talked to her and she asked if I was happy with my life and career achievements. In my book, Connecting My Dots, I introduced a tool called the “The Priority Wheel” that you can leverage to align your career, life and personal needs.
When I look at the female role models I had in my family and alone my career and I do encourage you to find role models that will inspire you to achieve your dreams and to Connect Your Dots !
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Priority Wheel - A Tool for Career and Family Alignment
The ability to "Connect The Dots" across career, family and children is one of the most pressing problems that professional women and men are facing today.
Guess what? There is not a simple answer.
After a long race trying to find a perfect balance between career and family, people came to the conclusion that a perfect balance does not exist. Rather than trying to achieve a BALANCE we need to have a goal of achieving ALIGNMENT between our top priorities.
ALIGNMENT means that the weight across your Priority Wheel will change according to the particular needs of your life stage.
The "Priority Wheel" is a tool for aligning priorities through change. Think about a wheel - Wheels are always moving.
Remember that success is a wheel of continuous improvements. Your wheel is always in motion. We all have many dots2connect and having a "Priority Wheel" will help you to be ready to achieve success when the opportunity comes. It will empower you to create opportunities to achieve success on your own terms and have the right person near you to share success with.
Success (like a wheel) is always in motion and the meaning of success changes according to what is most important for us. As you go through different life stages your priorities and needs change. Hence, your "Priority Wheel" needs recalibration in order to reflect new dimensions. Multiple life events can affect the dimensions of your "Priority Wheel", for example the following is a list of the most common life changing events:
o First job after college graduation
o Going back to graduate school
o Engage in a serious relationship
o Job displacement
o Leadership promotion (at all levels)
o Marriage
o Having kids
o Elder parents
o Opening your own business
o Community involvement
o Family lost or serious illness
o New job or career opportunity
o Personal interest / hobby
Once when you develop your "Priority Wheel" with the important dimensions you will need to be prepare to make trade-offs between the time and energy you dedicate to your career development and success and the time and effort you put on rising your children a nurturing your family relationships. My book Connecting My Dots offers multiple examples of how successful women of different ages use their "Priority Wheel" to plan for success.
One more important lesson from Connecting My Dots is an advice that many successful women have shared with me while I was writing the book. One of the lessons from the Five Leadership Lessons for Multidimensional Success is to find the right partner.
Only you and time can tell if you found the right partner that will work with you to put "Your Priority Wheel" in full motion.
Guess what? There is not a simple answer.
After a long race trying to find a perfect balance between career and family, people came to the conclusion that a perfect balance does not exist. Rather than trying to achieve a BALANCE we need to have a goal of achieving ALIGNMENT between our top priorities.
ALIGNMENT means that the weight across your Priority Wheel will change according to the particular needs of your life stage.
The "Priority Wheel" is a tool for aligning priorities through change. Think about a wheel - Wheels are always moving.
Remember that success is a wheel of continuous improvements. Your wheel is always in motion. We all have many dots2connect and having a "Priority Wheel" will help you to be ready to achieve success when the opportunity comes. It will empower you to create opportunities to achieve success on your own terms and have the right person near you to share success with.
Success (like a wheel) is always in motion and the meaning of success changes according to what is most important for us. As you go through different life stages your priorities and needs change. Hence, your "Priority Wheel" needs recalibration in order to reflect new dimensions. Multiple life events can affect the dimensions of your "Priority Wheel", for example the following is a list of the most common life changing events:
o First job after college graduation
o Going back to graduate school
o Engage in a serious relationship
o Job displacement
o Leadership promotion (at all levels)
o Marriage
o Having kids
o Elder parents
o Opening your own business
o Community involvement
o Family lost or serious illness
o New job or career opportunity
o Personal interest / hobby
Once when you develop your "Priority Wheel" with the important dimensions you will need to be prepare to make trade-offs between the time and energy you dedicate to your career development and success and the time and effort you put on rising your children a nurturing your family relationships. My book Connecting My Dots offers multiple examples of how successful women of different ages use their "Priority Wheel" to plan for success.
One more important lesson from Connecting My Dots is an advice that many successful women have shared with me while I was writing the book. One of the lessons from the Five Leadership Lessons for Multidimensional Success is to find the right partner.
is quite important if you want to achieve multidimensional success with your career, family and personal life.Lesson #3 Finding the Right Partner
Only you and time can tell if you found the right partner that will work with you to put "Your Priority Wheel" in full motion.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Mentoring Programs Toolkit
Mentoring continues to be a high priority for me and with the publication of my book "Connecting My Dots", I have been able to inspire many leaders to dedicate time and effort to mentor junior associates and emerging leaders across their organizations.
Now that I am taking a short time off from Corporate America, I can advise organizations on how establish successful mentoring programs.
Few weeks ago at the LISTA 2nd Annual Technology forum on the Hill, I had the opportunity to award a copy of "Connecting My Dots" to US Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis. During the event we discussed the importance of setting mentoring programs to promote STEM careers and develop emerging leaders for the new global economy. We talked about the importance of role models for Latinas and emerging leaders in STEM professions.
On June 2009, we successfully launched the NCTA WISE professional mentoring program for women in STEM in the Charlotte region. The program is running as a pilot this year and women from over 10 different organizations are participating in the program. Through the mentoring program we have identified the right mentoring relationship based on needs, preferences and career goals.
If you are looking to establish a mentoring program in your organization here is a summary of the critical steps you will need to consider:
1) Problem Definition
a. Initial step to define the need, goals and objective of the mentoring program
b. Define success metrics and expectations
2) Data Gathering
a. Survey managers and potential pool of participants to understand expectations for the program
3) Determine mentoring model
a. The mentoring model must fit the needs of the organization and participants. Mentoring programs that are tailored to the needs of one department tend to have more structured than mentoring programs that go across organizational boundaries.
b. Questions to ask when developing the model:
i. Duration of the formal program and Frequency of the interactions
ii. Level of engagement from Human Resources (career coaches, training courses)
iii. Mentor/mentee ratio
iv. Roles and responsibilities of Executive sponsor, Program manager, HR consultant, mentors and mentees
v. Select training materials (e.g. Personality tests, Career assessments, etc)
4) Recruiting participants
a. Self-selected
b. Nomination by managers
5) Application process
a. Both mentors and mentees need to submit an application requesting the participation in the program. Mentees will need to obtain approval from the direct line manager to dedicate time to the program during working hours.
b. The application form should contain the following information:
i. Career objectives and expectations from the program
ii. Preferred communication style
iii. Personal preferences
iv. Approval from line manager (for mentees)
6) Matching process
a. This is a critical step in the process and should be conducted by the mentoring program managing team (e.g. program sponsor, program manager, HR consultant)
7) Implementation and Communication
a. Develop a communication plan to executive sponsors and participants
Post a question to Get additional advice about connecting with a mentor.
Now that I am taking a short time off from Corporate America, I can advise organizations on how establish successful mentoring programs.
Few weeks ago at the LISTA 2nd Annual Technology forum on the Hill, I had the opportunity to award a copy of "Connecting My Dots" to US Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis. During the event we discussed the importance of setting mentoring programs to promote STEM careers and develop emerging leaders for the new global economy. We talked about the importance of role models for Latinas and emerging leaders in STEM professions.
On June 2009, we successfully launched the NCTA WISE professional mentoring program for women in STEM in the Charlotte region. The program is running as a pilot this year and women from over 10 different organizations are participating in the program. Through the mentoring program we have identified the right mentoring relationship based on needs, preferences and career goals.
If you are looking to establish a mentoring program in your organization here is a summary of the critical steps you will need to consider:
1) Problem Definition
a. Initial step to define the need, goals and objective of the mentoring program
b. Define success metrics and expectations
2) Data Gathering
a. Survey managers and potential pool of participants to understand expectations for the program
3) Determine mentoring model
a. The mentoring model must fit the needs of the organization and participants. Mentoring programs that are tailored to the needs of one department tend to have more structured than mentoring programs that go across organizational boundaries.
b. Questions to ask when developing the model:
i. Duration of the formal program and Frequency of the interactions
ii. Level of engagement from Human Resources (career coaches, training courses)
iii. Mentor/mentee ratio
iv. Roles and responsibilities of Executive sponsor, Program manager, HR consultant, mentors and mentees
v. Select training materials (e.g. Personality tests, Career assessments, etc)
4) Recruiting participants
a. Self-selected
b. Nomination by managers
5) Application process
a. Both mentors and mentees need to submit an application requesting the participation in the program. Mentees will need to obtain approval from the direct line manager to dedicate time to the program during working hours.
b. The application form should contain the following information:
i. Career objectives and expectations from the program
ii. Preferred communication style
iii. Personal preferences
iv. Approval from line manager (for mentees)
6) Matching process
a. This is a critical step in the process and should be conducted by the mentoring program managing team (e.g. program sponsor, program manager, HR consultant)
7) Implementation and Communication
a. Develop a communication plan to executive sponsors and participants
Post a question to Get additional advice about connecting with a mentor.
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