To succeed professionally, employees at all levels must learn to identify their weaknesses, uncover their blind spots, and strengthen their skills. In this piece, the author offer six strategies to take control of your career and learning: First, understand what you’re evaluated on. Second, get feedback, especially on areas that might be blind spots for you. Third, give yourself a grade for each skill you need to do your job well, and focus your time and energy on the areas where you can most improve. Fourth, increase your visibility with senior leaders so that your work can get noticed. Fifth, become the expert in your department on an emerging issue that’s important to the company. Finally, find a good mentor who can help you along the way. There aren’t any shortcuts, but with hard work and perseverance, you can develop the skills, experiences, and relationships you’ll need to thrive in the workplace.
We are now in the era of do-it-yourself career development. Companies less frequently offer formal training — a trend that has been around for years. This may be because employees change jobs so frequently (job tenure now averages about four years) that firms don’t see the value in investing in people who are likely to leave. This is a sharp contrast with the investment that senior leaders used to make in employees. During my 11 years at PepsiCo, mostly during the 1990s, “personal development” was treated as a major company initiative.
See The Original Blog:
https://hbr.org/2018/01/6-ways-to-take-control-of-your-career-development-if-your-company-doesnt-care-about-it?fbclid=IwAR3WVuy9YP-xJpK2t8kSLSOtitq8x_skOoVgynH7y74QiPTpOZS31jSPYH8
