策略性地思考你的職涯發展
Think Strategically About Your Career Development
2016/12/23
原文請見：Think Strategically About Your Career Development
主題文章：職涯規畫、自我管理
作者文章：多莉．克拉克（Dorie Clark）
目前一般員工平均每天收發122封電子郵件，平均每月出席62次會議，你的上司或人力資源主管根本就沒有時間或精力來適當地思考，如何善用你的才華，促進你的職涯發展。相反地，我們必須要掌控自己的職涯規畫，以確保得到能夠長期成長的職位。以下四種方法可讓你更有策略地處理這個過程。
強迫自己安排時間思考。當工作忙碌時，沒有時間做的第一件事情通常就是策略性思考。「規畫會議」似乎亂無章法，投資報酬率也無法確定。可是，如果一連好幾個月或好幾年都缺乏定期的反省，可能會引導你踏上一條你並不想走的專業路徑。所以你應該強迫自己排出時間進行策略性自省。如果你計畫要跟健身的好友碰面，就更有可能會上健身房，同樣的，你也可以運用相同的技巧來要求自己有紀律地進行策略性思考。找出幾位可以信任的同事，發起定期會面的「同儕智囊團」（mastermind group），討論整體的目標，並且要求彼此負起責任，達成那些目標。讓你信任的其他人挑戰你的想法，這麼做可以讓你注意到之前從沒考慮過的新想法和可能性。
想清楚你接下來的步驟。釐清你的專業目標，像是晉升為資深副總裁、創業或負責經營亞太地區，但這只是第一步而已。許多專業人士的失敗之處，就在於找不到從目前邁向未來目標的路徑。正如我在〈你的職涯選戰策略〉（A Campaign Strategy for Your Career）一文中說明的，你可以運用的一項技術就是「預先寫好你的履歷」。在做這件事的時候，你想像五年之後的自己，依照你的願景寫下履歷，包括你的新職稱和明確的工作職責。訣竅在於，你還必須填滿中間那五年，這會促使你反思這段期間需要培養哪些技能，你可能需要取得哪些學位或資格認證，以及你會需要採取哪一條晉升路徑，才能到達設定的目標。理解這些事項有助於強迫你思考，並確保你採取正確的步驟（比方說，如果你想要在三年後擔任的職位需要碩士學位，你最好現在就開始申請）。
認真專注在工作上。一般人總是很想要跟其他人一樣運用時間，像是待在辦公室裡讓別人看到你有來工作，或者以最快的速度回覆電子郵件。在較低的層級，展現這種行為的員工可能會被視為「積極進取」型的人。但隨著你在組織中晉升，跳得更高更快的能力就變得不是那麼重要。相反地，隨著時間過去，你成功的條件就變成能夠提出深入、有價值的專案，可能是寫書、寫一套優異的全新程式、領導一項前景看好產品的上市計畫，或是著手進行一項有意義的計畫，比如重整公司的績效評估系統。這需要調整工作方式，從斷斷續續、被動因應地工作，轉變為更加自我導向的長期專案（作家與教授卡爾・紐波特（Cal Newport）所說的「認真專注」〔Deep Work〕）。許多專業人士並未尋求這種工作方式，因為沒有立即的投資報酬率，可是這麼做的長期好處和認可卻很重要。
打造你的外部聲譽 。華頓商學院教授麥修・畢德威爾（MatthewBidwell）的一項研究顯示，從外部延攬的人員，比內部員工晉升到類似職位的薪水高出18-20%（令人不悅的是，前者加入公司之後的頭兩年，工作表現也比較差。）毫無疑問，這顯然不公平，但也指出一個重要的事實：在他們自己的組織裡，專業人士通常都被視為理所當然，得不到應有的重視。這並不表示你應該每隔幾年就跳槽一次。但它的確顯示，就算是想要待在同一家公司，還是需要建立強大的外部聲譽，好讓你在想要獲得機會時，就能掌握到機會，同時提醒你的上司和同事，外面有人需要和讚賞你的能力。幫產業期刊撰寫部落文，申請在研討會上演說，在你加入的專業協會裡擔任領導職位，都是很好的做法，可讓你在你的領域當中持續受到注意，不論是外部人士的注意，或是那些需要提醒才會注意到你才華的公司內部人士。
花時間思考你的職涯發展，顯然很重要，可是這件事情幾乎不怎麼急迫，所以許多專業人士年復一年都未曾採取行動。專注在這四大步驟，你就可以開始排出時間刻意努力去做，為你五年之後、甚至更久的未來想要的職位，奠定基礎。（蘇偉信譯）
Think Strategically About Your Career Development
Dorie Clark
DECEMBER 06, 2016
In a world where the average employee sends and receives 122 emails per day and attends an average of 62 meetings per month, your boss or HR leadership simply doesn’t have the time or bandwidth to properly think through how best to deploy your talents moving forward. Instead, we have to take control of our career planning to ensure we’re putting ourselves in position for long-term growth. Here are four ways to become more strategic about the process.
Force yourself to set aside time. When things get busy, time for strategic thinking is almost always the first to go. “Planning sessions” seem amorphous, and the ROI is uncertain. But going for months or years without regular introspection can lead you down a professional path that you didn’t intend to be on. Instead, force yourself to make time for strategic reflection. Just as you’re more likely to go to the gym if you have plans to meet a workout buddy, you can use the same technique to enforce discipline around strategic thinking. Identify several trusted colleagues and start a mastermind group to meet regularly, discuss big picture goals, and hold each other accountable for meeting them. Having others whom you trust challenge your thinking can open up new ideas and possibilities you hadn’t previously considered.
Get clear on your next steps. Getting clarity around your professional goals — such as being promoted to SVP, starting your own business, or running the Asia/Pacific region — is only the first step. The place where many professionals fall down is identifying the pathway to get from here to there. As I described in “A Campaign Strategy for Your Career,” one technique you can use is “pre-writing your resume.” In this exercise, you put yourself five years into the future and write your resume as you envision it, including your new title and exact job responsibilities. The trick is that you also have to fill in the intervening five years, which prompts you to reflect on what specific skills you’ll need to develop in the interim, what degrees or accreditations you may need to earn, and what promotional path you’ll need to pursue in order to get there. Understanding that helps force your thinking and ensure that you’re taking the right steps (if a masters degree is required for a position you want in three years, you better start applying now).
你的職涯選戰策略
A Campaign Strategy for Your Career
出 處 / 2012年11月號(加速應變策略)
作 者 / 多莉．克拉克 (Dorie Clark)
主 題 / 管理
要打造職業生涯藍圖，其實可以向政治人物的競選活動借鏡。當然，在職場上，對許多人來說，「政治手腕高」聽起來很負面，但學會這些遊戲規則，並不等於你就要不擇手段。而且，如果只想極力避開，最終可能會害到自己。
This year’s presidential campaign subjected us to the usual barrage of negative ads, divisive wedge issues and minor misstatements amplified beyond all recognition. There’s a reason it’s such an insult to be accused of “playing politics”. But executives can – and should – learn from electoral politics to position themselves for career success.
The point isn’t to become a Machiavellian powermonger. But if you take the time to build authentic relationships, improve your work skills and provide real value to others, it’s possible to succeed at office politics with integrity. You can model the behaviour of the best politicians: set clear goals, reach out to supporters, build and exercise influence, and then execute relentlessly to achieve your ambitions.
In short, you can devise a campaign plan for your career.
Choose your milestones
The first step in creating a career campaign plan is to identify your goal, even if it’s provisional. (I consulted for one politician who, more than a year in advance, plotted a run for Congress, just in case the incumbent stepped down. When he didn’t, my client switched to a new objective.)
You can periodically update your plan – or create a new, prewritten resume – to match your changing goals. For now, pick an endpoint and get started. Just as a presidential campaign focuses on the dates of the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses, you’ll want to write down the dates that you consider crucial. Those might include annual performance reviews, application deadlines or target dates for company initiatives in which you’d like to participate. Then work backward from these dates, just as political campaign teams do.
The agenda you set for yourself is the core of your career campaign plan. But how do you identify what steps to take? One executive I know decided to emulate the biographies of people he admired. His resume-building plan has worked wonders, but you can also stick to informational interviews to learn more about the experience you’ll need. Remember to be flexible, too.
Candidates always build in time for debate prep, policy review and training in public speaking – and you should do the same for the skills you want to cultivate. Make the most of the openings in your schedule. Scope out where you need to head with three simple steps:
+ Identify the skills acquired by others who have reached your goal.
+ Determine what skills you can learn on your own. For the rest, figure out how long formal study will take.
+ Chart your skills-development plan on your campaign calendar.
Target influential people
A vital element in political and career success is who you know. When I worked in New Hampshire for 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean, he endured endless meetings to seek the favour of local officials, because they controlled votes and resources in their small slices of the state.
Beyond those with direct power, you’ll want to think about people with indirect influence. Identify a person whose opinion really matters to your boss: his spouse, a colleague in a different department, a former co-worker, maybe a favorite blogger. Politicians have long understood that influence isn’t always obvious, so they routinely craft campaign strategies to harness indirect power.
Finally, it’s essential to join and engage with influential groups, just as a politician might look for backing from the local ward committee or the veterans association. Think about which groups will help you connect with the people you want to meet – potential clients, higher-ups at your company, industry thought leaders – and eschew commitments that waste your time or yield minimal returns.
Here are some concrete steps for pinpointing who can help you in your career campaign:
+ Draw a power map, using circles that show who has the most influence over your career – and, in turn, the people who have the most influence over them.
+ Figure out what you can offer the influential people – expertise, assistance on a project, help with networking – and ways to cultivate unique knowledge or skills they’d find valuable.
+ Make a list of the groups you should join because they hold sway or will allow you to meet key contacts.
Court the votes
There’s an adage in politics that voters have to hear your name at least seven times before they remember it. To conduct your career campaign effectively, you must get people to know who you are.
In Dean’s presidential campaign, we mobilised voters using a “house party” strategy: a supporter would invite 10 to 20 friends to her home to hear a pitch from a campaign organiser. That worked a lot better than typical knocking on doors because we harnessed social networks and peer pressure to win more votes. Although Dean’s bid for the presidency was ultimately unsuccessful, the house party approach – and social networking more broadly – has proved to be highly effective in political campaigns, including Barack Obama’s in 2008.
You should also strategise how to become known to all the people on your power map through the “echo chamber”. In short, ensure that they hear your name everywhere. Identify conferences they attend and submit a proposal to speak. Find out what social media platforms they participate in and start retweeting or commenting on their posts. Volunteer to lead a committee on one of the professional organisations they belong to. The secret is to gradually cultivate familiarity and build a relationship – not, of course, to retweet someone’s messages 30 times in two days so that you seem like a stalker.
Finally, with your influential targets and your strategies identified, it’s time to make appointments and set deadlines. Your plan should include all the key elements, from externally determined markers to long-range goals to short-term tactics. All help to create a clear road map to reaching your goals.
It’s still a slam to be labeled “political” in the business world. But it shouldn’t be. Thinking like a campaign strategist will help you set clear goals, develop new skills and build relationships with the people who matter to your professional life. Creating a career campaign plan ensures that, every day, you’re taking small but important steps to better position yourself for a winning future.
Dorie Clark is a strategy consultant and the author of ‘Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future’.
