New Career Development Book Excerpt

Chapter 11:

Your Self-Development:

Be Accountable For Your Own Career Development And Success

I recently delivered a workshop training for a client that was launching a new, two-year leadership development program, where 45 high potential participants were chosen from over 250 internal applicants.The program was a significant investment by the company to develop its next generation of management leaders.

At the program’s kick-off event, the managing director for China came to address the participants with a few remarks.He began by congratulating them for their being selected.The main message he spent most of his time delivering, however, was that he wanted them to understand clearly that although their participation in the program was an excellent opportunity for their career development, it was not a guarantee for their success in the company.What would determine that was how well they applied the key concepts and capabilities being emphasized in the program to their day-to-day work.

“As comprehensive as the program is designed to be, we are realistic as to how much affect it can have on the development of those participating in it,” the managing director explained to me.“What their ability to be promoted into future roles will be based on is their willingness to learn, change, and improve themselves.That’s the same for any employee in our company.”

Your Career, Your Responsibility

Let’s face it.It’s a highly competitive world out there and not one that is especially sympathetic or forgiving.So if an opportunity is not made available to you, nobody is going to apologize to you for that.Nobody is going to shed a tear if you miss out on the promotion that you seek.The truth is that nobody is going to care about your career development and success more than you.Therefore, it is up to you to find ways to build the capabilities that will help you to attain your career objectives.

Actually, multinationals today are definitely providing more and better training resources and opportunities for their mainland staff than before.This can be seen in the growing presence of management training programs, organization and staff development specialists, and employee feedback and assessment tools in companies today.Beyond what they are providing, however, companies want their mainland staff to be more accountable for their own professional development, by taking greater advantage of the situations and opportunities that are available to them in their daily work environment.

“Too many of our mainland staff rely too heavily on the company to provide them with training and development chances,” explains one country manager, whose thoughts echo those of many of our other multinational clients.“They always talk about what the company should be giving them and spend way too much time thinking about what they’re not getting.At the same time, they do not recognize that opportunities to learn and improve are accessible to them within their everyday job and interaction with others.Most frustrating is that they are unwilling to take up new challenges, responsibilities, or stretched assignments when the chances arise.They are also not attentive in observing best practices and trying to apply them in their work.”

“If you’re getting good career guidance and development help from your company, then that’s great.You definitely want to take advantage of that.But ultimately, you can’t rely on others to determine your success for you,” says Scott Kronick.“Mainland professionals need to recognize that they are in charge of their own future.They need to understand that they can make significant things happen not only for their organization, but also for themselves.Especially in China’s maturing talent market, every professional needs to work on his or her continuous self-improvement.Those who are less active about that are going to find themselves quickly falling behind the competition.”

The Key Concept Of Self-Development

Whenever I meet highly successful executives, I am always curious to know how they got to be where they are.How were they able to distinguish themselves among so many of their peers?What are the things they have done to stand out in the way that they have?Were there decisions or realizations that they came to early on that helped them to develop themselves and pursue their success in the way that they did?

Many whom I have asked about this tell me that they were fortunate to be part of good company environments.Most can point to chances to have worked with and learn from excellent bosses.Some mention an MBA.The outstanding characteristic that I have found among them, however, is that they all have a strong self-development approach to their professional development.Instead of wasting their time complaining about a situation or thinking about what isn’t available to them, they are able to get the most out of what is available to them.And whatever their situation or surroundings, they take an active approach to identifying and leveraging opportunities that allow them to learn and improve.

New Career Development Book Excerpt - Chapter 6, Career Planning And Development Essentials

Chapter 6:

What You Should Be Doing Today For Your Success Tomorrow

Building The Skills Now That You’ll Need Later On

When we interview candidates for a management position that they have yet to hold, many will tell us of how confident they are in their ability to learn quickly and perform in the role.They’ll say things, such as, “I know I haven’t done it before, but if given the opportunity, I’m sure that I can do the job.”I am sure that in their own minds, they believe what they are saying to be absolutely true.But that kind of pitch just doesn’t sell well to our clients these days.

“When looking to promote someone into a management role, I need to see if a person has demonstrated in some way the skills that he or she will need at that next level,” reveals Victor Koo.“In other words, they have shown to some extent that they have already done what they will be doing in their next job.”

Actually, a few years ago, companies were much more willing to give employees the chance to prove themselves in new roles.This was at a time, however, when business operations were less mature and more aggressive in their approach to staffing decisions.There was also a near absence of talent in the market for many job function and industry backgrounds.

From a company perspective today, it is a tremendous risk handing over a key position of responsibility to someone who does not already possess to a good degree the capabilities and qualities needed to handle the role.In China’s increasingly competitive business environment, it is a risk that companies are less and less willing to take.Management roles in a multinational company today are not the place for on-the-job training.Especially given that developing the soft skills to handle many of these roles does not happen within a short period of time.

We do see companies give chances, however, to those who already possess, perhaps to a 70-80% degree, the capabilities and qualities that performing in a higher-level position requires.Therefore, by recognizing the key skill sets that a future role entails, you can better utilize the present time to start working on those areas that are necessary for you to improve in.

Need For Stronger Career Sense

Unfortunately, many mainland professionals do a poor job of accurately assessing both their current and future situation.To put it plainly, they have poor career sense.As a result, they are not able to identify those things that they should be doing now to help prepare themselves for future roles.The result is time wasted and opportunities missed to develop themselves in those areas that are most relevant for handling positions that they are aiming for.

In looking at the development of China’s corporate environments up to now, you could say that mainland professionals cannot be entirely blamed for their career planning and development shortcomings.Although mainlanders have been working in multinational companies for over 25 years, China operations of the 1980s to mid-1990s were either of a representative office size or were much smaller in scale than today.Most consisted of a few dozen staff or less, with a company of a few hundred people considered to be very large.In addition, operations in the mainland were not nearly as connected to their international operations as they are today (does anyone recall the pre-Internet days), making corporate environments here much less internationalized and mature in comparison to how they are now.

Today, there are quite a few multinationals in China that have several thousand employees working in locations all across the country.The interaction with worldwide operations is also much greater than before, with the Asia Pacific headquarters even moving here for an increasing number of companies.These realities are making those mainlanders today who are in their 20s and 30s today the first true generation of mainland professionals to work in a mature, global-caliber, corporate environment.

Shortage Of Experienced Career Advisory Resources

Over the past few years, the quality of functional, industry, and general management training has improved considerably in China through the availability of substantially more MBA programs and internationally-certified training courses and resources.In the area of career guidance, however, the resources to capably address the development needs of mainland professionals are still severely lacking.We often hear candidates say that they could use more guidance on how to build their skill sets and capabilities, or that do not know who to turn to for help in this area.Overall, there are still relatively few in this market with the experience and expertise to advise mainland professionals on how to deal with many of the career challenges that they are facing today.

For instance, although the good intentions are there, sound career advice is not likely to come from your parents or others of their generation who have never worked in an international company before.In addition, human resources departments reveal to us how little career guidance most of their employees receive from their direct supervisors.Demanding schedules are a big reason for that, but many managers simply aren’t that knowledgeable and experienced in providing good career planning and development advice to subordinates.Career coaching is even a relatively new area for human resources professionals whose expertise to date has revolved mainly around compensation, benefits, and HR administration issues for employees.Because of this shortage of career guidance resources, many mainland professionals do not even have a complete picture of what a successful career looks like, let alone a good idea of what it takes to build one in a global company.The result is that they do not know how to go about managing or improving their development situation.

Judging from the growing interest that we see in our career development workshop, companies are recognizing how important it is to instill a sound career planning and development approach within their staff.They are also working at improving the capability of their managers and of the organization to advise staff on career issues.For the time being, however, the extent and quality of career guidance that you might receive from your company is somewhat random, even if your company is committed to providing that.This is why it is absolutely necessary for you to develop your own sense and practical approach for your career planning and development.

New Career Development Book Excerpt

Chapter 7:

Your Self-Assessment:Where Are You Today?

It is not difficult to recognize the benefits of having an accurate assessment of where you are in your professional development and the areas that you need to improve in.Yet, most mainland professionals that I meet are not active enough in doing such a self-assessment.Instead, they rely too much on their boss or their company to monitor their development progress and identify their professional development needs.

That’s easy to let happen.If you work in a multinational company, it is likely that you receive outside feedback through semi-annual or annual performance reviews.These reviews usually let you know how well you are performing certain tasks and meeting the main objectives of your job.They also point out to what extent you are demonstrating desired capabilities and qualities that are important for your career advancement in the organization.Certainly, these reviews are very helpful.But if you are only getting such assessments once or twice a year, think about all the time that is passing by as you wait for others to tell you many of the things that you could be identifying for yourself earlier on.Think how much faster your development could be taking place in those key areas if your awareness of them occurred much sooner.

“Of course, regular performance reviews are extremely valuable,” Perry Ching acknowledges.“But if you have high expectations for your career advancement, then your own self-assessment of your capabilities and performance should also be taking place on an ongoing basis.It should be one of your most basic habits for getting a good sense of your situation and of your development needs at any point in time.”

Doing An Honest Self-Assessment

Among the mainland professionals that we interview, there are many who tend to overestimate their capabilities as to what is considered outstanding for someone at their career stage.My company also sees the very differing viewpoints between an organization and many of its staff regarding their readiness to take on greater responsibilities in the company.Often, senior management does not view an employee as being mature enough in the key skill sets and qualities that are needed to handle a role, while the employee believes that he or she is.When it comes down to the decision to promote that person or not, guess whose point of view always wins out?

“There’s nothing wrong with having high expectations and wanting to push your career.Every executive that I know likes having ambitious employees in their organization,” says John Chan.“But your assessment of your situation needs to be in line with the assessment of those who determine your ability to move up into higher roles.For many mainland professionals, they need to be more in tune with their company’s expectations and standards for such positions.”

As such, any helpful self-assessment that you do has to start with being completely honest about your situation.There is no benefit to inflating your view of your capabilities only to find out later on that you are not delivering the level of performance that you think you are or that others are expecting from you.That’s not the way you want to get that kind of feedback.

Regardless of how good your ability is to do an accurate self-assessment of your skill sets, any self-assessment that you do is going to be beneficial to you.If you do have concerns about your ability to view yourself objectively, then just do the best assessment that you can and then ask someone who knows you well (e.g. your boss, a close colleague, etc.) to give you their view of you in the same areas.Aside from providing very relevant, helpful feedback to you, this will also help mature your sense of how closely your perception of certain capabilities and qualities of yours match up with how others are seeing you in those areas.

Be Mature And Objective About Your Situation

“What your self-assessments reveal may not always be what you’d like them to,” admits Perry Ching.“But it’s absolutely necessary for you to be honest with yourself when assessing your capabilities and performance, and, as importantly, to be mature enough to accept what you find.”

“I’ve seen many former peers change jobs just because they didn’t receive a promotion that they thought they should have,” says Arthur Zhang.“They reacted emotionally, feeling that they were not getting the chance that they deserved.Only after they left did they realize that their not getting promoted was not because there was something wrong with the company.It was because of the shortcomings in their own capabilities, which they failed to recognize at the time.”

When I began identifying management roles for my own career and took a good look at my skill sets at that time, I remember feeling quite discouraged when I realized just how much “catching up” I needed to do in so many areas.But once I was able to accept where I was in my personal and professional development, I was able to put my full attention into improving in those skill sets.After that, my career development efforts and ability to grow in those areas took off.