How to advance your career.....

The most common questions I get when speaking with a group of colleagues are:

How have you advanced so quickly?    

How can I progress my career?    

What are key learnings you have had in your career?

Well thankfully I have had the privilege of working for some phenomenal leaders in my career that have shared with me some great advice. In addition, my career journey has had many ups and downs. Throughout each of those downs I have always taken away a fantastic learning that has made me stronger. As I bring each of these questions together I want to share with you the Essential 8 – How to advance your career. This applies to all industries, roles or at any point in your career. Whether you are just starting out or if you are far along in your journey.

What is the best advice you have received? What is a great learning you can share?

I would love to hear your thoughts so please share in the comments section…

Essential 8 : Tips to accelerate your career

1.       Say : Do = 1

• The best way to build trust and confidence is when one’s words and actions are aligned. Unfortunately, this is never the case 100% of the time. As a result I recommend each week taking a self-assessment on whether your actions are aligning with your words. This is a continual process and there are many things that can cause this ratio to not equal one. Think about periods where you may become overwhelmed, have vacancies on your team or maybe you realize your strategy or approach needs to change. All of these put you at risk of your say : do ratio not equaling 1. It is up to you to re-prioritize, and go back to your stakeholders to manage expectations.

2.       Take risks….Difficult to win being on the defensive.

• This is best described through a sports analogy: if you play to tie/draw you will never win and often in fact you will lose. This is especially true in business. Take that chance. Make educated decisions but do not be afraid to fail. You will be amazed how often you succeed.

3.       Diversity in a team produces a better “product”

• Having a diverse team is hard. It is not natural because we all have biases and it is “easier” to work with others that think like you do. You need to recognize your bias and find ways to minimize. Having individuals from different experiences, other cultures, ways of thinking, backgrounds, etc…. will make the final product or solution better than you can imagine. This takes work but trust me the pay-off is tremendous.

4.       Invest in your team as it is your biggest lever

• How often do we focus on investing in a new piece of software, or new product/technology. Yet we spend no time during the budget process thinking about how you will invest in the development of you current team. I have had many P&L’s and in each case my team was at least 60% of the costs. Shouldn’t I spend at least 60% of my time focused on how I can develop them?

5.       Leave your mark in every role you are in

• This is similar to #2. Think big in your current role. What will you do that will live on for at least 5 years after you have left your role. That is the true test and should be your mind-set in each role you are in. How do you leave your legacy? When you go you don’t’ want people to say John was a “good guy”. You want them to say John did X when he was in the role.

6.       Who you work for is just as important as the role

• Do not fall into the trap of going for a role because it is a “sexy” company, business, position, etc…… I have been in some tough industries and have loved my role because my manager was inspirational, was invested in me and was constantly challenging and developing me. So many people I mentor take a role because of the “sexy factor” and then come back in 6 months saying they hate their job because of their manager. When you interview you should be as excited for the person you work for as you are for the role.

7.       Develop a network….Ask for help……Offer help

• People want to help. Take advantage of that. Why re-invent things when you can leverage others experience. In addition by asking for help you are getting them bought into solving your challenge and their commitment to the solution.

8.       A Plan + Flexibility >>> Accelerates Career Advancement

• If you want to progress in your career quickly there is no magic solution. At least there was not one for me. The better you identify what you want to do in the next 10 years and understand what skills you need to get the job and be successful in the role will help you have a strong plan. Next, being flexible will increase the number of opportunities that you can take that will address those gaps. The less flexible you are the more time it will take. This is a personal choice you make but you must understand the less flexible you are the more time it will take. You control this, not your manager or the company. To put it in perspective my son is 13 and has lived in 5 different locations. This has helped accelerate my career. But there are definitely trade-offs. Understanding how flexible you can be is important.

I hope you can take at least one thing from my Essential 8 and accelerate your career advancement.

Good Luck.

John

P.S. For those of you that missed my article on the 6 DNA traits of a consistently successful sales professional please read the article at: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/what-makes-consistently-great-sales-performer-john-lesica/

Or

Breaking the end of quarter hockey stick at:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/breaking-quarter-end-hockey-stick-john-lesica/

Biography of John Lesica, Thermo Fisher

John is the Vice President of Thermo Fisher’s Life Sciences Group in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

He is responsible for more than 5,800 employees and a $2.2 billion of business providing innovative and productivity enhancing products and services to customers across the region. 

Prior to his Life Sciences Group EMEA role John was responsible for the global business of Environmental and Process Monitoring which provides instrumentation for customers in utilities, government agencies, oil & gas, industrial, iron & steel, pharmaceutical and food. 

John joined Thermo Fisher in 2003 and has held various leadership roles in customer services, marketing, ebusiness and general management.  

Before joining Thermo Fisher, John worked in commercial roles in Tyco International and General Electric.

John has an MBA from the F.W. Olin graduate school of business at Babson College, Massachusetts and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

A New Yorker of Croatian descent, John and his wife Jennifer and their two children now live in Glasgow. An avid sportsman he enjoys both watching and taking part in sports including football, baseball, American football, basketball and hockey. When time permits he is also a keen cook.