Shape Your Career

 One of the most unhelpful preconceived idea about career moves, which is unfortunately recommended by most career coaches, is that you must first determine “who you are” then decide “where you want to go” and finally “build a plan to get there”. I want to argue that nowadays, it might not be the best strategy, especially if you want a multidimensional and diverse career.

Determine who you are... or who you could be?

What if a much more empowering question to ask oneself was: who could I be” and how can I be more than what I am today? We start life by building on our strengths and this is what makes us successful early in career but of course, we are much more than. Limiting yourself to your strengths is like denying half of what you really are and can be and will probably ultimately make you derail.

Rather than going into introspection, and multiple assessments can help you with that, you should go into exploring what you could become and to do that, you need to explore the outside world, not dig into yourself.

Meet people you have never met, who do jobs and work for companies different from yours, read books and articles you would not normally read, listen to podcasts about things you don’t know about, go to places you have never been before. Experiment and see what resonates, what you like and don’t like, what attracts you and what does not.

If you limit yourself to what you already know, you will always do something you are already doing, this is about exploration and not introspection.

Know where you want to go... or try some things out?

“Where do you want to go?” Most people find it very difficult and sometime impossible to answer this question. Not a surprise, if they tend to focus more on introspection rather than exploration. . Unless you want to have a pretty linear type of career, in the same type of expertise, with clear career path and little diversity, trying to determine where you want to go is not a good idea.

Instead, I would recommend to take action, take baby steps and try some things out. Take a project in another field of work you find interesting, offer to shadow people, take a lateral move to learn another function or business. Then, see how it feels and if it goes well, take a bigger step. In other words, this is about experimentation.

Build a plan to get there... or let the path take you to your destination?

You would have understood by now that, in my view, shaping your career does not include a proper plan. Exploration and Experimentation mean making some mistakes, changing direction and learning along the way. The world today is changing so fast and jobs will have either appeared or become obsolete by the time you will have found “who you are”, decided “where you wanted to go” and “built your plan”.

So instead, take action even if you are not sure, explore, experiment and try things out. Let the path take you to your destination, you might end up somewhere interesting. Take opportunities and see where they lead you.

All of this requires three things. First of all, the ability to take risks. They don’t have to be big risks but it will require you to step out of your comfort zone, into the unknown. Of course, it is totally up to you to decide how much risk you want to take.

Secondly, it requires curiosity, a willingness to learn things you don’t know and develop yourself in new areas. There is no career progression without development and no development without curiosity.

Lastly, it requires to be proactive and take full responsibility for your career. There will be people along the way to help you but ultimately, this is your game and your life! Of course, employers can and should help their people to develop and progress by providing development, learning and career opportunities. For example, Saint-Gobain is organizing a Career Day for its 167,000 employees around the world for people to discover other jobs, other functions, other businesses and have conversations about their career. This is a great moment for exploration….

So, from your point of view, what personal experiences and moves have shaped your career and could be considered by others?