Right role? Right opportunity? Right time?
What is that all about?
In the previous blog, I suggested outrageously that there is such a thing as the wrong job. This occurrence is so common in leadership roles that there’s a narrative around it: the “Peter Principle”. So not that outrageous as it turns out.
All those folk in those roles might be accused of is ambition – they were shortlisted, interviewed/assessed, and appointed. Their induction obviously had room for improvement. As has their expectation/standards setting and performance management. This is shared culpability, though to be fair in a number of podcasts (including the one linked in the comments below) I do dare to suggest the organisations need to own the resolutions. A useful metric for this is: what percentage of your team/staff/organisation are in date for appraisals? That’s a quantitative measure. The real test is more qualitative. Whether those appraisals that have been done (late or not) are actually adding value to either the appraisee to the organisation or just ticking a compliance box for the appraiser!
As an individual seeking career development, this is on you. Some are blessed with sponsors and mentors, though few have these throughout their careers. Finding sponsors and mentors (& understanding the difference) will be another blog. We need to own this. Yes. Ok, what is “this” Rusty?
Let’s find a good place to start from. Somewhere we can own. Ourselves. Understanding our core values and how they relate to our careers and opportunities is critical to success. Do you know yours? They do evolve, by the way, it is worth checking in. Here’s a quick exercise. Picture a happy/fulfilling memory/achievement. Why was this experience positive for you? Unreel the layers – the deeper you go the more fundamentally you will understand yourself. Optimise your conditions for this one – be in a relaxed frame of mind, without distractions, you know what to do!
Once we know our core value(s) – this is our “why”. All opportunities should be tested against this “why”. It really is worth doing, work takes up a considerable proportion of our time and energy (life!) – let’s do some work to get us in the right direction.
For advanced clinical practitioners, this might reveal which of the four pillars are more meaningful. Once understood, that opportunity to apply for a full time lecturer role might be seen as perfect or a disaster! For doctors approaching CCT and applying for permanent roles there is enormous jeopardy. This will be the job they do not rotate out of as they have for years. What is the on-call situation, how far away can one live, what are the residential areas like, the sports facilities, the schools?
Start with your why. Knowing this helps support choosing which roles to apply for (& which ones not to), and will underpin how you express yourself authentically at application, interview and in those critical initial few weeks when those first impressions are formed. Getting this right means we get to save and improve more lives – let’s do the work! Next time we will explore some additional work we can do to be lined up for the right role.