by Mike Ososki, PMP
As usual, our meeting opened with networking and announcements of lots of high value activities and upcoming events for PMI Atlanta members. You can see all of these on our Calendar of Events. Then came the main event:
Your career is like a chess game, not checkers. It’s complex, requires thoughtful positioning, and can result in a myriad of scenarios. It requires advance planning that attempts to encompass 5-10 years and 5-10 moves ahead at any given moment over a lifetime. Who better than you to decide and guide how to do this as best you can?
Chris Carter kindly shared sage wisdom in our February Chapter meeting at Georgia Tech last month. Perhaps his #1 question for everyone is, “What do you want to do?,” a question we all answer every day in every way. It’s an inescapable paradox: choosing to not make a choice is making a choice.
Mr. Carter is a strong practitioner of servant leadership. Nothing lights him up so much as developing and inspiring others. Throughout his 21 years with Toyota and more recently as a Georgia Tech professor, he’s had ample opportunities to mentor, coach and sponsor his co-worker professionals and now university students. He currently works with nineteen mentees at Toyota. Encouragingly, he emphasized how both he and Georgia Tech want to plug in and do more with PMI Atlanta. Education has been a life-changer for Chris, and he adamantly asserts that he would “do it again and again and again and again.”
Here are the 3 E’s : Experience, Exposure, and Education. Experience is your job titles and work history—the resume basics. Exposure means “the things that people really care about, and will remember you for,” which = marketability or sell-ability of self as a valuable resource to advance business. As you progress through your career, be sure to capture and document your WOW elements, aka achievements and accomplishments. Be sure to also get these in your resume—don’t sell yourself short!
Be decisive with your career design elements. Form the shape and function of what your career should look like. Lock your 3 E’s firmly in your mind, but also be adaptable and flexible for their evolution. One size does not fit all—you never know what doors will open and there will be career steps you never saw coming.
Chris exhorts us to be brave and bold, take on challenges, and never shy away from learning more. He says to “go after it, take it by the reins, and see what happens.” He especially loves the Q&A part of the events, telling us at the beginning to “prepare your juicy questions now.” At one point, he said to one audience member, “You’re thinking, ‘He’s speaking to my soul,’” and it’s evident that Chris strives to do so in a fun and engaging manner that can propel inspiration in others.
One of the most super-valuable universal elements of success is getting out there and networking. Do it with SME’s, contractors, supply chain, purchasing, designers—pretty much all of your co-workers that make good stuff happen as a TEAM. Build relationships based on loyalty. Take the time to dig the right-size holes, prepare the nutritious soil, plant the beautiful trees, then water, fertilize and sometimes prune them as they healthfully grow.
Career sponsorship is golden. This comes after and along with being a mentor and coach. It’s general advice first, then more specific coaching, then a sponsor relationship where you are both all-in for the duration. Have 3-5 sponsors for where you want to go. They will validate your WHAT that brings business value, and be the WHO for you that opens doors.