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It's been a while, hasn't it? I've missed writing this newsletter but there's a good reason I've been quiet; I've been busy working on a book - more on that later... And with me starting to write the newsletter again, it's probably a good time to re-share with you my mission and why this missive is called The Career Activist. I'm a careers and executive coach and trainer who is obsessed with the idea of proactive career development, otherwise known as Career Activism. What the flump is Career Activism?If you're wondering what on earth I'm talking about, you're not alone. This term, for me, was born out of countless conversations with coaching clients who found themselves stuck, watching others zoom past them on the career ladder. I was noticing a trend amongst some of my coachees - they seemed stuck in 'career passivism' mode. Career passivists often rely on hard work alone, hoping someone will notice and reward them. They wait for opportunities to come knocking and whilst those opportunities have appeared and may again appear, they sometimes dry up around the mid career mark. Sound familiar? Action ArchitectsCareer activists, on the other hand, take charge. They: 🟠Consistently work on self-development 🟠Actively build their network 🟠Seek out opportunities rather than waiting for them 🟠Understand and leverage their unique value ​ ​
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I work with organisations to design career development that retains high-potential talent.
I don't enjoy networking. If you put me in a room with a beige buffet and a warm glass of wine and tell me to 'mingle', I'll last about ten minutes before I head out the door with an Irish goodbye. But, as my networking dial was looking a little depleted whilst I was head-down in a few interesting projects recently, I thought about how I could top it up. The data tells me I'm not alone in a depleted Network dial. Looking at the results so far from people completing the Core Career Dials...
Career development is what people do when they're not in job search mode. Actually, that's not entirely true. Lots of people don't do it very intentionally at all. But when people do get that they need to be creating the conditions for ever-readiness, even when they're not actively looking, the next question is usually: where do I start? It's a question I hear a lot. And it's one that coaches and people managers often find tricky too, especially when someone doesn't have a clear next move in...
My co-author Dan and I were chatting with a colleague about the things that didn't make it into The Core Career Dials. Every book has them - every chapter in ours could have been a book in itself (and there are plenty of whole books out there about each topic). Creating a book was one of the hardest things I've ever done - all the decisions about what gets cut, what makes sense for the overall shape of a chapter - these all mean that stuff gets left out. And even beyond publication, there are...