1 + 1 = 5

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

• Strategic career options

• Discover

• 1 + 1 = 5

• What else?

• Richard Branson’s career wisdom

ON YOUR CAREER

Strategic career options

A useful way to work on our careers is to map our strategic options. Ideally, our current job is a viable option. And that our current organization could provide broader opportunities and future promotions.

Additional career options might include: secondments, joining a competitor, changing industries, or being self-employed. We want these options to be realistic. Options need to pay us enough, use our talents, and be enjoyable.

It’s powerful to align our learning with multiple strategic options. An MBA may be useful for a promotion in our current job or to pivot to a different industry. Additional AI skills are applicable to most jobs.

COMMUNICATION

Discover

One joy from writing CareerCoacha is the things I learn. In my research, I learn more about people, business, and science. When I fact-check myself, I sometimes discover that I’m wrong. Either I hadn’t accurately recalled information or new research has updated the field.

We write better when we’re alert and focused. Our writing can then help us refine what we think. To test our assumptions, be circumspect, and add nuance. We discover our most persuasive arguments and the arguments we should abandon.

PRODUCTIVITY

1 + 1 = 5

Collaboration is the game for winning long-term. We can produce more value collaborating with high performing colleagues than we can by ourselves.

More ideas, greater energy, and people with whom to commiserate and celebrate. Teamwork has a synergistic effect.

1 + 1 = 5.

Who else in your organization would be a natural collaborator with you?

1 MINUTE TO HAPPINESS

What else?

We don’t want to be unhappy in our job. Having strategic career options means we can be more bold in seeking change. It’s worth exploring what else?

It may be possible to achieve the changes you want within your job and organization. Have a solution-focused approach. There may be new ways your team can collaborate. Or an opportunity to better use your strengths in a different division. Take responsibility for what you could do better.

Sometimes we need to leave our organization. Growth is elsewhere. We want to leave in a considered way, ideally having secured an attractive new job. Our departure should be classy. Exit interviews are not a time to prosecute grievances. We want to be gracious. And thank the people who have helped us.

CAREER WISDOM

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson (1950 — ) is a British adventurer and entrepreneur. His autobiography, Losing My Virginity, reflects his mantra of turning passions into successful ventures. Branson founded the magazine Student as a 16 year-old. His next business was a mail-order record business that evolved to Virgin Records. Branson built a conglomerate including Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Media, and Virgin Galactic. He also crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a hot air balloon and is the oldest person to kitesurf across the English Channel. Some of Branson’s career wisdom: