Art of Closing the Deal – A new perspective on Career Management
Key Elements of Career Management
High performance with measurable results and impact at your own assignment is the minimum requirements to be successful in getting choice assignments, advancement, job enrichment opportunities in any career. But it is even more important to understand all key elements when it comes to career management. Here is a summary of the key elements:
1. Career Planning & Developing an effective career plan
It is essential that an individual must have effective career plan that is based on their own reality:
A. Honest self-assessment of their skills and experiences with respect to their career objectives and desired career
B. Even more important is the assessment of others on your ability to take on certain assignments and job positions.
C. Building an effective career plan required a good understanding of both and steps necessary to obtain these skills and experiences.
2. Building and marketing a personal brand effectively
People often say, your reputation precedes you. Building a personal brand with positive traits or skills and marketing it to the people who have influence and impact on your career goals is a must. Create your own reputation rather than having others form their opinion who you are is the key.
3. Networking, Networking, and Networking – how to leverage it to maximize career objectives and job performance.
The more people who know about you and your skills & experiences, the more opportunities you will have to maximize your career objectives. The key to effective networking is your ability to create mutual support with people in your current company and where you want to get to eventually. Consider leading with “How can I help you?” instead of “Can you help me with …”.
4. Developing and closing “deals” to enhance career opportunities.
“Deals” are made with people who know your skills, experiences, positive branding, and mutual goals. It can be official as in a “special assignment” where your skills are needed on a temporary basis. Upon successful completion of such assignment, a job position may be offered. It can also be just a “handshake” where both parties to agree to support each other with their career goals.
5. Career transition – industry sectors, corporate to non-profit organizations to government services, or entrepreneurship.
Management, leadership, and professional skills are often transferable from industry to industry, private or public sectors, and small or large businesses. Successful career transition is only possible if you have successfully mastered the first four elements. It should also be well-documented in your career plan.
For Asian Americans, here are the additional elements to consider:
- Cultural differences – Unfortunately, the burden of managing the cultural differences is on you. Even the American born Asian Americans are influenced by their immigrant parents or grand parents on how they behave. Common cultural traits such as being humble and respectful of authority can often lead to the reputation of lack of confidence, assertiveness, and leadership skills. Another common mistake is relying direct management to be the champion of your career.
- U.S. Relationship with your “Home” country – As an example, the U.S. and China relationship has significant impact on the career of the Americans with Chinese heritage. On the positive side, Chinese Americans have the distinct advantage in company who are operating in China market. Unfortunately, Chinese Americans who have family in China may have difficulty getting security clearance for high level government positions and leadership positions in corporations that view Chinese companies as their competition.
- Common ground for Asian Americans – It is important to find common ground with other Asian American communities to come together with corporation and government agencies to advocate for Asian Americans as a group. Most do not have the capacity or desire to deal with any one ethnic group.
Conclusion
High performance with measurable results and impact is a basic requirement when it comes to career management. Knowing and perfecting each of career management elements may achieve incremental improvement of your career position, maximizing it requires this comprehensive approach. Each element does require individuals to make honest assessment of their current situation, identify improvement steps, document them, take appropriate action and evaluate the results.
Many individuals find it very difficult to internalize what they learn in most of the generic career management training. Therefore, they fail to incorporate their learning into their career plan effectively. Even most well-meaning mentor and coach only focus on a few aspects of these elements into their advice. Unfortunately, there is not a single formula or equation for success. It requires creativity and support from others. Hence it is really an “Art” not a “Science”.
About the author:
George specializes in providing career management seminars and coaching session for Chinese/Asian American professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs. He is currently the management partner of Global Consultants United, a management consulting group whose services include multi-cultural management and executive training.
To provide practical career management training for large groups and one-on-one career coaching, George leverages his practical professional experiences and knowledge acquired in a long and successful career that spanned 40 years in technical and business management executive positions in a Fortune 100 company, his own management consulting firm, and non-profit advocacy organizations. George also worked in U.S. Government agencies including the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
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