Career Planning for Success in Personal Excellence_January 2016 Issue CEE Leadership Masterclass Series in Leading in a #Disrupted, #VUCA World CEE in collaboration with FGD Academy is pleased to offer a series of Virtual Masterclass. For further details visit: http://www.cee-global.com/masterclass/ Ten highly practical Leadership Masterclass programmes, dedicated to developing Leadership skills for Board, C-Suite and Senior Level Leaders operating in today’s VUCA world This Series of Courses will leverage on best-in-class or thought-leadership concepts, tools and techniques to drive organisational & leadership excellence. The Courses are designed to provide Business and HR leaders with a platform to develop from being good to great. They are being offered in response to the market needs to ensure that their senior-level executives possess the right competencies and skills to successfully adapt to new realities when leading in a VUCA World. Learning Outcomes: • The context for leadership today’s VUCA business environment • Understand the elements of Cognitive Readiness Competencies • What is required to transform to be a ‘High-Performance Organisation’ (HPO)? • How to transform your NextGen leaders to succeed in the VUCA world? The CEE Masterclass Series is also available as customised in-company Leadership Development Workshops which are certified by The International Professional Managers Association (IPMA). The programs incorporate a number of unique features and work on a number of levels. It is specifically aimed at enhancing and developing the skills, knowledge and behaviours of the participants. The participants will develop their understanding of Leadership Effectiveness and how it will lead to a creation of a sustainable competitive advantage for their respective organisations through the development of an organisational climate that will contribute towards enhancing employee engagement and productivity. For further information, contact us at enquiry@cee-global.com or visit our website at http://www.cee-global.com/masterclass/ The Overview of the CEE Executive Coaching Solutions could be found here: http://www.cee-global.com/executive-coaching/ The Centre for Executive Coaching (CEC), a wholly-owned division of CEE, delivers recognised certified professional coach training programme for individuals interested in entering the field of executive coaching, as well as executives seeking to become better managers and leaders as managerial coaches in their respective organisations. Further information on CEC could be found here: http://www.cee-global.com/about-cec/ For initial 30 min complimentary coaching session for CEOs and C-Suite Leaders, email us at enquiry@cee-global.com

1. 19Personal Excellence Essentials presented by HR.com | 01.2016 Submit your Articles
Career Planning Guide For Success
By Prof. Sattar Bawany
Action planning for managing your career
Careers can be likened to cars. In order to make a car go somewhere,
someone must be driving it - steering and pushing the accelerator
from the front seat. So, too, with a career.
There’s no blueprint for a successful career, but some early planning
can definitely help you get where you want to be.
In our careers, many of us simply show up at work, do everything we
are supposed to do and are surprised if the car does not move. Or if
it does, it moves in a different direction to what we thought it would.
If this sounds familiar, it is time for you to drive your career from
the driver’s seat! It’s your career and it is up to you to decide what
you want to do with it. You can no longer depend on your employer
to plan your career for you. The days of working for one employer for
your entire working life are gone. It is time to control your destiny.
But taking control of your own career is not always as simple as it
sounds. A career isn’t something we move through. It isn’t a series of
jobs. A career is something we develop and carry with us throughout
our entire working lives. It changes and evolves continuously over
time. Planning your career is a lifelong process.
You will spend an enormous amount of your life at work (around
100,000 hours), yet how much time have you spent deciding and
directing how you want to spend those working hours? The key to
a successful career is self-assessment.
One of the first steps in the self-assessment process is to establish
your values. Values reflect our deepest beliefs. They are powerful
principles that guide our actions and opinions, our dreams and our
sources of stress. If you decide on a career without regard to your
inner values, it is almost a guarantee that you will be unhappy. For
example, if your most important value is service to society, you might
consider a career in social work. But if your second value is money,
you will probably have to find a career that both services society and
brings in significant income or you will be dissatisfied.
Another consideration when planning your career is your skills and
talents. There is a major difference between skills and talents: skills
can be learned, natural talent cannot. Your natural talent is valuable
to an organisation and more and more employers are recognising this.
At the end of the day, some people are just more talented at some
things than others. And usually, your natural talents are also where
your interests lie. If you are in a job that takes advantage of your
talent, chances are you will enjoy and be interested in what you are
doing in that job. Hence, the organisation will get better results and
you will be more satisfied.
While talent is more in line with your natural abilities and cannot
be learned, skills can be learned. Skills are demonstrated activities of
competence. Many of us underestimate our skills and qualifications.
In identifying your skills, you are likely to make effective career deci-
sions and, in general, feel greater confidence as you pursue the career
planning process. In addition, career management often demands
the ability to adapt your skills and talents to new and different work
environments. This requires that you be able to identify these skills,
learn how to transfer them to new areas, and, in many cases, think
about new skills you may need to acquire to improve your employ-
ability and become more successful.
Once you have identified your core values, talents and skills, you
will have a good basis for deciding what kind of career your want – to
determine what you want to do and where you want to do it.
First of all, assess where you are in your career. Do you like every-
thing about your organisation but dislike your role? If the answer is
yes, then your action plan should revolve around shifting to a role
that suits you within your organisation. Most organisations welcome
an employee who is actively looking to stay in their organisation but
wants to find the best fit for both themselves and the organisation.
Perhaps you like your job but you are in the wrong organisation.
Then your action plan should revolve around finding a similar role
in a different organisation.
Or, perhaps you have discovered that you are in the wrong field
entirely and that you want to make a major career change. You will
not be alone in this decision. Labour statistics report that the average
worker changes careers six times during his or her lifetime. The secret
is to keep your values, talents and skills in mind and weigh every
decision against them.
In all of this planning, the key is to remain flexible and adaptable.
Keep shifting your goals as you need to and keep learning. Today’s
technology means that everything is moving at a fast pace. If you
cannot keep up with the skills you need, you will not be able to keep
up with your own career goals.
Whatever your situation, as you continue on your lifelong career
path you should constantly refer back to your values, talents and
skills. Re-evaluate them from time to time and ensure that they are
current with your career goals. What you valued five years ago may
change, depending on your situation today. People change, priorities
shift – that is what managing your career is all about. PE
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Prof Sattar Bawany is the CEO & C-Suite Master Executive Coach of Centre
for Executive Education (CEE Global). CEE offers human capital management
solutions for addressing challenges posed by a multigenerational workforce in-
cluding talent management and executive development programs (executive
coaching and leadership development) that help leaders develop the skills and
knowledge to embrace change and catalyze success in today’s workplace.
Visit www.cee-global.com
Email sattar.bawany@cee-global.com
“It’s your career and it is up to you to decide what you
want to do with it. You can no longer depend on your
employer to plan your career for you. The days of
working for one employer for your entire working life
are gone.”