Leadership Skills: Charting Your Roadmap to Build Intellectual Capital (Part 2 of 3)
In the previous column, the first in a series, we reviewed the importance in today’s work environment of aggressively building your intellectual capital. It is an important step to achieve career buoyancy, or continuously raising your professional value and opportunities in a turbulent work world. The next part of the dialog is to create a plan for action. A three part framework we use with our clients for strategic planning purposes works for this discussion, too:
- 1. Where am I today?
2. Where do I want to be tomorrow?
3. How do I get there?
Where am I today?
How do you determine what your current intellectual capital, or valued skills and experiences, are? This is different than patentable intellectual property. Think about what you known for now. If you are unsure of what it is, consider what people come to you for. They consider you a resource or expert on something if they keep coming to you for answers on a particular domain of expertise. And is this current expertise something that will be continued to be valued over time? The answer should not be assumed as yes. Whatever got you to where you are today, it won’t be enough for tomorrow.
Now think back to what you have been known for over time. Would this question have been answered differently a year ago? Or two? Are you continually building skills, keeping up to date in your profession and broadening your horizons? What new challenges have you overcome recently? What are you overcoming now? What skills did you build to do so?
At our firm we focused on cost reduction related consulting at the beginning of the 2001 recession (strategic sourcing, ERP related work and business process improvement, for example). There was a strong demand for it as times were very lean for many companies. As the economy began to pick up and companies were looking to expand, we continued in those earlier disciplines, but realized the market was shifting. We moved more heavily into international expansion strategies, market assessments and new product development. As companies became more willing to invest in their employees again, we offered leadership development and coaching. Are you aware of the trends - not fads - and moving with them? Are you investing in yourself to provide value that the market rewards now and in the future?
Where do you want to be tomorrow?
The second of our three questions is forward looking. Where do you want your intellectual capital to be tomorrow? What do you need to know to raise your value? There may be specific technical or soft skills. Have you gotten or can you get honest feedback regarding where you should grow next? If your company uses 360 degree feedback, don’t stack the deck with people that will faun. You are missing a key growth opportunity.
Look at the skills, experiences and attributes your company rewards. As you look at who gets promoted, why is it? How can you gain the skills to be considered in their company? For example, to prepare to lead a leadership development session for a global bank, I asked top executives what they were known for. What skills and experiences did they have that caused them to be in their current position? Many of them said it was because of their skills successfully completing difficult projects and initiatives – getting the tough stuff done. Many experts argue that project management skills are the transcendental skill for the future, and we’ll cover this in depth in another column.
Think strategically. Build a plan for your resume to be different next year than it is now. What are you actively learning on the job, and through classes and books? What should you be learning? It is estimated that the average college graduate reads only one book per year post graduation. Is that dismal statistic true for you?
When I read that statistic, I realized that although I read significantly more than one book per year, I wasn’t approaching it strategically. I breezed through book stores like candy shops, and just picked up what appealed to me at that moment. Now I’ll pick a topic, say business process management, and read several books back to back on it. It isn’t just the repetition that helps build a knowledge base, but it is also the difference. I find myself processing the information differently because in my mind I am conducting an internal conversation comparing the books. I am processing them differently.
Look at your current job or project. Is it a stretch or a rut? We can’t always design the perfect project or job, but frequently there are ways to justifiably incorporate new responsibilities and learning opportunities in it for yourself. Two areas that have definitely trended upward in the business environment that our company has built expertise in are innovation, and in businesses going ‘green.’ What is it for your business? Please send an email to mcook@ageos1.com and let us know what you are finding in the marketplace. Keep in mind that whatever it is, your work must be in alignment with your business. You can’t expect the company to fund your dream job at the expense of the bottom line.
To Be Continued...
To be valued, bring value, and do so strategically. Lily Thomlin once said: “I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” And so, too, should you. In the following columns we will examine how to get where you specifically want to be.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3