This strategy can be a STEPPING STONE for your career growth!

Tuesday: Return Driven Strategy FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: Welcome to today’s discussion on “Return Driven Strategy (RDS)!” For today, we’ll focus on the individual-targeted counterpart of RDS: Career Driven Strategy (CDS). This framework tackles concepts you can personally use for your profession, and it’s aligned with RDS, which great businesses practice. In this article, we’ll share an important aspect that can boost your career. Keep reading to learn the benefits of career coaching. We’ll also talk about how this type of coaching relates to Tenet 9 of the CDS framework. CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

This strategy can be a STEPPING STONE for your career growth! Are you feeling “stuck” in your career? Are you hoping to learn more about yourself and unleash your full potential? Are you looking into growing professionally? If you answered yes to some or all of these questions, we have news for you: These insights on career coaching might help! What is Career Coaching? According to an article in BetterUp, “career coaching” is usually a one-on-one process where a coach helps an employee reach his/her career goals and realize his/her full potential. There are different subjects that coaches can assist employees with, such as: Guiding them in setting their career goals Giving advice for their career decisions Facilitating their career transitions Helping them discover new skills that might be useful for their current jobs Teaching them how to build their personal brand Furthermore, in a dynamic workplace, career coaching helps professionals stay competitive and relevant so they won’t be stagnant in their growth and development. Benefits of Career Coaching Now that you’re familiar with what career coaching is, let’s talk about why this process helps in your professional growth: Career coaching helps you focus better on your goals. If you’ve been feeling stuck in your career, maybe you need to go back to what TRULY matters to you. How does a career coach help you with this? Through coaching sessions, you can identify/re-identify what your current priorities, goals, values, strengths, and weaknesses are. Additionally, your coach can also recommend some helpful time-management skills like the Pomodoro technique that helps you work more efficiently. In other words, a career coach is like a buddy who reminds you of who you are and how you work best! Career coaching helps you develop a greater sense of confidence. A career coach can provide you with confidence-building exercises such as articulating your words slowly, practicing living intentionally, and emulating your role models. These exercises can help you tap into your current strengths and your life aspirations, which then enable you to feel more confident in yourself and the positive impact you can bring to the workplace. Career coaching helps you strengthen your “mental” fitness. While a gym coach helps you build your physical strength, a career coach helps strengthen you mentally. According to a BetterUp article, employees’ well-being improved after they went through three to four months of career coaching. This shows career coaching can help you improve your overall well-being by: Making you more resilient Guiding you to better cope with stress Teaching you how to avoid getting burned out With better overall well-being, you can be more motivated and productive in your job. Career coaching empowers you to be a team player. A career coach supports you so you can express your ideas more freely and proactively, and avoid conflicts with other team members by learning to adjust to different communication styles. As a result, your efforts in developing your communication skills will help you create a more meaningful work environment. Career coaching helps you gain valuable feedback for your career. Generally, a career coach is not afraid to give unbiased feedback. In other words, you can hear objective comments about your career performance. Also, since the coach is aware of your strengths, weaknesses, values, and interests, he/she can provide the necessary steps you can take to improve. Remember, there’s always room for growth, and feedback from an outside perspective can be transformative. Career coaching helps you explore more opportunities. A coach can lead you to opportunities that could boost your career. Since a coach is exposed to working with clients from different industries, he/she can provide you with connections that are in line with your field of expertise. Aside from that, your coach can advise you to enroll in courses that can further hone your skills and recommend you to join events such as conferences, seminars/webinars, and networking parties. In other words, you can keep exploring more, and you don’t have to settle with where you are. At the end of the day, a career coach wants what is best for your growth. Career Coaching and Career Driven Strategy With all these benefits in mind, it is clear that career coaching is a strategy you can highly consider for your professional development. Let’s look into how this type of coaching relates to Tenet 9 of Career Driven Strategy. According to Professor Joel Litman and Dr. Mark L. Frigo in the book, “Driven”: “Any successful firm seeks employees that are engaged – a state where people take ownership over what they do and actively strive to help the business achieve its objectives.” This tenet explains that when employees are empowered, the company can grow significantly. Additionally, Professor Litman and Dr. Frigo say employees feel more valued when they have high-quality relationships, available opportunities, and a feeling of culture and purpose in the workplace. This same concept can also apply to your personal career development. When you have supportive individuals around you, such as a career coach, you can take ownership of your role. You can also learn more deeply about who you are and the work that you do. — Essentially, a career coach is one of the many examples of support that you can receive for your career development. This outside perspective can play a role in reassessing your capabilities and tapping into your potential. So, the next time you’re feeling stuck, remember that it's okay to seek support; your growth doesn't have to be through individual effort alone. Career coaching can be an added layer of support where you can advance your career and also help the people in your workplace grow. Also, if you don’t have a career coach, that doesn't mean you won't succeed in your career. At the end of the day, you’re still responsible for your growth and your definition of success. Also, if you’re looking to gain a better understanding of Return Driven Strategy and Career Driven Strategy, we highly recommend checking out “Driven” by Professor Litman and Dr. Frigo. Click here to get your copy and learn how this framework can help you in your business strategies and ultimately, in ethically maximizing wealth for your firm. Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful.     In a past “Return Driven Strategy” article, we discussed the 8th tenet of RDS, specifically the WHEN and WHY of redesigning business processes. Learn more about RDS’ Tenet 8 in next week’s article!