When to take a role that’s not a promotion

By Jo Miller 

“Should I stay or should I go now?”
- British punk rock band The Clash, 1981

Your next great leap forward in your career might not be a step up. Imagine you were offered a truly great job opportunity, but with one major catch: it is not a promotion. To further complicate things, the role has no apparent path to a promotion in the near future. Should you take the job?

President of Strategic Regulatory Partners, Wini Wu, is passionate about mentoring technical women and has advised mentees in the United States, Indonesia, and Australia. I asked Wu what guidance she would provide to an up-and-coming woman who found herself in the running for a role that was not a promotion. What are some reasons to consider taking the role?

Wu’s advice to women in such a situation is to assess the opportunity in the context of their life as a whole. “During your career and your life, your situation changes” explained Wu. “One of the things you want to consider is what is important in your life in this moment and in the next couple of years?”

Next, Wu encourages women to consider how the role might expand their career horizons. “You also want to look at the role” she said. “Does it expand your responsibilities and (give you) opportunities to go into new areas, such as a different functional area, different industry, or skill set?” There is also the learning opportunity to consider Wu pointed out,“Is it a challenge in a good way?”

Does the new opportunity expand your professional network? “Consider opportunities to learn new skills and network with new people” said Wu. Her bottom line, “Take risks and if it feels right, just do it!”

Liza Cuevas is Senior Director of HR with Citrix Systems bringing over 20 years of experience as a strategic business partner to engineering organizations. While knowing that she is currently in a role that she finds very satisfying, I asked Cuevas to imagine that someone offered her a lateral move. What are some of the criteria she would use to evaluate the opportunity?

“One thing to consider is that starting a new role does take time and energy”, she pointed out. "So consider the scope of the role. Value creation is a big deal to me; the opportunity to do something creative, innovative, and help the business to move things forward.”

“People and relationships are also very critical to me”, Cuevas explained. Ask yourself, “Can I learn from them and are they a dynamic group of individuals? We spend half our lives in our jobs and I really want to be with people I respect and that I can learn from.”

Finally, Cuevas suggests considering “Does it fit my life today?” For example, do you want to be able to work remotely at times or telecommute, and have some flexibility?

Wini Wu and Liza Cuevas were guest speakers in the webinar Alternate Career Paths: Up is not the only way forward, part of the Emerging Women Leaders webinar series.
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Are you climbing a ladder or a lattice? The surprising answer from three senior-level women

By Jo Miller

In a recent webinar, I interviewed three executive women who have carved out unique and nontraditional paths to career advancement.

These women have made great choices that ultimately led them into to leadership roles and rewarding careers. I asked them to consider two competing career-advancement philosophies, and describe the approach that has molded their career path thus far.

There are two alternate paradigms for forward-moving career paths: the ladder and the lattice. The traditional approach, the career ladder, you’re already familiar with. It is characterized by a single pathway upward through a corporate hierarchy. The second paradigm is the “career lattice”. Cathy Benko, Vice Chairman with Deloitte, coined the term to refer to a career trajectory that offers multiple pathways for career growth. This includes upward, lateral, and even downward moves, where ladder-climbing can play a secondary role to other factors such as skill acquisition, long-term career, job satisfaction, and home life. With the career ladder model, you either move up or you stop moving. In the lattice model, there is greater flexibility. There are options that might fit better with different phases in your life and career. You can move faster or slower, change directions, or switch tracks.

Which of these paradigms fits best for you at this phase in your career? Climbing a ladder or a lattice? In the women’s leadership webinar, Alternate Career Paths: Up Is Not the Only Way Forward, I asked the three guest speakers which model best fit their career path to date. The answers surprised me! Not one of these executive women felt that their career path had been a linear ladder climb. Their career paths were lattices or a combination of ladder and lattice.

Liza Cuevas is Senior Director of HR with Citrix Systems, bringing over 20 years experience as a strategic business partner to engineering organizations for technology companies including Yahoo!, Palm, Brocade, and Apple. In her early career, Liza Cuevas’ path closely resembled the ladder, as she set out to establish her career in human resources management. When she had made her mark and built her brand as a strategic HR business partner, Cuevas’ priorities shifted. “With time, I found it was really more about a lattice.” Cuevas now looks for opportunities where she can add value, have influence, and work with great people. “I have shifted over time from going straight up.” Her preference now is for building her capabilities, creating value for the organizations she supports, and maintaining versatility in her toolkit of skills and expertise. “I have four children, including two adult children, and a ranch down in southern California.” Cuevas added, “I want to be able to work remotely at times and to have enough flexibility to also enjoy life and have fun. Those are the big criteria for me right now.”

Mike Fitzgerald is VP of Research and Development at JDSU where she leads a global organization of 500 engineers. Her career of 29 years includes leadership positions in general management, mergers and acquisitions, operations, and engineering. Fitzgerald characterizes the first half of her career as “all lattice”. “I was interested in having jobs that were challenging and as long as there was a good challenge, I was happy” she explained, “I only started looking around if I got bored. I loved product development so I was really interested in learning the various aspects and roles that would help me understand how to do product development better at my company.”

In the latter half of Mike’s career, she found her path narrowing down to more of a ladder. “There is not very much lattice left—pretty much only ladder at this point. So I would characterize it as first half lattice, last half ladder.”

Wini Wu is founder and President of Strategic Regulatory Partners. She serves as a strategic advisor to the medical product industry, helping them integrate business and regulatory strategy. Prior to starting her own company, she had a 17-year career with Medtronic, most recently as VP of Regulatory and Medical Affairs. Wu considers her career path to have been mostly a lattice. “I moved between industries. I have taken roles in large and small companies in different functional areas”, said Wu, who is quick to point out that her upward career movement was probably slower than if she had chosen to stay in one company and functional area. But, Wu explained, “The experience of moving across always expanded my scope, increased my professional network, and increased my learning. Right now with my consulting, it’s truly a lattice. I am having a lot of fun.”

Which paradigm best fits the phase of your career that you are in today? The ladder or the lattice? Either model can lead you on a path to career growth, leadership, and a successful and satisfying career. The choice really is yours.

Watch the webinar recording of Alternate Career Paths: Up Is Not the Only Way Forward.
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From the Article Archives: Four Tips for Becoming a Visionary in Challenging Times

Four Tips for Becoming a Visionary in Challenging Times

During a recent women’s leadership webinar, I asked Krista Thomas, Vice President, Marketing and Communications for The Calais Initiative at Thomson Reuters, how a person should determine what their organization needs in these challenging economic times. In addition to answering the question, she addressed a more intriguing issue – how to provide visionary leadership during challenging economic times:

1. Don’t keep your head down / check in often

“You really can make a mistake by keeping your head down and staying quiet, because sometimes you get caught up in a stream of activity that really isn’t core or strategic to your company” said Thomas.

“My policy is to check in often” she added, “Make sure that the goals and the metrics that you’re measuring are still priority number one in executing on your goals for the company. Also, don’t be afraid to raise your hand, go personally to your management, and really make sure you’re still on target.”

2. Be adaptive and go with the flow

“It can be tempting in troubling times like this to get flustered and frustrated and be upset when things go off-plan, or when the plan changes. You may not necessarily always be in the loop. If you’re not at that senior level, you may not know when some of the strategies change, which can happen in real time.”

She continued, “The key is to be able to be flexible, to demonstrate your ability to not get stuck in the old thinking when the thinking has changed. Check in, know what’s going on, know where others’ thoughts are going, and show that flexibility. Show your adaptability and ability to go with the flow.”

3. Move toward the next opportunity

“Things are going to be chaotic, especially in this economy. We saw this when ‘Web 1.0’ imploded all around us. The way to survive was to look for the next opportunity and walk towards that as opposed to being afraid” she explained.

4. Create an environment of calmness and creativity

In a final point, Thomas emphasized the importance of generating new ideas. “Nothing is more helpful in a difficult time than creativity. If you’ve got creativity and you can bring problem solving or people skills, you’ll help mitigate other people on the team being upset. If you’re one of those people who can come in and calm people down, and get them re-focused on new priorities, you’re very valuable right now.”

Jo Miller is CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching Inc. which offers women’s leadership seminars, webinars and coaching programs.

Emerging Leader Spotlight: Courtney Behm

Name: Courtney Behm
Current title: Senior Program Manager, Product Strategy and Operations
Company: NetApp
Favorite quote: Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. Bertolt Brecht

1) What is the most important thing you have learned that has been critical to your career success?
You will emerge stronger from any trial if you can take a breath, stay calm, speak with compassion, and flex with change.

a) What key steps did you take to get to the role you are in today?
There are three key elements in my career path that have been indispensable in furthering my ability to be successful. First, after four years in business, I took two years off to get an MBA. It was a fantastic opportunity to immerse myself in the decision-making process required to excel in a fast-paced technology leadership role, and when I returned to the business world, I found myself resolving complex issues with far greater ease.

Second, though I sometimes call my resume “Courtney’s Checkered Past,” due to its eclectic mix of positions and technologies, the breadth of experience I’ve gained by meeting so many different industry and organizational challenges has strengthened my ability to find the path of the easy through the thicket of competing agendas.

Third, and perhaps most important, in the late 90s I jumped off the corporate train for seven years to run my own consulting practice focusing on organizational effectiveness, process change, and leadership/team development. It was an exciting and rewarding time in which I not only learned a great deal about how to help others become more effective, but also gained a deeper understanding of how I could make my best contribution as an employee. When I returned to the corporate world in 2006, I did so with renewed enthusiasm and clarity about my ability to make an impact.

2) What is your leadership style? (Self-described and/or how others might describe you)
I have a strong personality, and some pretty definite ideas about how things should be done, but I’ve learned that I’m much more effective when I collaborate and guide things forward with a firm, but friendly hand rather than forcing the issue. I have a great sense of humor, and I use that to full advantage to disarm resistance and foster cooperation. I also have a passion for making things work, and things just work better when people are aligned behind a course of action. That being said, at the point when the decision must be made, or the message must be delivered, I’m ready to take personal responsibility for bringing issues to closure, and for communicating the decision to the rest of the organization.

3) What tools or resources have you used that have been crucial to your success?
I have a background in Performing Arts and Communications and my ability to present, influence, and communicate remains one of my strongest key success factors. Along with that goes an ability to listen, absorb, and translate the points of view of one organization or individual to another so that people leave a meeting with a more full understanding of each other’s positions and issues. In some ways, I’ve fulfilled my high school dream of speaking five languages fluently and becoming a simultaneous translator at the UN. My colleagues and I might be speaking English, but our differing perspectives and priorities can make us seem as alien to each another as if we were from different planets. It’s thrilling to untangle the threads of discussion so that we achieve clarity instead of sinking further into confusion.

4) What steps are you currently taking to improve yourself, professionally?
My current role is, in and of itself, a professional improvement activity. My responsibilities range from managing the high-level product release teams to defining a five-year site strategy to guiding a refresh of our Product Release and Product Lifecycle processes to delivering our annual leadership event for 400 senior leaders. When people ask me what I do, I often tell them that I mind everybody’s business! I have had intense on-the-job training in how to keep many disparate balls in the air, and it’s been an exhilarating and rewarding experience.

5) What is the next step you plan to take in your career to develop your leadership skills?
I am currently moving back into people management after many years as a single contributor and influence manager; I’m looking forward to renewing my line management skills, and discovering new ways to be an effective mentor and coach to my team.

6) What are some top tips you can recommend to other women who want to be recognized as a high potential emerging leader?
First, it’s not enough to be intelligent or to know your subject matter, unless you learn how to communicate effectively to a broad audience. Even though I was a skilled communicator in many ways, it wasn’t till the middle of my career that I learned that effective communication was not about how well I spoke, but how well I was heard. I spent a number of years creating a speaking style that could be tailored on the spot to the different cadences and vocabularies of the different functional groups I worked with so that my message could be received in the manner I intended.

Second, as you rise higher in an organization, you will share the fate of politicians and celebrities: there will be greater demands made on you by larger numbers of people more of the time. To maintain your sanity and your effectiveness, it’s important to find the appropriate balance between being an authentic, accessible person and maintaining sufficient professional distance to protect your energy and time for the work you need to accomplish.

Third, learn to take things seriously, but lightly, because everything is changing all the time. This is a business climate unlike any other; the speed of life is faster than humans were designed for, and we need to always be open and ready to consider a new set of circumstances. Becoming too firmly rooted in one opinion, or one decision, or one outcome will make it impossible to retain the flexibility and resilience necessary to succeed.

7) Have you experienced a career or leadership challenge recently that you have overcome?
I recently managed a four-day leadership event for 400 of our senior leaders held offsite at a local hotel. This was my first experience with an event of this size and we had a very small…though mighty…team to accomplish the task in a much shorter time than we would have chosen. Though we were ultimately successful, the demands were relentless; we all had times when we wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and refuse to take another step!

a) Could you share some of the ways you were able to overcome the challenge?
With so much going on, and so many stakeholders needing information or reassurance or solutions to problems, I had to maintain very clear priorities, resolve things quickly, and…big surprise…keep my sense of humor intact. I also needed to know when to ask for help, as this was not a project I was capable of doing on my own. I’m a practitioner of meditation, and I made sure to take short breaks when I would close my office door, ignore the email and the phone, and take 5-10 minutes to breathe quietly and let the agitation in the inner pool of my mind settle and clear. I always emerged from these respites remembering something important, or finding the next step to a knotty problem.

8) What professional accomplishment or result have you achieved in the past year that you are proud of?
See above! The leadership meeting exceeded all expectations, and provided an unparalleled opportunity for alignment and relationship building across the entire organization. When the dust settled, I realized that, even with the pressure and the details and the constant demands on my time, I had loved every minute. Because there was no time to question or to stop or to dither, the team was fully engaged, totally absorbed in doing what it took to make things work. We became a well-oiled machine, sometimes anticipating what needed to be done without having to discuss it. It was just great! After it was all over, I had a little post-partum leadership meeting depression to go through, but the wonderful thing is, I get to do it all again next year.

From the Article Arhives:Establishing Credibility and Influence

Question: My biggest question about being a better leader has to do with building greater credibility and influence. I am about to start a new position and would like to begin on the right foot.

Answer: When it comes to building credibility and influence, Nina Bhatti is an inspiring role model. As Principle Scientist with HP Labs, Bhatti is among HP’s highest-ranked technical women; her research has resulted in commercially successful products for some of HP’s largest customers.

In a recent conversation, I asked what advice she could offer to someone who wanted to build credibility and the positive influence to make a difference in their organization; how should they go about influencing and gaining support for an idea or project that they are passionate about.

1) Build credibility
While acknowledging that this is never easy, Bhatti advised “When you enter an organization, your first job is to build credibility. I don’t think there is anything more important than that. You say what you are going to do and you do what you say.”

Be aware that you are being observed and people are watching to see if you can be relied upon to deliver what you say you will deliver.

If given an assignment, you must confidently execute well. “You need to show enthusiasm”, Bhatti explained. “You need to show engagement with the mission of the organization. You need to take on assignments and do them confidently and enthusiastically.”

People will learn to trust you and know that you are going to achieve what you say you will do. “Train people that you are good for it”, Bhatti emphasized.

2) Contribute to the goals of the organization
Bhatti’s next step to building credibility requires finding valuable ways to contribute to your organization and making those your priority. “When there is an opportunity, show professionalism. Help other people, but never forget what your main goal is.”

If you are not clear on the objectives of your role, Bhatti would encourage you to clarify those goals with your manager.

She cautioned against taking on volunteer assignments that do not directly contribute to the organization’s business goals. “As a junior person, I volunteered not to be on the Site Beautification Committee but for things like recruiting new interns. I knew a lot about colleges and universities and what to look for in a summer student. I worked on committees with the head of the world-wide organization. I got opportunities to work with people I would never have the opportunity to work with as the bottom rank player.”

3) Seek out influential sponsors
To make your mark on the business, find an initiative that you want to do, that is also a leader’s goal.

“Find somebody in a position of power and authority who has something to gain from your doing this”, Bhatti suggests. “They need to have something to gain from you succeeding. You need someone who is in alignment with what you want to do.”

Early in her career, Bhatti approached a Senior Vice-President who needed to accomplish something for a large customer. “I gave him something that I could do that he really needed to deliver.” As a result, the Senior Vice President was intrinsically motivated to become her sponsor.

4)How will you know when you have gained credibility?
Bhatti’s observation is that “credibility is built along a sliding scale. If you have a small project and you executed well within that little envelope, that’s how credibility is built. You are given as much credibility as the last freedom you were given.”

For Bhatti, the realization of her growing credibility came the day a manager threw her a large and intimidating assignment.

“When the manager threw the monster task at me, I was very overwhelmed. How would he measure my success in an area with subjective goals and measures? It was truly scary.”

In the midst of that overwhelm, she asked “What do you want me to do?”

Her manager replied “I don’t know. I am not going to tell you how to do your job. Something good will happen that wasn’t going to happen without you”.

“See how much credibility I built with him?” Bhatti said, with a chuckle.

Bhatti had to figure out what the real assignment was and what the successful completion might look like. Over coming weeks she managed to validate the measures of success and then execute.

In concluding, Bhatti said, “At some point your manager won’t know this better than you do. So you end up having to learn to manage yourself and provide direction when there isn’t any.”

Jo Miller is CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching, Inc. which offers women’s leadership seminars and coaching programs.

Is pregnancy still a career liability?

The news that Yahoo’s board of directors appointed Marissa Mayer — a 37-year old Google veteran who happens to be six-months pregnant — the company’s new CEO appears to fly in the face of convention. Is this the turning point, where pregnancy is no longer viewed as detrimental to career advancement? Click here to find out.

From the Article Archives: How do I approach high profile industry experts?

Question:
Part 1) I have the opportunity to meet high-profile industry experts and influential thought-leaders at a conference. How should I approach them and what should I say?

Part 2) Is it OK to send an email to follow up? These people are highly sought-after and busy. I don’t want to be a nuisance.

Answer:
Imagine about what a conference must be like for a high-profile industry rock star. They finish their keynote and as the auditorium empties out, a handful people wait in line to greet them with a “deer in the headlights” look, fumble for words, and then quickly retreat. Meanwhile, a few schmoozy hangers-on take up more than their share of air time and the speaker has to strategize how to diplomatically extract themselves from an uncomfortable situation. I bet most of your role models simply crave a stimulating conversation with someone who is acting normal! They come to conferences to network, meet interesting people, and make friends too.

Always go up and thank a speaker whose presentation you enjoyed, whether immediately after or later during the conference. Prepare ahead of time with one or two good questions to ask them. If you ask great questions, they will remember you.Thank them for their presentation and be specific about what you found valuable.Shake hands and exchange business cards. The “don’ts” are fairly commonsense: Don’t ask them to critique your resume or ask for free consulting.Don’t ask highly personal questions.Don’t monopolize their time.Don’t give ten suggestions on how they should improve their presentation. As for following up, you should do this consistently. You would be shocked at how very few people follow up with an expert after meeting them. Those that do follow through make themselves memorable. Most people get so caught up as they struggle with “am I being a nuisance” that they never follow through.

Send a brief email within three days, reminding them how you met and thanking them for their input. Send a social network invitation and perhaps add a thought, article, or book or resource they might appreciate. Most busy people read their email, though not all have time to respond. Don’t take it personally if you don’t hear back.

It is okay to email again in a month or two, especially if you have another good question, enjoyed an article by them, have a resource to share, or are looking forward to seeing them at another event. If you follow those steps, it is likely they will remember you and look forward to meeting again.

Jo Miller is CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching Inc. which offers women’s leadership seminars and coaching programs.