Developing Skills

When it comes to career advancement, all skills are not created equal. In this week's episode, we look at a framework for evaluating and prioritizing the skills that you should focus on for development.

To begin this assessment, you will need to build two different lists of skills: the skills needed for your current role and the skills needed for your next role. When building each list of skills, evaluate how those skills are actually used; especially for those soft skills such as leadership, storytelling, or executive presence. Use this insight to rank your abilities in those skills as weak, strong, or competent. If a skill appears on both lists, consider how the use of that skill will change as you progress towards your next role.

If you need help identifying the list of skills, review job postings for your role and look at the list of skills that are identified there. You can also use one of the various AI resources such as ChatGPT or Bard to ask what the primary and secondary skills are for each role. If you have a good relationship with your leader, you can ask them, but this might be misconstrued as you not knowing how to perform your duties.

Now that you have a list of skills, you are going to place them on a quadrant map. For the left to right axis, the left represents skills that you need to have and the right represents skills that are nice to have. For the top to bottom axis, the top represents skills that you need now and the bottom represents skills that you need later.

If you are unsure whether a skill is a nice to have or a need to have, consider that earlier description of how the skill is used in the role. Primary skills are usually need to haves and secondary skills are usually nice to haves.

Now that you have classified the different skills from your lists, you can focus on the skills that are weak in the upper left quadrant. These are the ones that will hold you back from success in your current role. Put a plan in place to augment your abilities in these areas as soon as possible through training and direct mentorship. You should dedicate a minimum of an hour each week to work on these skills until you are competent or strong in these skills.

The next tier of skills to address would be those in the lower left quadrant that also appear in the top half of the chart. While the form of the skill may be different between your current role and your future role, the fact that the skill is used in both roles emphasizes the importance of the skill. Even if you are currently strong in the skill, it is important to continue to build this skill in preparation for the next role. Since you are often expected to display the ability to do a job before you are promoted to that job, building these skills will provide you a path to faster advancement.

The third tier of skills would be those that appear in the lower left quadrant and do not appear in the top half of the chart. These should be considered growth skills that you should work on as time allows. These skills will be the ones that set you apart from other peers that are competing for the same promotion.

If you have worked through those three groups of skills and have not identified at least three skills to work on, only then should you extend your view towards the nice to have skills. Be selective from the nice to have list and only picks skills that put you in a position to be assigned to strategic projects that can provide additional visibility that can help put you in a position for a promotion.

Once you have a list of skills to work on, put a learning plan together. Any in tier one should have a plan to address any deficiencies within the next quarter. For skills in tier two or three, take a longer range view towards building them. Use a multi-pronged approach that includes working with your leader on stretch assignments that allow you to use the skill as you grow it. Review your progress with your leader and mentors and update the plan based on their feedback on your progress.

For those of you following this podcast in real time, I will be shifting to a less frequent release schedule for the next few months. Between the holidays and the fact that I am in the process of packing and moving, I will not be able to be as consistent with new episodes. By the end of January next year, I should be back on a regular schedule. Please bear with me during this transition period. If you are looking for any specific career advice, feel free to reach out to me via the contact form at https://ManagingACareer.com/contact and I will answer them directly in the meantime.

Are you looking for a career coach? If you reach out to me via the contact form, I will arrange an introductory session where we can talk about your career goals and how I can help. If we're a good fit, we can schedule regular coaching sessions.