Women at Work - When You’re Ready for a Big Career Move

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Sometimes you want to make a career change, like a big one. We hear from a woman who is in the process of navigating a bold transition. Then we talk with an expert about how to clarify your goals and ask for what you need to make your next move.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash womenatwork. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Gallo. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Emily Caulfield. Sometimes you want to make a career change, not the next logical step on your current career path, like a more senior title or taking on more responsibility. No, you want to leap to a new path altogether.

We know from research that women are less likely to put themselves out there for opportunities unless they feel completely qualified. We want to tick all the boxes before we raise our hand for that exciting new job or that stretch role. But limiting ourselves to what we already know how to do is limiting. In this episode, we're going to talk about how we can believe in ourselves when it comes to pushing our careers forward. A listener of ours, Elizabeth, is in the middle of this process. She imagined what was possible for her, and she's taking those steps forward. She works in an investment firm in South Africa. And because her background

is in law, she's kind of unusual at the firm. Five years in, she didn't see a clear growth path for herself, so she took her career development into her own hands. And when I had a look at that and really had a proper assessment as to my abilities and my skills and my experience, I thought to myself, you are perhaps limiting yourself and limiting your own prospects by putting yourself into a box. Elizabeth decided to challenge herself and make a real leap, this time into a different area of the business. Having spent five years in an internal functional position, she wanted to move into a client-facing role. There are certain aspects of her hope for a role that she'd been doing for years, but she knows that the move she wants would require far more financial expertise than she has.

It would be a bold career move. The type that, as she described it, is a major change from what you're currently doing and that ruffles some feathers in the process. She and I spoke shortly after she'd presented her proposal to her boss when she was still processing his reaction. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. Help us understand how big a leap this really is, this one you envision. So it is quite a big leap. But in getting me to realize that I wanted to make this leap, I sought advice from a mentor within the business about her own experience. And I realized that in delving deeper that she herself came from a similar background to my own and had made the leap.

And all of a sudden it dawned on me that it was a possibility that I could do this as well. So it's something that's perhaps unusual, but it's not impossible to make that leap. And I think in terms of the industry as a large, you tend to find that the type of front-facing investment managers are all of a certain qualification base, experience base, also certain education that they've received as well. So most of them have high level qualifications to the extent of having a MBA from a prestigious education background. So Elizabeth, what you've described is quite a dramatic leap, but there's also precedent for it. Your mentor had done it, another woman, she had made a similar kind of leap. And I noticed that what you're talking about is really a gap in technical skills, not necessarily soft skills. Is that correct?

Not necessarily relational skills, communication skills, and so forth. Exactly. So I've always just looked at it from a technical skill perspective and said, okay, because I don't have an MBA or I'm not a chartered accountant or chartered financial accountant, I'm not going to have the requisite skills. And I don't have the time in my life at this point in my career to dedicate myself to full-time education again, or to possibly part-time education taking a really long time to achieve. So I immediately always looked at that as my barrier and not necessarily focusing on my soft skills. And those soft skills are something that I think they set me apart. And I'm a particularly resilient individual and I am quite dedicated in terms of my own ambitions so I'm not deterred or

intimidated by insurmountable seemingly insurmountable challenges so I came to realize that I've got to use this to my advantage I've got to actually look at everything holistically as opposed to just the technical barrier. When I came to that realization, I said, okay, actually, what are you currently doing in your role that speaks to this new role? And when I looked at that and looked at specific skill set requirements and things that individuals in that investment profession would do, I realized that I already do some of those things and I've got the ability to do some of those things. And I've got the personality aspect, which is actually just as critically important.

Right. And developing the technical skills is a heck of a lot easier, study after study shows, than developing soft skills. So I'll just put that out there. Tell us what happened when you proposed this idea. Walk us through that. So I decided I would speak to my manager and I was very diligent and wrote out a proposal to him with my view on the move, as well as, you know, what my strengths are and my current skill set is, and also looking at ways to

bridge the technical skill gap. So I was looking at instead of doing formal education, perhaps to do some online courses from some reputable institutions, which would be able to, in a lesser time, give me a more focused approach as to bridging that gap. And then to also receive mentorship and coaching from within the firm. So I was very confident with the proposal that I had wrote out. Specifically with times of COVID and working at home, I had to email this to my boss instead of just saying, listen, I need five minutes of your time. And also knowing that my own skill set strength is that I feel I'm much better in written word than in spoken word. So I sent the email to him and followed up by making an appointment to discuss it with him a few days later. And I wasn't surprised by the response. So the response from him, he was quite surprised that I had made this proposal to him, but he didn't say

no. He didn't say this is impossible. You can't do this. But speaking to me from being one of these individuals that I would like to become, albeit at a much senior level, he highlighted the obstacles that I do face and then the issues that our own business might face in terms of bridging that technical skills gap so again he didn't say no to me but it was kind of like a let's try find somewhere in the middle and see where this goes and I recognize your ambition I recognize that you feel that need to move up and to possibly change your career course but let's see how we can make that happen. But let's just be cautiously optimistic about it

as opposed to saying yes or as opposed to saying no. How did that leave you feeling? Partially deflated because I think, you know, in my mind, I just would have ideally just loved to say, oh, yes, Elizabeth, that was a wonderful idea. Yes, you have a great proposal you speak with such optimism and we we know what you're capable of and we value you so much that we absolutely see that you could make this move you know so I didn't get that response but at the same

time it also gave me the perspective that okay I've I've done this, I've tried hard, I've given this shot. So, you know, in my own mind, it's like, what do I have to lose? I don't have anything to lose. You could easily just say no, and that's fine. But what do I have to gain? I've got a lot more to gain by making such a proposal and making my intentions clear about my career growth and that I don't want to remain pigeonholed. And that I want my skill set to be valued and that I want to grow within the company. So the outcome is, in my mind, that my ambition has been recognized. And in all of this, I am very valued to the business, but I am, um, it's perhaps just something that came as a bit of a surprise to, to my manager because in his specific team, everyone fits the certain box.

And, um, there is nobody in his team that is outside the box when it comes to the type of individual in this role. So we know that a promotion will happen, correct? One way or the other, you're scheduled to move ahead. Yeah. Just help us understand the timetable, not just for the inevitable promotion, but for the decision about the role. So I think the expectation is that it'll be a year

of exploring the step up in my current role and possibly the bridging the divide. And then by the end of the year, after I have done some technical training and received some coaching, there will definitely be a better indication as to whether I have a prospect, a stronger prospect of meeting the requirements that they do need for someone in the investment side of the business. What I'm currently working on is something is an almost a safe middle ground, a step ahead to almost bridging the divide. So an opportunity to work in a role which gives me more exposure to the technical skill gap that I don't have. And then the

opportunity to work on that with some individuals who will then be able to assist me on a certain path. And then at the same time, I've been advised, if I want to take any technical courses, I'm definitely free to do so. And so I'll be doing that next year as well. And in the meantime, they're going to support your efforts to gain the skills that you need to make the move, which means that no matter what, you will have those skills that are now yours.

They belong to you. They're portable. And so if you don't get the job that you dream of in your current firm, you could move along. You could find the job at another firm, correct? That's exactly it. So like I've said to myself that I've given it everything. I've given this move everything. It's a clear indication to me that

if this is what I want, I've worked towards it. And so at the end of the next year, I will know whether the firm values me enough to recognize what I have done. And if not, then I will find another firm who will recognize my skill set. Yeah. And you know, the firm will have made an investment in you. Your career path is a separate idea from your employer. You can follow your own path. Exactly. The story is still unfolding, but I'm wondering what you've learned about bringing your aspirations to life in all this. To have some self-confidence. I've had to just reassess myself and in all of this, reassess my abilities and the fact that you are actually allowed to aim high and you are actually allowed to be bold and make brave decisions. And you shouldn't let yourself be limited by your own

fears. Yes, make a relative assessment and don't do anything that's highly risky and it's going to possibly cost you your job. But when you have a look at the risks and the benefits and your long-term prospects, where do you want to be? You know, where do you want to be in 10 years time, 20 years time, whatever? You know, do you want to carry on doing the same thing that you're currently doing? Or do you actually want to build yourself up

and do something, you know, to conquer? And that's what I've learned from all of this is that actually you have to invest in yourself. You have to make these things happen yourself and you have to work at them and have the confidence to do it. Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much as well. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball?

Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Thank you. Columbia Business School professor, Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life.

Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. I think Elizabeth approached her own career move with real thoughtfulness and skill. She took into account the norms of her company, and she did an honest assessment of the skills she'd need to acquire to do the new job well. She knew no one would simply hand her the job she wanted. She'd have to work for it. I asked her what advice she'd give to women hoping to move into a role that won't be easy to attain. First, she said, seek feedback from supportive colleagues. They can help you evaluate how feasible that move seems. Second, carefully prepare the plan you're proposing. Think through how you would respond to questions and reservations your boss may have. For more advice on moving into a role that's really different from what you're

doing now, I got in touch with Hannah Ayoub. She's a career and executive coach who helps her clients clarify their goals and then work toward them. Hannah's been on the show before for our episode Starting Your Career in a Pandemic. Hannah, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you so much for having me back, Amy. Happy to be here. So Hannah, you listened to my interview with Elizabeth, and I'm wondering what you made of her approach to her bold career move.

I think she did a lot of things right. I think she leveraged her network within her organization. She talked about how she consulted with her mentor and other peers there. I think she was really prepared in building the case for her transition. It sounds like she put a lot of thought into preparing some materials and she initiated the time to set this up with her manager. And I think most importantly, what I loved about your conversation with her was how she was able to give herself credit and celebrate how she's developed this muscle of self-advocacy. She has gone from becoming aware of it to activating it to strengthening it. Her muscle of self-advocacy is really her own. And I think this is something that she can continue to practice and that will

serve her throughout her career. And I'd love to get your thoughts on her safe middle ground, you know, that she will bridge the skill set between what she's doing now and the job she envisions for herself. What do you think of that? Yeah, I thought her manager's response in offering, you know, the next steps as he did and calling it a safe middle ground, it honestly sounded reasonable. This was the first he was hearing of it. He was a bit surprised. He seemed to be transparent with what obstacles she may face based on her background in this transition, which is very fair. That's not easy to hear, but it sounds true.

And he's also offering support, helping her get the training she needs. So that sounds like a very reasonable place to land as far as next steps. What I didn't hear that I would love for them to discuss before next year is what will success look like? She has 2021 to start gaining more exposure to the investment team, to learn more of these skills that she needs, but how will she be evaluated? What are the metrics? Getting clear on the next steps, the milestones, and the metrics by which she'll be evaluated in 2021 will help set her up for success and hopefully a more permanent transition to the team she's interested in working for. And it'll also make it easier for her to pick up the

conversation with her manager throughout the year if they can mutually agree on how they're going to approach designing her exposure and her training over the next year. Yeah. And it sounds like what's important here is that as she and her manager sort of set out into this terra incognita, that they set expectations that they can mutually agree on. Completely agree. And I think as I was listening to her whole story, I drew a dotted line between her process and the outcome. Usually the conversations or the reflections of a big swing like this that she took are solely and maybe disproportionately attached to the outcome, right? It was only a success if I got a yes. So I think for your listeners here, it's really important. And I love how you allowed her to see what she

did here within the process that is then transferable. The connection to her process, her owning her efforts is what will create a positive reinforcement loop in her career to continue to show up and self-advocate in that same way or better going forward. So let's think about it from the other perspective. I'm a manager and one of my direct reports has just come to me and said, I'd like to make a big change. How should I respond? I would be present. I would be curious.

I would ask my employee what this is about for them, why they think this is the move that they want, what they're really looking for in this transition, how I can be helpful, how they may have thought about succession planning of what happens to, you know, their current set of responsibilities. And I would also ask them, what are you looking for from me here? You know, how can I be helpful here? And really pay attention to the response. Yeah, I would pay attention.

And what I would be striving for is to continue to find a way for that individual's success and that individual's growth to be aligned with the organization's. Ideally, if this is someone I'd want to retain, I want to make sure that wherever they're positioned, that it matters to the organization. So I'd really kind of be looking at the center of that Venn diagram, right? Where does the individual success meets the organization's success? And I think that sort of mutually beneficial lens can serve both the employee and the organization. And that alignment makes transitions a bit more easy to sell in terms of approval processes or getting to the point of making a transition happen. That's all part of making the case,

making sure it's a win for everyone. Exactly. Hannah, thank you so much for being with us today, for helping us understand how to navigate this path forward to your bold new job. Thank you so much for having me, Amy. It is such a pleasure to be here and to be a part of this conversation. the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Who of us has actually made a bold career move?

I feel like every career move I've made has felt like a bold career move, probably because, you know, when you look at the job description for a job, sometimes there's really long lists of qualifications and you may not have one of those things, but you want to apply for the job anyway. And so I've done that in the past, and I've done that for a lot of jobs that I've gone for. And hearing from Elizabeth and hearing that she didn't have some of the technical skills for the job that she wanted to go for really resonated with me and being a designer. Because as a designer, you really need technical skills on the job. People are going to watch you use like software all day long. And that has like always really scared me. You know, one of the questions I often ask myself when I am hesitating

and that sort of doubting part of me is winning out is I'm like, what would the most arrogant man do in this situation? And I try to channel that person and think, okay, like they would go for it. They would think they could do it. They would think this company would be lucky to have them. And they don't wait until they've acquired 110% of the skills they'll need for the next job. Exactly. They'll focus on the skills that they do have rather than thinking of all the skills they don't have. Yeah. You know, early in my career, I worked at, I was working in nonprofits and I applied for a job in large part because I needed to pay off student loans with a management consulting firm. And I had no reason to believe I would be qualified to take that job.

And in fact, during the interview process, they kept saying, we're just struggling with you as a candidate because you don't really meet all of the requirements. But truthfully, the managing partner at that firm really made a bet on me and took a chance with me. And it was a bold career move for me to even to stick through that interview process where they kept just saying, we're sure we're not sure there were many times I wanted to just sort of bow out and be like no thank you that's okay I understand but I stuck with it and actually later in that same job I was sort of on the cusp of a promotion and I felt like it was a bold career move to ask for the promotion at the time I did because it was quite early in the cycle. And I'm so embarrassed when I think about how I asked for it because this is actually a conversation I reflect on quite a bit when I think about mistakes in my career.

Because I went to the managing partner, the same one who had sort of taken this chance on me, and said, other people think I should be promoted. I made zero case. I just said other people think I should be. And it was true. People had come to me and said, you should be promoted to engagement manager. It's time. And I was like, okay. And that was my reasoning. It's mortifying to even say it out loud right now.

What did the partner say? He laughed so hard. He just laughed. And he said, we were having lunch. I can picture it. So we were having lunch outside. I was like, I had been building myself up to even say this silly sentence.

And he just laughed and laughed. And he said, be patient. It will happen. And he was so kind about it. It did take another few months. but I did get that promotion. And, you know, I did go back and make a better case for it later on, thankfully. But I'm sure it helped to have that validation from your coworkers who were telling you, you're doing a great job. Yeah.

And that sort of built me up to have the conversation. But that was just a silly reason to try to get a promotion. So, Cross, people say I deserve a promotion off the list. Bad, bad move. Can you believe I did that? Amy B., how about you? I feel like making this move to HBR several years ago when you did was a bold move. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I hadn't really thought about it in these terms. But as I look back over the course of my career, even saying it, I had to sort of caught in my throat. But looking back over it, I realized that I've made quite a few bold career moves, mostly though, by moving a completely new role. But I have made those moves and it definitely, each one got easier. I became much, much more comfortable. For both of you, what do you think made you take the lead? I mean, obviously, we've all had hesitations going into this, like Elizabeth, like, is this the right thing? Like, what do you think made you do it even despite those hesitations?

I think I know that those experiences are necessary for growth. So if I'm not a little bit scared about a job, then I know that it's probably not going to help me grow at all. I'm not going to learn new skills, and I'm not going to challenge myself. So when there is a challenge like that at hand, I know it's something to sort of lean into. Yeah. That's similar for me. I mean, if I get super comfortable in a job, I start to get a little bored. So the challenge, it just makes me feel alive. What about you, Amy? It was great to hear how Elizabeth just put herself out there. And yet it was also I was a little crestfallen to hear that it didn't go as exactly as she had hoped or as positively as she hoped. And then, you know, I had to remind myself, listening to her and then listening to Hannah's advice, that the disappointment is, of course, upsetting. But putting yourself out there is a win in and of itself.

Getting the no doesn't mean you failed. It just means you haven't gotten the yes yet. Also, I think that in Elizabeth's case, she had to discern how much of a no she got. What she got was, let me think about it. In the meantime, take these courses and we'll pay for it. I mean, that struck me as a gigantic vote of confidence. Yes. The problem is I think we often go in, you know, like I went into that conversation with my boss telling him that other people think I should get the promotion,

thinking he was going to go, yes, you do deserve it. I agree with those other people. And here it is, right? Like you sort of envision the best case scenario, but it's usually much more complicated than that. And you win by formulating what you want for yourself, articulating that to the powers that be. And then you're one step closer, even if you didn't get as far in that conversation as you wanted, and it might feel disappointing, you're still one step closer to what you want. And you know, I've been on the other side of that conversation. And it is so eye opening to hear that someone on your team has big aspirations. And that conversation can turn you, the manager, into such a champion.

It helps you as a manager understand where this individual wants to go, and you immediately start thinking about how to help that person get there. That's our show. I'm Emily Caulfield. I'm Amy Bernstein.. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Amy Gallo. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Adam Buchholz, Rob Eckhart, and Tina Tobey-Mack. At the end of our episode, Now is a Good Time to Take Care of Ourselves,

we asked you to call the Women at Work phone line and to leave a message about an aspect of your work that made you feel grateful. So we'll close out this episode with a couple of those messages. Hi, this is Talara Corsi. I wanted to leave my gratitude message. I'm grateful for finding my amazing tribe of women on LinkedIn who have supported me and helped me survive during this pandemic, and with whom I was able to publish my first book, Networked. My name is Dana Maletsky. I was able to volunteer my time on Election Day as a deputy registrar, and was so honored and grateful to have the flexibility to step out of work that day and work all day at the

polls and register people to vote, young and old. I saw it all. And it was fantastic. So I am very grateful for that. Thanks to all the women who called in. And thank you for listening.