Welcome to our Career Management blog! The plan is to post a fresh and provocative point-of-view at roughly weekly intervals. The blog is written by a mythical character, Scottie, but is closely based on the career efforts of a SIM member who got pretty close to the top of our profession – that is, if you measure success in terms of financial compensation, number of staff managed, annual budget etc.
That poses our first question – what does success look like in our chosen profession? Could it be these classical measures, where some SIM members earn several million dollars per annum, or control budgets of several billion dollars, or manage staffs of many thousands? Is that what you are going to dedicate your waking hours working towards, or are you more of a purist, seeking to make a real difference in a company, or waking up in the morning and really looking forward to another fulfilling day?
Well, as the saying goes, “Be careful what you ask for, because you might just get it!” Along with seniority and authority comes accountability. I don’t know of many IT jobs which offer handsome rewards for just having fun. As you climb the ladder, you are expected to make increasing sacrifices in the balance of your life, such as coping with stress, leisure time with the family, your Saturday game of golf, vacation time to recharge your batteries, etc. I guess this is what they call Work / Life Balance, but it manifests itself as a line in the sand that is rather easy to cross, and hard to come back from.
My last boss gave me more and more responsibility, and my natural lust for power took me across that line. Did I get what I wished for, by getting home after the kids were in bed and leaving in the morning before they woke up? Was it worth sacrificing half of my weekends? What comes next – health problems? Each of us is capable of getting promoted beyond our ability to cope, whether that be our leadership skills, or our technical prowess, or our life outside of work.
And then there is the other side of the coin – what are you prepared to do to advance your career – wait for the phone to ring?; blow your own horn?; climb over colleagues?; lick boots? Of course there are lots of corners you can cut, but that raises questions of ethics, and it will be interesting to tackle some of these questions in this forum.
In the next blog I will share some of the tricks of the trade, and open the door for you to advance your career. But be careful what you ask for, because you might just get it.