September 2007 – Building careers in management

It was more than 400 years ago that William Shakespeare made some memorable observations in the “seven ages” speech in As You Like it that have proved particularly apposite when looking at career patterns and recruitment.

Every one of us has our exits and our entrances, playing many parts and sometimes, sadly, building “bubble reputations” that do not last for the life of a career.

One reason that some people suffer career derailment according to human resources experts, Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, in their new book, Leadership Brand*, is that they fail to recognise patterns in their job development to which they must conform if they hope to build a successful and rewarding career.

This is particularly true of careers in management and nowhere is it more important than at the very start of a career. The authors have revisited work undertaken by Harvard Business School professors, Gene Dalton and Paul Thompson during the 1970s when they created a framework for performance called the “Four Stages of Contribution” in relation to managerial careers.

Job starters who are getting their first taste of real work for any employer could do far worse than take on board their advice for those in stage one – the apprentice stage – where tasks are being performed under close supervision.

This stage is all about attitude and a willingness to learn. New entrants are urged to earn trust by delivering on commitments, to seek and accept direction from others, to absorb the organisation’s culture and - the one that counts probably more than all of the others put together – to do the grunt work willingly and well.

No-one likes to do grunt work and this is understood by those in authority who once had to do such work themselves. So the office juniors should know that their attitude to such work is under the microscope. If they neglect it, challenge it or palm it off on to others, it will be noticed.

I can see why HR professionals such as David Fairhurst, senior vice-president and chief people officer for McDonalds Restaurants Northern Europe, put more store on recruiting for attitude rather than aptitude. As he made clear in a recent webcast, you can teach skills but it’s difficult to equip people with the right attitude to work.

The trouble with many graduate recruitment programmes today is that they invest so much time and effort finding people with the right qualifications, often accompanied by attractive starting salaries, that job starters walk in to work on their first morning in the belief that their path to the top is a glittering staircase that they can surmount with all the light-footed ease of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Most trainees are seeking early responsibility in work and that’s a good thing, to be encouraged, but they also need direction and too often in the modern workplace where management styles have changed since the 1970s, career starters are left to sink or swim. This is because managements are employing concepts such as empowerment before people are ready or able to take on responsibilities. There is no shame in asking for help at the start of a career.

But there comes a time for everyone – and sometimes it’s difficult to identify when this needs to happen – that we reach a second stage when we are recognised as a contributor. Contributors don’t ask for direction because they are working hard at developing an expertise where they can be recognised as the best there is in their speciality.

For direction they are looking more towards their colleagues than a manager, learning from experienced hands, emulating the styles of those who shine the most. The need to do grunt work may have disappeared. Instead now you will be judged on whether you are perceived to be pulling your weight in the team. Again this is probably the most important feature of a stage two career, where attitude matters most.

Another great piece of advice for those in stage two is to keep people – managers and collaborators informed of the progress of your work with regular updates. Dalton and Thompson discouraged those who chose to be “the lone wolf.”

Having collaborated and having worked alone at various stages of my career I can confirm that collaboration makes far more sense in a large organisation. If you seek to move upwards in an organisation it’s essential. Another important factor of collaboration that relates to the other points about grunt work and pulling your weight, is to focus on what you bring to the project rather than what you might take from it.

The stages of apprentice and contributor are vital in building a career but if you seek to climb the managerial ladder or retain the respect of an organisation as you progress a professional career there will come a time, that Dalton and Thompson identified as the third stage, where you need to broaden your work to include other functions and disciplines.

This is one of the hardest lessons for professionals and probably not necessary for those who choose to stick with their specific area of expertise. Not every actor wants to be a director. But those who do, know that they must start learning new skills and that might require swallowing some pride at times. You can’t be in front of the camera and behind it at the same time. You must let others do the acting now.

Running through every stage, however, is the need adopt the right attitude and one attitude that always makes a strong impression is that which accepts the need to preserve a sense of humility.

This third stage in a leadership career involves extending your network of relations well beyond the confines of your own employer. It also involves a degree of “putting something back,” behaving as a mentor and teaching others.

If we can negotiate these three stages we just might be ready to take on a more comprehensive leadership role where we must begin to focus externally and think in the longer term, what some would describe as strategic thinking.

Part of this job will involve acting as a conduit between external stakeholders such as investors, corporate partners, suppliers and customers, exerting your new found power and influence and identifying those who are going to succeed you and other members of the top team. That’s one of the hardest lessons of leadership: preparing the way for your own stage exit.

Better to take a bow with a flourish, however, than to wait for the rotten tomatoes.

*Leadership Brand, Developing Customer-Focused leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value, by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, is published by Harvard Business School Press, price $29.85.

See also: Humility in Leadership