In a world of inspirational memes and #girlpost Instagram posts, it’s easy to forget that we all get stuck at work, or feel like we can’t find a way forward at times. Sue Unerman is the Chief Transformation Officer at MediaCom and Kathryn Jacob OBE is the Chief Executive at Pearl and Dean. Together they wrote The Glass Wall: Success Strategies For Women At Work And Businesses That Mean Business. Each week answer your work questions with pragmatic, honest advice that’s proven to work…
Q. I’m back at work after Christmas, and I feel that my career is at a standstill and stuck in a rut, what do I do to step-change my progress?
KJ: New year’s work resolutions are a good idea. It’s time to reflect and revisit what it is you love about your job, what it is that you find challenging about your job and what would create the changes that you want.
SU: But like any new year resolutions, make them practicable and achievable not so aspirational that you drop them in a fortnight. You know the ones about going to the gym before work 4 times a week and giving up wasting time on social media. There’s no point in being too unrealistic as grim reality will hit.
KJ: So let’s start with initial steps. I find that those first relatively quiet days back in January are ideal for creating a long term plan of goals in the year ahead. I break the year down into quarters. I give myself 4 things per quarter that I want to achieve, a mix of big and little things. So if I do manage to sort out my filing for example I can have a sense of achievement. It could be a time to consider what training you’d like this year. It could be that you have a big promotion planned and this gives you a specific goal to work towards.
SU: I think that’s a great idea. It’s well worth keeping a week to week account of how you’ve managed in respect of these goals, and taking time to have a little retrospective on where you are on each and how you can move forward further next week. The key is to break them down into achievable chunks. For example if your big goal is to be promoted, your first task might simply be to work out who you need to get to endorse and recommend you. Or it could be that you want to raise your profile in the sector that you work in, so again, the first step is to understand how you can do this and what steps you need to take on that journey.
KJ: You say that you feel that your career is at a standstill. 2019 could be the year where you revisit the parts of the job that you love and try and make more of them. You should link that to the realisation that no-one’s job is full on fun and fulfilling all the time. To appreciate the highs of any job sometimes you have to experience the mundane. If you are continually postponing doing the “chore” aspects of your job it builds up and creates the perspective that this is all your job is. Effective “daily housekeeping” keeps the mundane under control.
SU: That’s such good advice, I’m definitely going to put time in my calendar to ensure that the “chore” activities don’t mount up. In work, as in your life overall, the key is to be clear about what you love doing and what you put up with doing. Increased job satisfaction may lie in changing the balance of those activities and when you’re doing the stuff you love at work you put so much more into it. Therefore, progression and promotion are likely to follow. So spend some time working this out and working out how to balance your day so that you enjoy more of it. I once had a chat with someone who had left his job suddenly and surprisingly. He told me that he’d worked out that he hated 90% of the meetings he was in. He felt completely unable to change the balance where he worked and therefore left the industry. Life is too short to spend the working day hating most of what you do. Find the fun, find the balance.
KJ: Have a look around the business and see if there are things or people who you think can expand your experience and add another dimension to your role. For example, if you really enjoy running creative sessions, find the person who runs the best brainstorms and ideas sessions and learn from them to make that element of your job richer. This will expand your skill set.
SU: There’s another element that you may need to develop in order to progress if you are feeling stuck. We’ve found, both with the research for our book, “The Glass Wall, success strategies for women at work and businesses that mean business”, and with our q+a sessions, that women frequently don’t show off as much about their achievements as men. One woman we spoke to said that she often feels that “I’ve had a good day, but now I’ve got to go home, I’ve got stuff to do there”, while some of her men colleagues have ended their good days in the pub bragging about their “good day”. So, hers goes unrecognised and unnoticed. This might be alright if you have very perceptive boss, but if some of your team are showing off about their achievements and you are not, then other people will get the glory, and the promotions. Have a long hard think about whether this is the case and check our book out for suggestions about what to do about it.
KJ: Good luck with 2019 and let us know how you get on!
Sue and Kathryn’s book The Glass Wall, Success Strategies For Women At Work And Businesses That Mean Business is available from Amazon.
Have you got a question you’d like Sue and Kathryn to answer? Email your questions to feedback@graziamagazine.co.uk. Please note, we will be unable to respond to every single question we receive, and will not be able to respond to any questions personally