My coaching sessions during this pandemic have raised a common issue: careers hitting a crossroads with the decision between increasingly specialist roles or taking a management position. We hit a plateau with our current career, feeling as if we are not being stretched or challenged by our current role. This can happen at any age, and any stage of career and is driven by our need to progress, learn new things and feel a sense of accomplishment. If this resonates with you, read on for some help with defining the scope and benefits of your next move.
From the Agile Change Agent course, I have been using the simple but effective technique of the Benefits Dependency Network to help people identify the best direction for them at this point in their careers.
To use the technique, select the change that you are considering, and then identify the consequences if you pursue this path. By constantly asking the question “so what?” you can clearly see the consequences of your decision and can evaluate if these consequences are what you want to achieve. Here are two examples from the career choices outlined above.
As you can see, each positive leads to another idea, and some advantages feed into more than one other benefit or opportunity. This technique is a structured mind-mapping technique, and as you fill in each subsequent box, you are challenging yourself to identify the consequence of each action. It doesn’t matter how many times I use this technique; I always learn something that I didn’t know I knew until I put it down on paper.
If you want more simple but effective techniques for managing change for yourself and others, join me on the Agile Change Agent course. This courses and the qualification have proved incredibly popular but as places are limited, register now.
