If you are contemplating your professional purpose, reflecting on applying for a promotion, weighing up the pros and cons of taking a new role, considering an industry shift or a completely different career path, we have the article for you!
In his HBR article published this week, Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzicprovides a concise and compelling research overview, offers pithy insights on the future of work and AI implications and features the reflection questions and a short self-assessment to guide reflections and decision-making.
The article highlights core considerations and questions to help forensically review the potential (and core) motives driving interest in different roles or careers, and identify the fit between motivations and the role/career opportunities (or lack thereof).
The reflection questions to pin-point what you value most professionally include:
The self-assessment against the following considerations and trade-offs can help cut through the noise of traditional role pros and cons lists and help clarify core values, drivers and pragmatic needs.
He cites this research that highlights that found people tend to “join organisations but quit their bosses” and we couldn’t agree more! This mirrors findings in Thrive Advisory’s Leadership Insights Research, where we collected and analysed 13,000 comments from 715 global leaders including CEOs and other C-suite Executives, Board Directors, People, Culture, Talent and HR Executives, Senior People Leaders and Executive Coaches. We found that participants tended to focus initially on the senior leadership at the organisation level versus the management of their immediate team. The primary factor when joining an organisation, indicated by nearly half of our sample (46%) was the senior leadership of the organisation, followed closely by and perceptions of the teamwork and collaboration the role would afford (40%) and the organisation’s mission and purpose and perceived alignment between personal and organisational values (35%).
Whereas when deciding to leave an organisation, it is the relationship with their immediate manager, including breakdowns in that relationship, that is considered as most relevant. This managerial relationship was jointly tied for the top reason to leave an organisation, listed by 42% of our sample. It tied with suboptimal corporate culture, also cited by 42% of participants as the core reasons they leave organisations. Interestingly, while reward and recognition featured as the 6th most important criteria when deciding to join an organisation (cited by 31% of participants) it did not feature in the top 10 reasons why people leave.
Combined, these indicate the criticality of taking the time to probe and consider a more holistic set of considerations when weighing up role and career opportunities.
We hope you find this as interesting and useful as we have. In what ways might this help your direction in the short or long-term? In what ways could you use these prompts to guide a family member, colleague or friend weighing up choices?
