The Rules of the Game
One subject that comes up occasionally in my routine discussions with other SEs is career advancement. I am somewhat passionate about the topic as I find great enjoyment in helping others reach their goals. I also have noticed that for many it is hard to take a step back from daily activities to think about their career from a longer time horizon.
There are many books on the general subject of succeeding in the workplace, though there are characteristics that are more unique to being an SE that I thought might be worth it to explore. In talking with many successful SEs and managers over the years I do believe there are some distinct patterns these individuals exhibit. For the sake of this discussion I’m going to assume advancement within the SE ranks as the objective.
Goals
We’ve all heard more than once about the importance of setting and documenting (i.e. writing out) your goals. This area is certainly no different. Are you in your ideal role? Do you want to go into management? You may be interested in staying in the same job and simply upping your pay or type of accounts you get to work with. Whatever your career goal, write down the end state you wish to achieve. This is a longer-term goal. It may change many times, but you need something with which you can start working towards incremental progress.
Plans
Once your goal state is set, think shorter term. What are logical stepping stones you’ll need to achieve to get to where you want to be? Who do you need to get to know? What projects or accounts or positions should you go after? What additional knowledge or skills would you want to develop? All of this information constitutes your plan of attack toward reaching your goal. It will change over time to be sure, but you need a framework in which to make choices that impact your career.
Company Dynamics
This is where we need to talk about the SE role in your company more specifically. I find that many SEs have not thought specifically about what their company looks for with respect to advancement into more senior positions. Folks just assume that if they do their job really well and overachieve against their number they will automatically progress. In less mature sales organizations this is frequently the case, especially for sales reps. As sales organizations mature and SEs organizations form inside them this is less often true.
Here are some questions to ponder about your organization. Are seemingly otherwise good SEs that don’t hit their numbers (even repeatedly) asked to leave the company? If rep/SE account teams bring in a huge deal or blow out their number, is that celebrated the same within both the sales and SE ranks? Are awards given to SEs focused on the deals they bring in or by some other metric? What I’m getting at is that you shouldn’t assume. Take a look at the actions of the organization as to what behaviors are truly most valued. You should also take a look at what are some of the common attributes in others who have attained what you seek. Again, were they simply the ones who brought in the biggest deals? I think you’ll find that if you are in a more mature sales organization this is rarely the case. For example, star SEs and star SE managers possess distinctly different skill sets and passions and hiring managers know this (maybe by figuring it out the hard way).
Once you’ve determined what is truly valued, these activities should provide the cornerstone of your plan. It boils down to simply understanding the rules of the game. And understanding these rules will be the biggest determinant of your success.
Socialize
I’m personally a big fan of sharing my goals with others. It accomplishes two main things in my mind. It makes me more accountable for reaching my goals, and it allows others to help you in some cases to get there. If you’re not comfortable with this, that’s ok, but there are two people that absolutely need to know about them and that is your manager and his/her manager. The reason is pretty straightforward. If these two people know where you want to go, they should be able (and willing) to provide you with a path to help you get there. If you want to become a senior SE, your manager needs to know that you are actively pursuing that goal. A good manager will coach accordingly and if nothing else will appreciate the fact that you do think far enough ahead to plan in the first place. I add the second line manager because of heavy influence on advancement. If they also know about your goals, they become in a small way invested in helping you get there and will usually be very honest with what you need to get results. Most managers may be surprised when you do this simply because most people don’t.
Don’t Set and Forget
One of my beliefs is that the contents of an annual review should never be a surprise to the reviewee. A manager should schedule in ample opportunity to provide feedback and coaching to team members. That said, not every manager agrees on the subject. If you want to achieve your goal, you need to take control of it. If you’re not getting good feedback on your progress at least quarterly, you should begin initiating the discussion. Don’t let your review be a surprise.
Doing just these few simple things should yield surprisingly positive results. To round out the process, Covey’s 7 Habits provides a great primer on goal setting. There is also a wealth of free information on the subject online.
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