Here’s one thing you may not know about career growth that, when I presented at the BPPM conference last week, the audience sat up and took notice.
Early in your career, you accumulate and leverage your knowledge. You are rewarded for possessing that knowledge and applying it.
But over time, in most careers, the knowledge itself becomes less important. Sure, you are still learning. But that expertise decreases in impact.
What becomes increasingly more relevant? Your people skills.
Why? Because, paradoxically, as our expertise and span of control grows, we are more dependent on the beliefs and actions of other people to achieve results. Collaborating, influencing, inspiring others – these are now the mechanisms of progress. We cannot achieve lofty goals alone.
In coaching we call this a shift from a head-centric view to a perspective that balances the head and heart. Or, for the analytically minded among you, please see the graph below!
And let’s not forget the gut, aka intuition. All that knowledge and expertise gets boiled down into your instincts and intuitions. They feel spontaneous but are actually based on your experience.
So as you are going along with your work, experts, pay attention to the people, and listen to your gut.
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