[00:01.8]
Hello and welcome along to another episode of Management Matters. I would like us to collectively agree, if it's okay with you, that getting ready for your next grade starts much earlier than you might anticipate. And by that I mean the process of getting ready for your next grade, not the programme, though the programme might be starting earlier than you anticipate.
[00:25.1]
But that's not the point. The point is that most people don't proactively manage their career development until all of a sudden they're pissed off with where they are and then they're thinking, oh crap, right now I need to get a new job.
[00:45.2]
And I think that's too late because it burdens the career development or, you know the kind of job search as tt burdens your professional development in your career management with the urgency of your dissatisfaction.
[01:11.5]
Meaning that you're right, I need to get a new job now. And I think that really, if you're managing your career proactively, you should be thinking about your next grade and getting ready for your next grade much, much earlier than that.
[01:32.8]
In fact, when I, a long, long time ago, I did a project for the department that I worked in about how we could do induction and onboarding for new staff better. And in the research that I did for that project it suggested that actually career development should be one of the pillars of a really good induction.
[01:56.0]
So we're looking at as soon as somebody starts a new job or even before they start the new job once they've been appointed, we want to work on things like culture and bringing them best self to work and building their network and getting their input and understanding of the strategy up to speed, all of that good stuff locked in really early.
[02:23.8]
And then the next thing, which people typically don't do, but the next thing is thinking about career development. So before the end of your first year in a job, even at a senior level, or especially at a senior level, what we want to be thinking about is your career development and what are the skills that you need to develop.
[02:46.6]
What are the mindsets and the mental models and the ways of thinking and the rites of passage that you need to go through in order to be ready for your next grade. Because I think and I increasingly think and I was having a chat with my AI of choice the other day about my work.
[03:12.1]
It sort of went, oh, what you're talking about, you name, you call it thresholds, but actually it's rites of passage. And I was well, yeah, of course it is. And it occurred to me Maybe I have not done a good enough job of describing that in the podcast, but all of those episodes that we talked about before of the hard things of management that need to be done in order to deal with the drama that's going on in your team, so that you can open up your leadership bandwidth, so that you can get on to dealing with the more challenging parts of leadership and dealing with some of those bigger things.
[03:51.0]
Those things like actually firing somebody or taking someone through performance management or having really robust boundaries and learning to delegate. All of those things are rites of passage that you have to go through in order to be ready for the next grade.
[04:11.2]
And incidentally, that's why they form the backbone of the program that actually, if you join getting ready for your next grade, those are the things we work on. It's not. Well, I mean, it is eventually, but it's not primarily about what job do you want? How do we apply for it?
[04:32.8]
Doing the job application stuff, we get to that, but we get to that in month eight out, of a ten month program because the earlier parts of it are adjusting your mental models, helping you think differently about management and leadership and accountability and responsibility and creating that bandwidth for yourself so that you can think better, dealing with all the drama in your team so that you can create capacity and so that you can position yourself with your senior leaders and demonstrate that you're ready for the next grade.
[05:05.7]
So then when the ideal opportunity comes up you can apply and have really recent relevant examples of those rites of passage and threshold crossings and just be applying for those jobs full of conviction that you can totally do all of those things because you've recently done them.
[05:23.4]
And to do that in a way where I am here to support you and you have a group of colleagues and peers from across the sector who are also supporting you and cheerleading you in that process. So instead of thinking about getting ready for your next grade, the process, as what are the skills I need to develop and how do I apply for the job?
[05:47.7]
I want you to think about what are the rites of passage that I need to go through in order to be ready to feel ready to become the person who's ready for that job? Oh, that was good, wasn't it?
[06:04.3]
Who, what are the rites of passage I need to go through to become the person ready for that job? And isn't that more helpful thinking than how do I do the job? The typical advice is we have to be working at that level before you can go for the job.
[06:20.5]
Well, nobody knows what that means. Do they? They just end up taking on more responsibility and not more accountability, and then they just have a massive volume of tasks, but not actually building a case for them as a leader. This way of thinking about it, "what are the rites of passage I need to go through to become the person who's ready for that job" is a much more foundational and insightful question.
[06:47.7]
I think if you can tolerate the discomfort of facing the rites of passage that you haven't yet undertaken, then you will probably find that actually you'll be ready to make those moves and to make the moves that matter most as you get ready for your next grade, which, takes us full circle.
[07:09.2]
That's what this podcast started about. If that sounds good to you, and you either are not sure what those rites of passage are and you want to have a chat with me, you can book a call, we can have a chat about it.
[07:24.9]
Or if you are thinking that your next role might be a leadership role. So if you're moving from a typically managerial role to your first more leadershipy role, so Head of Service, Associate Director, Deputy Director, depends on the naming of those types of roles in your institution and you're part of the university.
[07:50.5]
If that seems like it's where you're at and you would like some support from me to get ready for your next grade over the coming academic year, then check out my website because doors are open and we can definitely have a chat about if it's a good fit for you.
[08:06.7]
Alright, take good care and I will speak to you soon. Bye.
