Career Shortcuts and the Cost Of Short Term Solutions
When it is about your career, particularly in the early stages, slow but steady is not an attractive strategy. People who consider themselves high performers want their success to be fast and highly visible. We all embrace the value of taking the long view – unless compelling short-term opportunities intercede and accelerate our career trajectory. And therein lies the problem. The out of the blue promotion, the surprise selection for a new job or the assignment that pulls you away from experiencing the mechanics of the organization but promises face time with leadership; these are the “gifts” that once unwrapped offer no do over.
Generally, when career shortcuts are taken, the opportunity costs are the activities that were identified as blocks on your career strategy timeline that needed to be checked before you moved to the next success marker. But since you achieved the mark without having to invest time and energy in the activity why would you look back?
Let’s walk through few examples of shortcut risk. There is something enticing about starting at the top. Yes, the typical career consigns you to learning the culture of the organization by working your way up, and that process is often perceived as something that must be endured rather than cherished. But let’s assume you could start at the top, a not unreasonable expectation for a PMF. You go straight into a policy shop, writing and evaluating guidance on program implementation and governance models. At some point you are afforded an opportunity to mange/supervise an operational unit. Your new challenge is that you have never worked in operations and everybody in your new unit knows it. The behavior that served you well at the headquarters may not work in your new environment. If you possess good leadership skills and emotional intelligence you will likely survive and learn. (I don’t think fragging is a thing nowadays, so you don’t have to worry about that.) But you may think about how a few years learning how your organization works on the ground would have been time well spent.
As a DoD employee I had one of the Army’s senior service colleges on my career pyramid. This limited opportunity for civilians was, at the time, a steppingstone to GS-15 leadership positions. My commander thought I should attend the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy and was willing to sponsor me. I thought it a great opportunity and was preparing my application when I unexpectedly was selected for a GS-15 position. So much for the senior service college. Of course, I learned some years later that the senior service college was bit more than a steppingstone to a GS-15. It was a foundational curriculum and professional network for senior positions throughout DoD – and not one you could elect to take advantage of once you were a GS-15. It was a substantial miss though it is hard to quantify its impact.
It is always better to watch others learn lessons the hard way. You get the benefit of the lesson while they get the consequences. Sometimes you take a shortcut because you simply don’t believe that the block you are advised to check is as important as others say it is. A colleague of mine in the mid 90s was, I thought, a division chief of planning. As it turns out, he was in an acting capacity and had been so for almost two years. When the position was ultimately advertised my colleague applied and was selected by the commander. The decision, however, was reversed by higher authority as the position description stated that the applicant must have completed a specific leadership course. I felt badly for my colleague as I thought the requirement may have come as a surprise. He explained that he had been aware of the requirement for some time but didn’t think they would enforce it in his case. Failure to comply with known career requirements can lead to a harsh lesson and little sympathy.
The PMF affords the participant an incredible opportunity to grow a career in the federal civil service. But the program, and some of the privileges, have a hard stop when the fellowship ends. What you do with your professional development post PMF is not something you should wait until the end of the program to consider. Whether you use a pyramid, a timeline or the newest graphical scheme to strategize a career, think carefully about the blocks you need to check to get to where you want to go. Be a critical thinker. Don’t include a required activity in your strategy about which you are ambivalent. But don’t remove activities once thought critical simply because you have an opportunity to leap forward. Reflect on why you included the requirement and what might its value be in 10 years.
A technique you may find helpful is think of yourself as a publicly traded company with a strong brand. How you want to be perceived by your peers? What investments in yourself will have a strong return and support the brand? What initiatives or career moves might prove risky and how much are you willing to risk? Of course, we can all make bad choices irrespective of how much thought we put into the decision – but the mere fact that you are systematically evaluating choices will help you make informed decisions that are more likely to get you to be the best version of you.
Author Dr. Jimm Rich, 1979 PMI, retired from federal service with 35 years of contracting experience. He now serves as Program Coordinator for the University of Virginia Procurement and Contract Management Program and is a Senior Advisor at Dawson and Associates.