Did Your Career Get Lost in the Shuffle?

Did Your Career Get Lost in the Shuffle?

“Raise your hand if you are operating your own business”. This is a request I often pose to career-minded audiences of professional employees. Very few, if any, individuals raise their hands. Let’s explore how operating your own business relates to managing your career as an employee.

Businesses offer products that satisfy the needs of its customers. Customers pay a price to purchase their products. When individuals work for a company, they provide skills and capabilities that enable their employer to satisfy the employer’s need to achieve the company’s goals. Your skills and capabilities are your personal product.

After discussing employment in the business context of product, price, and customer, I once again request audiences to raise their hands if they are operating their own business. Seldom does less than 100% of the audience raise their hands the second time around.

Successful businesses create value for its stakeholders. Profits, Economic Value Added (EVA), and return on investment (ROI) measure value creation. Value creation is also reflected in the company’s stock price.

The value you create for yourself as an employee is your compensation. How much you earn determines how well you will fulfill your economic hopes and dreams—the homes you want to own, the cars you want to drive, the education you want for your children, and the financial security you want to experience during your working and retirement years. Your career is your most important economic asset.

These steps are components of the Business Management Process, the age-old and proven value creation process.

Managing your career to create personal value has become quite a challenge in today’s demanding and constantly changing business and professional employment environment. To succeed, companies downsize, restructure, implement new business models, and change the way employees are recruited, assigned, and evaluated. As a consequence, employees are faced with fewer opportunities for promotions, intense competition for exceptional pay raises, and higher risks of experiencing interruptions in their employment.

Over the next 8 weeks, I will post weekly articles explaining how you can apply the Business Management Process to manage your career—create personal value.

Business Management Process	Career Management Application
Develop product	Turn your skills, capabilities, and strengths into something you can offer for value. Define and express the value you offer.
Market	Get known for what you offer.
Sell	Convince decision makers to hire and promote you.
Deliver	Prove your value by managing your job performance.
Learn & Adjust	Maintain/increase the value of your personal product in the employment marketplace.

This application is captured in The Business of Me Career Management Process.

Are you operating your own business? I invite you to share your comments.

Linwood Bailey is a career coach and the author of The Business of Me: Your Job … Your Career … Your Value. The Business of Me provides a career management and information resource designed for today’s business professional. Since 2008, Linwood has enabled business professionals to manage their most important economic asset—their careers. Linwood, the been there coach, provides innovative career management solutions derived from his 34 years of experience managing functions and people in multiple industries, regions, and corporate cultures.