Careers are co-investments

Career growth goes in cycles of learning skills and providing value - thinking about them as a co-investment can elevate your rate of success.

After spending a few years rebuilding all of our people-based systems and processes with our team from the basics, I recently came back to work on a challenge that has faced me for > 20 years - the career plan.

I remember being all happy that we finally had Job Families, Levels, Titles and Career Paths, that I thought it was inevitable that our managers would take these components and combine them with our Leadership Behaviors and voila! a career plan would be created. Not just any career plan, but one that is meaningful and that delivers upon our Rocketeer Promise.

Looking back, some Rocketeers thrived but our success rate could be better and our success more predictable.

So.. back to the drawing board and back to the thinking about the problem and seeing where can we learn more.

Think about a career, what is it?

A career is the long-term work or series of jobs a person does during their life, often with chances to learn new skills, grow, and make more money.

What rings for me here is the chance to learn new skills, balanced with make more money.

Return of an investment in time, energy, attention, resources & money - from both the company and the employee.

From the above, you can view a career plan as a co-investment and a drive to get an ROI - Grow the Tree. Share the Fruit. Make the company stronger, it delivers more returns, shared with the shareholders and employees.

Sounds like co-investment. A partnership.

Which leads to the next question… who would you want to invest with? For us, we aim to be investors that’s making the long term bets.

• Be consistent

• Do things that make sense

• Discipline, patience, long term thinking.

What principles do you look for in a long-term co-investor?

Have you seen or experienced a great career plan?