is it okay to jump ship every three to four years to grab good opportunities or
is company or is company loyalty matter especially when you are eyeing executive
c-level roles in the long run Okay so I have uh and it depends answer here
number one I
I said this to somebody last night on a coaching session and he was trying to explain to a CEO
uh there was there was a a pattern to to his work history and he had like 11
years and then he had five years and then he's had a couple of one year one to two year runs
and he was interviewing with on one company and another company and he had sunk a lot of time
interviewing with one one company and he had this terrible exchange with the CEO the CEO was rather
Brash and the the the my client was asking me about what you know what do I think should he
pursue something and and basically spend more time trying to chase this opportunity
and go and put this presentation and I was explaining to him my viewpoint and he said to me
but I've already sunk so much effort into this to where I stopped him and said
that doesn't make any difference it doesn't matter the only thing that matters is what you are about
to invest in the future your time and how much I don't care how much time you spent because
why because that's already gone now you have to decide right I've used the movie theater analogy
right you walk into a movie theater you sit down and in 10 minutes you don't like the show except
you and your date you paid 30 bucks for the ticket and you're gonna what do you want to get up and
leave or do you want to sit through it because you paid the 30 bucks the only thing worse than paying
the 30 bucks for a bad movie is you wasting the next 90 minutes of your life watching it
right so at any moment in time you are always faced with a choice and I look at that choice
in multiple Dimensions so you asked me should I jump ship your talk you're asking me something
about something that you're not even faced with yet that is not by Design you thoughtfully putting
together a career trajectory that's going to enable you to reach your goal if you say I'm
here and I want to be the CEO think in terms of going forward how am I going to spend my time in
working with the companies building the skills and so on and so forth and if you chart a path
of I would work backwards what skills does a CEO have what skills does a CEO need what what
you know everything from leadership the domain expertise Marketing sales operational experience
customers so all of the skill sets that great CEOs understand where are you what are the gaps the
companies that you work for along the way are what they're mediums to to deliver you the skills for
you to gain the skills and you on top proactively taking advantage of the opportunities that they're
giving you to learn you learning outside and so on and what you're doing is you're chipping away at
hopefully enjoying what you're doing at any moment in time and taking advantage of opportunities to
design space in your life to to work on skills and and fill in those gaps so that you're accumulating
the level of skills and expertise that you feel is helpful that you enjoy that will get you to
your goal how you get there I don't know and at any moment in time you need to be looking at is
this providing me the best opportunity to am I enjoying myself am I learning am I loving who
I'm working with am I on the right trajectory the trajectory you're on at any moment in time is more
important than where you are at any moment in time where you are at any moment in time is an absolute
snapshot which is over like that right but the trajectory continues on some people go this way
life doesn't go this way it goes this way right hopefully up but there's a lot of ups and downs
kind of like the stock market the housing market or any other market so is it okay well I don't I
don't know if if you feel that in three or four years you know that opportunity and and where
you're working has run its course then then then leave if something better comes you know comes
your way or you can create a better opportunity that's the way I look at that this is a uh I I
hope that you take a good close look at how you view career planning because a lot of times what
happens is people say oh well to get ahead you need to leave you know organizations and that's
a better way to make more money and that's a better way to get more opportunities I don't
know whoever told you that or whoever thinks that I mean for somebody it might have happened that
way uh but I think there's a balance between if I'm working for a great organization and
I love what I'm doing and I love the people and I continue to get more opportunities in a space that
I love and that I'm passionate about why would I leave kind of thing if I feel that I'm being
paid well and I enjoy what I'm doing [Music] you don't ever have to leave kind of thing
so I would look for not whether I need to leave the company I would look for is what I'm doing
helping me grow because if you're Contin if you're at the same company and you're continually getting
more and more responsibilities and you're you're growing up up the chain of command
as well as sideways meaning I mean in a good way right you go up I am an analyst a senior analyst
and then a manager and a director and so on and so forth that that's going up up the ladder and then
and then sideways is well and I'm learning what this industry in this industry or this solution
line and this solution line or this software product and that software product and you're
expanding your knowledge base so I Look to grow in multiple dimensions and that's the way I do it
it's a really good question you need you need to be with me tomorrow because this is what
we're going to be talking about is what I just described to you is how you plan this out and
how you get in all the ingredients related to the inventory of skills the instruction that you need
the tools that you need the coaches that you need the metrics that you need to track the tracking
mechanism itself to track the metrics and how you go through all that and plan all that out
so uh so give that some thought I love it there's a good question really good question
Kurt Aloha to you I'm tracking buddy let's get cracking is right
and we'll heat you got another question here love your sessions how do you approach people in your
network or in your current company to be your Advocates during your job search internally or
externally well uh there is a a big difference between will you serve as a reference for me in
the event I'm able to secure an opportunity versus you know can you go and and Champion
me to so and so now again if I'm working with people internally and externally I'm focused
on building a solid relationship and building it so that they in fact would want to help me
get to where I want to go and so so you you probably heard me say this the longer term
you think the better short-term decisions you make so by that I mean if if you just met me
it would it would serve you better to build a relationship with me and then ask me if for
a favor somewhere down the road but most people what they do is they reach into somebody and they
want they want to do the ask right away and it it everything in your life works like this if you're
building a product they want immediate results instead of it's just an iteration I'm gathering
data that's the short-term step the long-term goal is I'm I'm not going to stop I'm going to keep
going because this is this is what I want this is my passion and this is what I'm working toward but
a lot of people when they look at the short term they make hasty decisions this happens in your job
search same kind of things so you know it how do I approach them I approach them by building
relationships how can I help you what is it that I can do I I I one time when I uh transitioned out
of uh out of Information Technology Consulting and I opened up an executive recruitment firm
term I had just spent nearly the prior two decades doing nothing but giving people stuff
helping them with their lives helping them with their careers doing favors for them 18 years in I
opened up my own recruiting firm I was not bashful about calling every single person that I had ever
met and asking them something asking them for a favor at that point now that's an extreme
example but that's how you need to think that's how you need to think think about it that way