February 15th, 2020 Updated Comment: Back in July of 2017 I went thru the first “real” re-org in my career.  Yes, of course I had been through other re-orgs.  But none of them really significantly impacted my primary day to day job.  This one did.  Back in 2017 while I shared the below ride-along blog … I didn’t share at the time the extent to which I was stressing and wondering if maybe I needed to find a new job.   This lasted for months and months – ~6 months to be exact.  So what you read below is a result of all of that thinking and processing thru it all.

At the time I had been with Cisco’s Customer Proof of Concept (CPOC) lab for ~16 1/2 years.  The bottom line of the re-org was that I was to no longer be a dedicated CPOC engineer.  This really, admittedly, threw me!

Looking back I think I did people reading this blog a disservice to not share with them the inner turmoil and confusion I was in at the time… and how this deeper career review period really helped me.

(*Spoiler Alert:  I decided to stay in the new role and have loved it)

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The Original Blog from 2017

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About a year ago I shared with you (Thinking Out Loud: My Career Planning) a little about my yearly career planning process.  This time I’m going to bring you on a ride-along of this year’s annual Career Planning exercise.

First and foremost I must answer a common question that I was asked a lot after last year’s blog.

The Dream Job Question: 

“Why do you even bother with the yearly career planning process? You are always saying that CPOC is your dream job come true”

Yes. Without a doubt CPOC really is my absolute dream job come true!  I consider myself so truly fortunate, blessed and lucky to still be here with CPOC.  Rocking 16 1/2 years with CPOC and the CPOC family at Cisco!

So that all being said… why do I still review every year?  Like I mentioned in last year’s blog “over the years what I’ve seen is that my 1 year plan, 3 year plan, 5 year plan and 10 year plans have changed as I have changed.”  So then reviewing every year is just taking the time to “check in” that the job I’m in is not only fun.. but is still taking me in the direction of my “long term goal” for who I am and what I’m interested in today.

Let the Ride-Along Begin!

This is a “Ride-Along”…. so feel free to grab your pen and paper and ride along with me.

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“Begin with the End in Mind”

Got that pen and paper?

First things first.   “What is your long term goal?”   I always ask myself this every single time.  It is very possible that is has changed or morphed since I last asked myself that.  Once I know today’s answer to that question…the next question will basically be what are items/activities that would be helpful/supportive of that long term goal?

So we are going to break this down into two parts –

1. What are my long term goals
2. What things/activities would be helpful/supportive of those goals?

What are my Long Term Goals?

My long term plan when I “retire” from Cisco  is actually to still work for a while longer teaching and/or consulting. So Teaching/Consulting part time in my retirement is my long term goal right now.

Your Turn!  For some of you it might be a senior management position like CxO, EVP, SVP.    For others of you it might be a senior technical position like Fellow, Distinguished Engineer, Principle Engineer.  Whatever it is… for who you are today… write it down.  It may only be snippets and not clear.  But that is fine.   Just write. Full sentences… snippets.. or just draw a picture of a you as a stick figure being happy.  Okay now look at the happy stick figure.  Why are they so happy?  What are they doing that is making them so happy?

Helpful Items to Get There

Okay… so now the next question.  So for me, with Teaching/Consulting as my long term goal, what activities or things would be helpful/supportive in getting me to that goal?  Since what I want to do is Teach and/or Consult in the technical world …..  I feel I need

• to stay technical
• continue to learn, grow my knowledge, and teach.

On top of that….lets be completely honest… the below are helpful.

• My website
• My YouTube Channel
• Presenting at CiscoLive
• Name recognition external to Cisco

So okay I have my long term goal… and a list of items and activities I need to keep doing that would be helpful/supportive of that long term goal.  Now what?   Well let me be blunt and ask you one more question.

When you think about that long term goal… why do you want to do it?  Why does it “call” to you? 

I’ll be honest and say, as many of you know, that I wanted to be CEO of IBM when I was in my early 20s. (Reference: What’s at the “Top” of Your Ladder?)

Why did I want to be CEO?  Well I kinda just grew up assuming that you were supposed to try to climb as high as you could and make as much money as you could.  That this was definition of “being successful“.   I never questioned if it was really what I personally wanted for me.  If it really called to me.

Getting to Know Yourself

A lot of Career Planning web sites and books will likely tell you to “know yourself“.   Admittedly I did these yearly reviews a lot different when I was in my 20s and 30s than I do now.  But I didn’t have enough of the varied experience to kinda figure out what parts of varying jobs I enjoyed and what parts I really didn’t like.   But no matter what your age or job experience you can at least start a list for who you are today… this moment.  And what you love and would like to do >65% of the time for any given year… and what you really dislike doing or being around and would like to not spend more than 15% of year dealing with it.  🙂

I also like the idea of after you go thru the “I love/Makes me Super Happy” side … anything that just really reaches out to you and screams… oh my gosh… i had so much funny doing that… THOSE get little red hearts around them.

Okay so now we have 2 lists … the “I LOVE doing this stuff” and the “I don’t enjoy this stuff”.  So now what?

When I was at IBM in my early 20s there was a manager who helped me a great deal.  He suggested I write down all the varying activities/roles I had in school and my personal life.  And think about what I liked about them and what I didn’t like.  And then to look for trends.  So Girl Scouts, Choir, Acting, bicycling,  types of vacations… etc.  So I did.  And I saw the trends.

Now that I have >30 years in the work force I can do that with my jobs and roles over the years.  I have certain repeating trends of things that called to me in varying jobs/roles.  In getting to know myself I see can see significant trends.  For example, for me, the jobs/roles I have loved the most all rated “HIGH”   in the following categories –

• Technical Teaching,
• Technical Learning,
• the desire to be challenged by a time crunch at time,
• short term and long term projects,
• troubleshooting,
• working 1 on 1 with people,
• working 1 to many with people,
• having a job where I work with people a lot,
• using my IQ,
• using my EQ,
• being part of an exceptional team. 

*NOTE: (H=high, M=medium, L=low)

When you are trying to figure out what your columns are…. start jotting down things that you loved about varying jobs.  I will openly admit that what you see above was not my 1st, 2nd or 3rd pass at coming up with that for this year’s career review.  🙂   So don’t worry if it takes a little time.  I have always found it worth the time.

So now what?

Work Backwards from Long Term

From the long term I come up with varying medium term goals and then short term goals.  I’ll be honest and say that in having the long term goal I have my “true North” that I am heading toward in my career and my life.   I find I very much like having that overall “true North/compass heading” recheck for me.  It has made choices and decisions I need to make that much easier.

As you do this every year you will start to notice trends.   I honestly have been doing long term goal and career planning ever since my early 20s.  I am a firm believer in re-evaluating your long term goals every year just like you would review your retirement portfolio!

You will be absolutely amazed by the results!

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Sharing Personally

In theory the ride-along portion of this is done.  So if you want… you can just end at the nice little picture above.  🙂    What I am going to share with you now is how this is for me this year, 2017.

For 16 1/2 years this annual career review always ended with the exact same answer – stay with CPOC.   This year is different, we had a re-org, and I am not dedicated to CPOC full time anymore… so I’m trying to figure that out right now.  And while it is scary…. it is okay not to know.  Well, okay, at least I keep telling myself again and again it is okay not to know.   🙂  LOL.

What DO I know?  I know that for me my “dream job” is the following –

• A job where, over the course of an entire year,
  • >65% of the time I love what I am doing
  • <15% of the time I am doing the stuff I really dislike doing
• A job that has as part of it many of those columns that I marked as “high”

What is that job?  In all honestly I don’t know today.  And that is hard. Change can be hard.  Change can be scary.

If you are also in the same spot right now while you are reading this… just please read the following and let it sink in a little.

Do NOT run from a job,

Always run TO a job.

I’ve seen so many people run from a job… cause they weren’t getting a pay raise.. they wanted a company car… they didn’t feel their manager was paying enough attention to them … or maybe they got passed over for a promotion that year and MAN oh MAN are they going to show “them” what they missed out on. Whatever. The list I’m sure goes on and on.  Do NOT run from a job.  I have seen so many people make short term mistakes and not vet the next job out.

Make this list. Start getting to really know what you like.  What you love doing.  What your long term goals are.

And then What?

Go be AWESOME!