Signals an Executive Should Explore a Job Change or Career Pivot

I'm Jeff Altman, The Big GameHunter. I'm a career and leadership coach and work with people around the United States to help them reposition when necessary, help them be more effective, when that's the right solution.

And I picked up something, I subscribe to something called Feedly. And I have a couple of . . . it's an app called Feedly. And I have a couple of different people that I tend to follow through Feedly because I'm scurious about their thinking. One of them is JT O'Donnell who operates a site called career realism. And although the posts that she has is a sponsored post, they're paid to support a particular search firm, the logic in the post is very strong. So I just want to suggest to you what the signals were that she points out, that should raise your antenna, or set them off in ways that make sense for you to start exploring other opportunities.

So O'Donnell starts off with paraphrasing something that Marshall Goldsmith said. He talks and uses the phrase "What got you here won't get you there." That's a book title that he . . . for a book that he wrote. A terrific book if you haven't read it yet. She paraphrases it--what got you there won't keep you there. And that is absolutely true because circumstances change, people's view of you changes, you may evolve. And the result winds up being, it may not be a guarantee to future success.

Like in the mutual fund business. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Same thing with your career, folks. So here's what she writes. She says, "you can recognize one of the signals that it's time to explore other things or do a career pivot if there's no history of upward mobility."

Now, you may be a senior manager or director or VP, whatever. And you're just noticing nothing's happening for your professionally. For whatever the reason is, as she writes, "if the same people have been in charge for years aren't planning on going anywhere, then the likelihood you'll get their jobs is pretty slim. Especially if the firm isn't growing and expanding in a way that creates opportunities, you'll wind up being stuck there for quite some period of time.

If you having a cultural clash with key players, no one likes fights. They'll do it. No one likes fights. They will blame both sides, until there's a winner in which case thy'll blame the loser. If you butt heads with more than one executive, especially ones that have been there longer than you, this could hold you back.

Her third point is -- lack of autonomy. If you're experiencing lack of autonomy, or if suddenly you have to do new hoops in order to get something that was previously just delegated to you, that's a signal there that it makes sense for you to explore other options.

Now I've done other videos about what to do. But the short version is if you're a senior enough level, you've already developed relationships with search firms. You have a network of people with whom you have relationships that you can talk this through, you can also speak with a coach like me, and talk about what's going on for you and see if we can develop strategies to help you work through the situation or move on to something else.

Whatever it is, you can't sit there and just accept it because one day, there's that "Can we see you for a minute," at your door and suddenly, you may be out of luck.