Career Transitioning Excellence (CTEx) for Project Managers – Part I – Understanding and Visualizing a Career Transition

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Career Transitioning Excellence (CTEx)

Managing this Project for 21^st Century Professionals

Part I – Understanding and Visualizing a Career Transition

 
Background:

In our prior articles published in this forum, our focus was on getting professionals to succeed in their career by gaining a unique set of skills at the place of work or business.  In our series this week, we are treading a different path yet focusing on a key need for our audience which is transitioning a career successfully.  In Part I we will engage in a discussion relating to what CTEx is and why is it important for the professional.

In Part II, we will discuss how CTEx is done with these professionals across a different cross-section of professional categories and industry. The discussion will include a methodology and process and the dynamics involved.

With Part III, a conclusion of this series, we will bring closure by engaging with the professional and sharing some testimonials of how they felt prior to and post transition. The part will also contain some lessons learned. With benefits of CTEx discussed the last section will also include some Dos and Don’ts while dealing with the counsellors who help or lead you in this process.

Status of Career Professionals:

Broadly classifying professionals, we have at least three identified. CSPs are career seeking professionals, while CTPs (Career Transitioning Professionals) are those transitioning between jobs or industry. Finally, there are ETPs (Entry Level Professionals) who are fresh out of college and new to the job market. Some of my observations over the years have helped me position my services and counselling based on these aspects. These are listed below for further reading (Top Six Reasons to Transition in your Career):

• Unchallenged at Work

Nature of Unchallenged Work

• Unpaid for Talent and Capability
  

Unpaid for these reasons...

• Unproductive Management

Sources of Unproductive Management

• Unexpected Personal Change

Areas of Personal Change

• Unacceptable Terms and Conditions at Work 

Different Terms and Conditions

• Unhappy with current environment/profession 

Reasons for Unhappiness

What is CTEx?

CTEx (Career Transitioning Excellence) is the process of successfully and sustainably transitioning in one’s career in different ways as shown below:

View Different Transition Scenarios

Transitioning in one’s career can be challenging depending on the nature of the transition itself, the timing, location, economy, skills and other presiding factors. Thus executing the transition is itself a process that most professionals ignore and pay a dear price when they have to bear the consequences of either a delayed or missed timing. Sometimes the transition goes awry and a sense of guilt can take over thus damaging the self esteem of that person, the family associated as well as other aspects of their lives.

Why do we need CTEx?

From a professional point of view, the average time to retain an employee (statistics apply for the western world) or be retained as a value –added employee is decreasing worldwide. Levels of tolerance in organizations have gone down and in general patience is thinning out when employees find that their bosses are not working in the former’s interests. In addition, the workforce is being populated by millennial citizens causing a rift of misunderstanding between them and their supervisors. This results in either a short term conflict or a departure of one of them from the organization voluntarily or through a layoff effort within that organization. In some geographical regions where the economy is employee driven (Asia), the millennial is likely to quit given that the supervisor (probably) doesn’t belong to that age group.

When it comes to industries, one can see that certain type of industries and jobs are most prone to such transitions simply because of the nature of their work business model. Their customers come on a contractual basis and so once their assignments are complete they may want to experience a new challenge or acquire a new skill in a new assignment and thus transition out voluntarily once they find the new paying opportunity.

In a volatile economy today (as it is in the western world), CTEx is all the more critical to these professionals (listed of Career Professionals – see category IV) where when done right they can reap the long term benefits of that transition. One of the advantages of the CTEx approach is the learning is a one-time effort while practicing it can be for a lifetime of situations.

Has CTEx been done before?

The process of transitioning has been done before in its own definition and even though guides are available, I haven’t come across a formal program per se in this field this. In this 3-part series, we will discuss specifically how the individuals who practiced this achieved their goals and share their valuable lessons learned with the rest of us who may be contemplating transitioning ourselves when the time is ripe to do so.

Conclusions:

A summarized conclusion of Part I as shown below for your reading and expectations before Wednesday this week on Part II of this series, where we would review how the CTEx process is done. Real case scenarios will be summarized.

…to be continued in Part II this week.