Keywords

career development, career planning, internal versus external focus, responsibilities to organization and to self, upward versus downward orientation

 

Authors

  1. McConnell, Charles R.

Abstract

Many managers experience a common organizational contradiction in terms of how their attention is focused. One may be primarily internally focused, meaning that it is the job at hand that commands the most attention, or one may be externally focused, primarily attentive to people and activities outside of the department or organization, meaning that it is the sources of reward and opportunity that command the most attention. Over the long run, the internally focused individual tends to develop more strongly as a manager, but the externally focused individual, by virtue of greater visibility, tends to attract more career advancement opportunity. For lasting growth and advancement, the manager requires both solid experience and opportunity, so that the individual can be neither a slave to the daily task nor an absentee manager. Rather, a sensible approach to career advancement requires a healthy balance of internal and external focus.

 

Article Content

IN SEARCH OF PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

In the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the hero, young J. Pierpont Finch ("Ponty"), rises from mail room clerk to top management in less than a week. In the classic film noir Gilda, Johnny Farrell, played by Glenn Ford, does a crucial favor for a wealthy and powerful man and, as a result, advances from down-on-his-luck drifter to the man's number 1 assistant and gambling casino manager in a few weeks time. Both are great stories, but the career paths of Ponty and Johnny are purely the stuff of fiction, if not fantasy in Ponty's case.

 

A successful, satisfying, and fulfilling career usually does not just happen, nor does one usually vault to the top of one's field in a single move. One does not ordinarily step into a job, dig into the work, make a few friends, apply a little charm, and follow the path of least resistance through a series of advancements that constitute a rewarding career. Rarely if ever does "going with the flow" carry you to where you are best suited or potentially most fulfilled. Rather, those who go farthest in the direction that is best for them usually have a fairly clear vision of their intended direction. That is, they know where they are going.

 

Once an individual has adjusted or adapted to the requirements of a profession, occupation, or other role to the extent of being comfortable and confident, it is often then normal to experience a growing desire to move on to a larger role, a greater sphere of responsibility. For many, this desire for advancement becomes an objective in support of an ongoing goal of career advancement.

 

The desire for career advancement is common in both the career manager and the career professional or technical specialist. However, since advancement often carries the professional or technical specialist into management, this discussion will focus primarily on the manager's career advancement.

 

The growth-oriented manager cannot help possessing a split focus as far as employment is concerned. Although every manager should of course be largely attentive to the job at hand, the growth-oriented manager can be expected to experience 2 important concerns-doing the present job and preparing for the next job. The following pages will deal with the matter of balancing one's attention to these primary concerns.

 

The Next Step: Present Employer or Elsewhere?

Is it best to seek the next upward move within one's present organization or elsewhere? Some will extend their loyalty to a particular organization and seek to advance within that organization. Others, perhaps identifying more closely with an occupation or profession than with an organization, will envision themselves readily going to another employer. Still others will remain open to either possibility.

 

It is not possible to say that either the inside focus or the outside focus is best. Although there can be distinct advantages to remaining with the same organization, this is not always possible. Also, staying with the same employer is not always advisable when one considers that more opportunity and more rapid advancement may exist elsewhere. Whether one's present organization or another organization receives the growth-oriented manager's attention should probably depend on the manager's perception of where the greater opportunity exists (coupled perhaps with the manager's perception of the relative stability of the organizations) and where the opportunity is perceived as greater or more immediate.

 

Careers: Ladders and Tracks

Within certain areas of health care, the available career ladders or career paths may be perceived as both limited and limiting. There are a number of relatively short career ladders in health care. For example, in a midsize hospital, the entire career ladder in the diagnostic imaging department may consist of only 2 or 3 levels, including the management level. Likewise, in the laboratory department, the career ladder may consist of only 2 or 3 levels. When a person reaches the top of a short career ladder, there are but a few steps remaining-another hospital department that has a longer career ladder, general management or administration, or another organization that has a longer career ladder in one's specialty.

 

The move to another department usually requires reeducation, complete training in another field. For example, the laboratory technician does not become a registered nurse without additional specialized education. Going into general management, that is, entering administration, in most instances also requires additional education and is a move not readily made. Moving to another, usually larger, organization that has a longer career ladder in one's specialty may work for some for a while. However, because the longer career ladder usually contains only a step or 2 additional steps, this eventually frustrates the growth-oriented individual who again "tops out" and may again be faced with changing fields or striving for administration.

 

Career tracks are also affected by the essential pyramidal structure of most business organizations. At each level rising up the pyramid, there are fewer positions available, so at each succeeding level, the competition is greater. This situation has been worsened in recent years by the tendency toward organizational "flattening," which has resulted in the reduction in the numbers of available first-line-management and middle-management positions. Likewise, as health care organizations continue to merge and otherwise consolidate, the number of top administrative positions-those truly generalist positions-continues to drop as the competition for them intensifies.

 

It is of course up to the individual to determine where the opportunities are and decide whether the attraction of certain goals is sufficient to get one to leave his/her present organization. However, whether you envision your next career step with your present employer or elsewhere, there is always the potential for a conflict in focus. If you see your next step as coming in your present organization, the conflict of focus is between upward and downward. This is most pertinent to the positions of first-line and middle managers. If your next step is seen as taking you to another organization, the conflict of focus is between inside and outside. The inside-versus-outside conflict is most pertinent to department head and top management positions.

 

UPWARD VERSUS DOWNWARD

Which Way Do You Face?

At any given time, the first-line or middle manager may tend to "face upward" toward higher management and the rest of the hierarchy or "face downward" toward the work group. There are needs causing one to do either at any particular time, and there are tendencies in the individual favoring either upward or downward. The pressures to face upward or downward are rarely equal, and there are no guarantees that one is facing in the appropriate direction at any time.

 

The upward-versus-downward conflict is something of a special case of the inside-versus-outside conflict to be addressed at greater length because its implications are considerably broader than just service to one's career orientation. What these issues of focus encompass are patterns of behavior that managers may fall into depending on whether they succumb to certain pressures or deliberately seek a certain level of visibility beyond their own spheres of responsibility.

 

Facing Downward

The downward-facing pressures consist of the needs of one's direct-reporting employees; the needs of the department's clients, patients, or customers; and generally all of the responsibilities of one's present position. Downward is in fact the direction in which most managers of people should face most of the time. This is especially true of a first-line manager, who is often as much a worker as a manager. It is necessary to face toward the staff, to in fact be a functioning part of the staff, to best fulfill the responsibilities of the position in the most basic sense of management: getting things done through people.

 

Successful pursuit of the management role depends on the manager's maximum visibility and availability to staff. In many instances, analogies between work teams and sports teams are highly appropriate. Consider this: do you ever see any kind of sports team play without its coach right there on the sidelines providing active direction and encouragement? The role of the first-line manager is in fact the role of the coach-to facilitate the staff getting the job done as efficiently and effectively as possible-and the visibility, availability, and active involvement of the work group's "coach" are crucial in getting the job done.

 

However, downward facing runs counter to a number of frequently encountered natural tendencies that result from pressure or forces that encourage many supervisors to face upward.

 

Facing Upward

Facing upward is a natural inclination of many managers. It occurs for a few largely personal reasons. In organizational life, it quickly becomes evident that one's reward and recognition and essentially all positive strokes come from above in the organizational hierarchy. Therefore, to enhance one's chances of advancing and to assist in building a career, it is necessary to be known and appreciated at higher levels.

 

Some upward facing is appropriate, some is even essential. However, it must be accomplished in ways that do not detract from the supervisor's responsibilities to the employees. Some upward facing is certainly necessary in fulfilling responsibilities to one's immediate superior, and some is essential to the manager's growth and development through delegation and empowerment.

 

Which way the individual manager will tend to face depends largely on that person's psychological needs. Natural inclinations may be different, whether the results tend to be upward or downward. For example, an individual who obtains the most personal satisfaction by doing hands-on work may well face completely downward and identify with the work group to the extent of being nearly invisible to the hierarchy. On the other hand, one who obtains maximum ego gratification through identification with higher management may face upward even to the extent of ignoring the work group most of the time.

 

INSIDE VERSUS OUTSIDE

The manager who follows largely natural inclinations will lean toward becoming either inside focused or outside focused. The inside-focused manager is driven largely by the desire to fulfill his/her present job responsibilities. This manager obtains a large measure of satisfaction from getting the present job done. The outside-focused manager is driven more strongly by the need for advancement and other external rewards and is seeking satisfaction of needs that may include, for example, more money, greater visibility, higher position, and so forth.

 

Inside versus outside is essentially the same conflict as upward versus downward. For the managers at or near the top of the organization and perhaps for major division or department heads, the conflict is inside versus outside. For the lower management levels, the basic conflict is upward versus downward.

 

Often the clearest, most visible examples of inside versus outside focus exist at the level of chief executive officer (CEO). The inside-focused CEO stays "home" and runs the business, often at the expense of remaining generally unknown or little known beyond the institution's 4 walls. The outside-focused CEO relates to community groups, is active in associations, gets appointed to external committees and commissions, sits on external boards, and so forth, becoming well known while leaving most of the running of the institution to others (or sometimes to chance). And which CEO is more likely to be tapped when significant external opportunities arise? Correct-the one who has been "out there" being articulate and visible.

 

Following one's natural inclinations can lead to an imbalance between inside focus and outside focus. Something can of course be done about this imbalance, but it is necessary to be aware of how one is presently focused. When it comes to assessing your own present focus and perhaps making some changes, it is necessary to examine where you are at present while considering exactly where you want to go.

 

A Matter of Human Motivation

It invariably becomes a matter of individual motivation when a person responds to what are essentially psychological needs. People are dramatically different from each other in terms of what they respond to most readily. In planning out a supposedly desired career path, it is not simply where you (think you) want to go that is important. Rather, it is necessary with each move you make to reassess where you are and where you want to go all over again. This is so because your ultimate objective is only what you believe you want; you will never know for certain until you get there. Also, each intervening step on the way to your ultimate objective is something that you must be driven-that is, motivated-to attain in its own right. However, each step burdens you with a different set of responsibilities and challenges that might present you with a motivational turnoff (that sends you in new career directions) or with insurmountable obstacles (that suggests that you may have reached a career peak in spite of loftier desires).

 

As far as career growth is concerned, that which we think we aspire and that which we actually attain are most often not the same.

 

Which Focus Is Better?

The answer to the question "which is better?" can be determined only after answering the question "better for whom?" For example, a top manager's 100% inside focus may be extremely good for the organization and its customers but not so good for the manager if he/she has advancement aspirations at all. On the other hand, if this top manager's focus is almost entirely external, his/her career may be enhanced by the visibility while the organization suffers under absentee management.

 

Among managers who simply "go with the flow" and think not at all about balancing career concerns with organizational needs, the inside-focused manager can be serving the organization well but neglecting career concerns whereas the outside-focused manager is primarily serving self at the organization's expense. Leaning toward internal focus is of course better for the organization, whereas leaning toward an external focus can be perceived as better for the manager.

 

A Primary External Attraction

The inside-focused manager is of course less visible to external processes when attractive positions outside of one's present organization arise. Of course, the trade-off for reduced external visibility is a more relevant work experience in one's present position, as the trade-off for increased external visibility is a reduced amount of relevant experience.

 

The basic contradiction lies in the fact that the internally focused manager accrues more experience that is potentially of value to another organization but that the externally focused manager, because of greater visibility, is more appropriately positioned to secure the better jobs.

 

Visibility can be extremely important in positioning one's self for external advancement. Generally, most of the more appealing management positions are not filled through response to help-wanted advertisements. Rather, the better jobs are filled through personal referral and networking and sometimes through search firms. Personal referral requires some measure of visibility and networking, which has the effect of expanding visibility and works best if some visibility exists to begin with. Even executive search firms depend to a considerable extent on personal referral to locate many of the job candidates they represent.

 

For a great many managers, the tendency toward an external orientation has been so strong that it has denied their present organizations their potential best. Also, it has served to set up more than a few such managers for failure in their next positions because they moved on to greater responsibility without achieving reasonable control of their present positions.

 

CONSOLIDATE BEFORE THE NEXT REACH

It is unfortunately a fairly common circumstance for our aspirations to outrun our capabilities. It is also fairly common to discover that what we think we want, we discover when we get it that we do not really want it. However, what some individuals believe they want can carry them too far too rapidly, setting them up for eventual failure.

 

Some "fast-track" performers rise at a rate that outstrips the attainment of full control of their present positions. The condition created is like that experienced by a student who plunges into mathematics II without a reasonable understanding of mathematics I. Either the student does not survive because of a lack of knowledge of fundamentals or it is necessary to do so much learning on the job that most of one's energy is consumed in simply staying afloat.

 

A number of years ago, Laurence J. Peter1 proclaimed that in a hierarchy, everyone tended to rise to his/her level of incompetence. He thus concluded that in time, every position tended to be held by someone who is incompetent to carry out his/her duties. It would perhaps seem that some managers render themselves incompetent by being too focused on their next upward move to fully internalize and competently address their present roles. However, proper career advancement is somewhat like walking-it is not possible to step out with the left foot until the right foot is firmly planted from the previous step.

 

It is always necessary to consolidate one's position and achieve working control of one's present job before addressing opportunities for climbing still higher. This suggests that one's early months on a job should be a period of intense internal focus that is not allowed to broaden until a reasonable level of control is achieved.

 

DEDICATION-AND THE BALANCING ACT

Total or near-total dedication to self over all else is of course an inappropriate strategy. The individual who is fully focused on growing and advancing to the extent of subordinating all other considerations is making a number of crucial errors. The person who behaves so is cheating the employer by performing what may be a minimum of useful work while occupying a position that could otherwise be filled more productively by someone else. However, because so many people ascribe, at least generally, to the perceived need to "look out for number one," there is a tendency exhibited by some to place themselves ahead of other considerations at all times. The individual who behaves in this manner is concentrating more on making the next upward move than on mastering his/her present role.

 

Neither, however, is total dedication to one's employer an appropriate strategy. Far too many "managers"-the term expressed in quotation marks because of the questions raised by their behavior-allow themselves to become so completely controlled by the job that they are willfully managing very little. The job is managing them. Unfortunately, many work organizations will readily accept and some will even demand this total dedication that can prevail to the extent of impairing or endangering one's health and family and personal relationships.

 

Some degree of dedication to both self and employer is of course necessary, but this must be achieved with a healthy balance. This must also be achieved amid changing perceptions of loyalty, loyalty of both employer to employee and employee to organization.

 

Paternalistic organizations, those that extended long-term loyalty to employees who simply functioned as expected, are steadily becoming a thing of the past. The pace of business and industrial change has increased to such an extent that a complete organizational or product life cycle can occur in a time span shorter than a person's working career. Rapid technological change has intensified competition, which can further shorten any particular organization's period of dominance within an industry. An organization's star can rise and peak and fall within a decade or so, rendering an employer's circumstances not at all conducive to long-term employment. Also, as the waves of change have affected organizational stability and many people who would have wished to remain employed found themselves cut loose, so have they changed prevailing views of organizational loyalty.

 

We might suggest that organizational loyalty was more of a perception than a reality, more of a product of a relatively stable period that some industries enjoyed over a period of 2, 3, or 4 decades. However, many of the employers who existed in stable environments for years traded on this stability as though it were organizational loyalty and asked for individual loyalty in return. It was only natural that as times changed and the perception of organizational loyalty diminished, individuals began to withdraw their loyalty from their employers. Loyalty in work life is very much a 2-way street.

 

Many individuals, however, seem to need to be loyal to something or someone even if only to themselves. Also, this need frequently translates to a dedication to one's own career or to one's particular occupation. It has become especially evident that a growing number of technical, professional, and specialized employees identify more with an occupation than with an organization. Because it is becoming steadily more evident that an individual's relative security lies not in constancy and loyalty but rather in flexibility and adaptability, it is becoming commonplace for many employees to feel far more loyalty to the occupation than to the organization. From the employing organization's point of view, this dedication to occupation translates into dedication to self, carrying the individual off to greener pastures at the drop of a better offer.

 

Balancing one's own needs with the needs of the organization can be a difficult task. Most supervisory, managerial, and professional jobs are by nature somewhat open-ended. That is, there is always something to be done, whether urgent, essential, marginally important, or simply desirable. There is usually sufficient to be done on such jobs that one runs the risk of following an endless thread from task to task in a never-ending quest to get "caught up." In this direction lies the risk of being consumed by the job, sometimes to the extent of workaholism.

 

As already suggested, a genuine balance of service to the job and to one's self is a necessity for personal health and survival. Becoming neither completely selfish nor selfless is appropriate.

 

The Individual's Obligations

You owe it to your employer to perform as best you can at your present job. However, if you wish to advance at all, you also owe it to yourself to see that you are prepared to advance higher and assume greater responsibilities. These obligations must be properly balanced for both purposes to be served. It is far too easy to be diverted into one of the extreme paths, focusing solely on yourself and thus doing a lesser job than you are capable of doing or becoming totally consumed by your present job.

 

Your essential task is to seek ways in which you can fulfill your obligations to your employer and to yourself at the same time. There is nothing contradictory about the suggestion to do so when you consider that one of the most effective ways of preparing for your nest job is to improve your mastery of your present job.

 

BACK TO BASICS: SOME UNCHANGING FUNDAMENTALS

We have of course been suggesting that the manager who wishes to advance throughout the course of his/her career must develop a workable mix of attention to one's present job and preparation for the next upward move. This mix is best achieved when your goals are at least partly consistent with the goals of the organization.

 

Goal Alignment

Examine your goals and determine how consistent they are with your employer's goals. Will conscientious pursuit of your employer's goals also result in progress toward your own goals? If some of your goals seem to align with some of the organization's goals, working toward these mutual goals will benefit both. For example, say you are a physical therapist and a physical therapy supervisor who wishes to grow in the management of that field. Further assume that you are employed by a health system that has declared one of its goals to be the establishment and maintenance of the most comprehensive physical rehabilitation center in the region. Clearly, pursuing your goal of growth and advancement in physical therapy is consistent with pursuing the systems goal in physical rehabilitation.

 

Also, if goals align as suggested in the preceding paragraph, an inside focus might be more appropriate for you at least in the short run because the goal consistency indicates that you can continue to benefit personally while benefiting the organization.

 

If your goals do not align at all with your employer's goals, you are faced with other necessary choices. Consider, for example, an environmental services supervisor who would like to work in accounting or finance. Let us say that this supervisor is studying accounting part time and is looking for ways to expand upon job-related tasks that would support that particular goal. If this individual is significantly driven by this goal, the employer's goal for environmental services-keeping the facility sparkling clean-may well become secondary. One of the continuing goals of an environmental services supervisor should of course be to become consistently good at ensuring that the place is kept clean. However, because pursuit of this organizational goal nets the supervisor nothing toward the personal goal, much of this supervisor's focus will be external because that is where personal goal support will be found.

 

The environmental services supervisor who is wishing to be an accountant is necessarily an extreme example of goal inconsistency, suggesting that both the individual and the organization know it is highly likely that this person will leave in the foreseeable future to pursue his/her personal goal. For most managers and professionals, however, the inconsistencies are not nearly as pronounced. Thus, it is usually possible to uncover or perhaps even create a few areas in which some of your goals can be made consistent with some of the organization's goals.

 

Remember the Supporting Skills

Whether your focus is internal or external, there are certain skills that are always to be considered valuable in helping you perform your present job and at the same time making you more valuable for advancement. Certainly all of the basic management skills are applicable here, as are especially the communications skills. One who wishes to rise at all in management must of course master the basic management skills and must also develop a degree of mastery in writing, public speaking, and interpersonal communication.

 

Interpersonal skills are of course important to managers and professionals at all levels. The others, writing and speaking, are also important at all levels but seem to increase in importance as one ascends the organizational hierarchy. Public speaking, if only to the extent of running meetings, often presents a case in point. More than a few individuals have lost out on potential promotions by exhibiting unwillingness to speak out in front of a group. This suggests immediately that the goals of one who would wish to rise in organizational life should include improvement in writing, making presentations, and dealing with other people.

 

Improvement in dealing with people is an aspect of job performance often overlooked or at least assumed out of existence. After all, we do all tend, individually, to believe that we are better communicators than we actually are. However, we constantly deal with people-employees, peers, superiors, clients, customers, whomever-and should ideally do so in ways that allow those we have contact with to feel respected and important. This is especially important where employees are concerned. An age-old bit of anonymous wisdom suggests that we should be extremely careful on how we deal with people on our way up because we might meet them again on our way down. One manager who was twice demoted in successive reorganizing exercises said that she never fully appreciated the truth of this until she wound up working side by side with people who had previously reported to her. She was very glad that she had always treated people as she wished to be treated herself.

 

Make Yourself Valuable

In pursuing goals of career advancement, it surely helps your cause if you have a superior who delegates well, truly empowers, and generally believes in employee development. In fact, a good manager with strong feelings for employee development, confident and unafraid of having sharp, strong, fast-moving subordinates, is one of the greatest advantages you can have in your job.

 

One way in which you can be valuable is to know enough about your manager's job to make yourself useful and to make it easier for your manager to delegate to you. Much of what you may be able to do will of course depend on the kind of manager you answer to. One of the most valuable functions you can perform, preventing your boss from making an obvious mistake or stepping unknowingly into a dangerous situation, will be appreciated by a strong, confident manager.

 

Pursuing your desire to advance may be more or less difficult depending on your immediate superior's attitude toward employee development and on your relationship with that manager. However, although advancement is your goal, first get your present job responsibilities well under control. A deliberate internal (or downward) focus may be necessary to obtain full control of your basic responsibilities. When that control is achieved, however, you can then carefully select those opportunities to focus externally (or upward) that seem to hold the most potential to do good for you.

 

However, while balancing the inside with the outside focus (or downward with upward), it helps to appreciate that, in the long run, the best and most lasting way to advance yourself is through a track record of demonstrated success in fulfilling your job responsibilities and meeting the expectations of your employers.

 

REFERENCE

 

1. Laurence J. Peter. The Peter Principle. New York, NY: William Morrow &Company; 1969:26. [Context Link]