Like many women I meet, Nancy* was highly capable and had always played a critical role in the companies she was working for but she didn’t realize her own value.
Nancy, came to us saying “I've been waiting to work with you.”
I asked her what got her to book this call with me and she said, “There’s a lot going on at work. The owner of the company is hiring people, filling out other positions in and around me. While they said ‘I’m a critically important employee,’ and I don't feel threatened at my job, I have to admit, I also wondered if I wasn't being seen for certain roles in the company.”
“Timing is everything.”
“ I’m not 22 anymore, I need to be more strategic about my career.”
“I have colleagues who have waited too long to reach out for help to plan their career, and I want to do this right.”
“I'm happy where I'm at, but realistically, I have 20 plus years left in the workforce, and I'd like to prepare for the long term, and not just as a designer, but as a professional overall. How do I prepare myself for the rest of my career? I'm in the right mindset now, and I have all my ducks in a row to achieve my long term goals.”
Nancy wanted to understand where she was in her career and what was viable for her so she enrolled in Thrive By Design to find out.
Doing more doesn’t always equate to being valued and/or a promotion
Nancy had been a design director, a product director, and creative director for three different companies. She was doing well and like a lot of creatives she was a high potentialite. She just kept taking on more and more responsibility to grow and continue to bring value.
While she was highly valued in the company and she didn’t necessarily feel the need to find a new job but she also realized she wasn’t being seen for certain opportunities within the company. Nancy began to wonder what other opportunities could be out there and she wanted to understand why she wasn’t being considered for promotion where she was.
“The thing is, I have no staff that I can manage.” It turned out that while Nancy didn’t have any direct reports under her, she managed a wide array of programs and strategic initiatives within the company, and through those programs she had indirect reports in other divisions such as product development, account management, marketing divisions, and engineering.
She didn't know how to see that kind of influence, and how to make sense of that.
By the way in many traditional companies and businesses they only see leadership in people management terms, when that isn't necessarily an accurate indication of someone’s impact within a company overall.
“How do I stay relevant? “
Nancy had also spent several years in the home office lighting industry.
“While I know this industry well, it is rapidly changing, and I don’t know if I want to be here much longer.”
Throughout her career Nancy had considered pivoting but she didn’t know how to even broach the topic so she just went back to her work.
“I realized that the design industry is changing rapidly. Some of the top interests that I have are now outside of this industry, and I wonder where I am moving within this company, and how is this industry changing?”
“In a business that's primarily focused on a specific sector, how do I see what other industries move into? How do I understand it all? And if there is a pivot for me, what would that be?”
Hidden Talent
While working with Nancy, we first found out that while her title was “Design Director,” she was much more valued in her company than she thought. She was strategically giving directions and leading the marketing team, all while giving strategic direction for product development and working within the factories for sourcing. She was also client-facing, and won over the majority of the top design accounts for her company.
It’s crazy, but like a lot of women I meet, she was practically running the show at this company. While Nancy has a lot more energy than most she was still over extending herself working long hours doing not just her work, but working on projects for other divisions. She was completely unaware of how critical she was to the business. The challenge here is that she was unaware of her influence and value within the company, and both her boss and C suite team did not see her value.
Here’s the heavy truth: Even the most magnanimous companies, managers, and supervisors will not know your value if you yourself don’t know your own value first. This is something you need to own yourself.
Working with Nancy, we helped her realize all the different areas of responsibility she was heavily involved in. It turned out that she could have applied for a couple of the leadership roles within the company if she had wanted to.
Choosing Her Path
Nancy learned to truly understand all of the different roles and responsibilities she had taken on in the last several years.
For instance, initially like most designers, Nancy contemplated moving towards the VP of design, in showing her how to review next steps, she came to realize that she really loved the product management work and account management work. In qualifying that career track we helped her validate that she would have little competition, and that she’d in fact already been doing that work.
Choosing a path is not necessarily about following what’s trending. It’s rather about qualifying what you’ll enjoy and succeed in. I’ve seen several professionals and even design firms follow a trend like UX for instance and forsake some of their best expertise throwing it out like a baby in bathwater.
Beyond what’s trending Nancy learned to how to identify and qualify a variety of career tracks she could thrive on next. She realized that she was naturally suited for the product manager track, we qualified that she would love the work, and she could excel rapidly and earn a great deal more money than if she stayed in the design field.
Qualifying A Pivot
Think of a pivot as leaping from one redwood tree to another. Physics affects pivots as well. The farther departure the jump, the higher the probability that one would have to land a lateral if not a lower level position in that jump as you’re traversing that distance and or also a lower compensation in the process. And there’s a higher probability of missing the landing all together. I’ve seen too many people navigate a pivot not fully taking into account all the ways you need to qualify and navigate a pivot. If by the way, pivoting is at all the next best option.
Through our ethnographic work around talent and career evolution in the last decades we’ve come to master the science around pivoting. Not that successfully evolving a career always requires a pivot. We’ve taught many professionals how to evolve their careers right where they are at. But I digress and that’s another story for another day.
After the initial step of assessing where you are and what you’re striving for next, if a qualifying pivot has been confirmed there’s a great deal that needs to be aligned and mastered to land that pivot.
Within months of the program, Nancy immediately identified and landed several interviews for product management job opportunities. She learned how to read beyond the job description to qualify a job worth winning, she mastered representing herself, and eventually won a Senior Product Manager role at a great company.
Nancy’s currently loving her new job and role, earning a great deal more money than her previous job, working less hours, having made a sizable leap in compensation.
Nancy made a sizable career pivot and raised her compensation in the process. One amazing result of the Thrive By Design methodology is that several of our Thrivers uncover and land a viable career path that was previously outside of their scope of vision in the first place.
Months later touching base with Nancy, she came back to us nervous about her three month review in her new job, worried that she was underperforming. Instead it turns out Nancy received glowing feedback from management. They were so impressed at how well she had adapted, exceeding the expectations of her role. Nancy is thriving having made an audacious pivot and is continuing to climb to new heights at a rapid pace.
This is just one of numerous stories where we’ve walked so many design professionals like Nancy to identify their best paths and step into their best future.
If you are a women out there that knows you’re working harder than most, but somehow you’re not being seen to the point of being valued correctly. If you wonder if your doing enough and wondering what’s next for yourself is to take that first step. Stop to take a essential step of reflection moment to take stock of where you are, assess what you’re responsible for and if you’re being valued.
And if you want help assessing where you are in your career, discovering your best potential and then landing that transition. Then feel free to book a call with me and I would gladly work with you.
* Name has been changed for privacy reasons.