How to Make Your Career Move

Focus. Understand what you do best and choose opportunities that will leverage those core capabilities.

That doesn't mean selecting from a narrow range of jobs. Over the last 30 years I've held a variety of jobs: fundraising for the Republican Party; president and COO of the New York office of Chiat/Day/Mojo advertising; a top post at Calvin Klein; and my current job at Playboy. In every job I've applied the same core skills: creating new products and taking them to market.

When you're making a dramatic career move, be clear about what you do well and then apply those skills to a broad range of industries and companies.

At Playboy, Robert Perkins provides strategic direction to maximize the company's global business opportunities.

Mark Albion
Founding Partner, You&Company
Cofounder, Students for Responsible Business, Dover, Massachusetts
malbion@phdbe1981.hbs.edu

You learn where you fit in by not fitting in. You learn what you want to do by doing what you don't want to do.

My decision to leave the Harvard Business School, after 20 years there as a student and professor, was one of the toughest I've ever made. I was good at what I did. But I was also miserable. Leaving forced me to come to terms with who I wanted to be.

Now when I lecture at business schools around the world, I offer two pieces of advice. One, go for the money and the prestige. If you're offered a "big" job, take it. You might love it. But you might not find it as satisfying as you'd hoped, and it will be a jumping-off point for what you really want to do.

Two, keep your "switching costs" low. A career transition isn't always easy. And money isn't the only obstacle. Emotional switching costs are just as debilitating. For instance: is your identity tied up in the status of your job?

Don't get really good at something you don't want to do. Lily Tomlin said it best: "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

Mark Albion's sixth startup, You&Company, helps MBAs build purposeful work lives. His electronic newsletter, "Making a Life, Making a Living," reaches 75,000 students and executives.

Lisa Gansky
Marketect
Berkeley, California
lisagansky@aol.com

Now, more than ever, people are responsible for inventing their own careers. Of course, most of us don't relish the prospect of fending for ourselves in a hyper-competitive environment. And few of us are brilliant self-promoters. But as Tom Peters argues in "The Brand Called You" (August:September 1997), the first step to creating a career is creating a brand -- you. Your brand is your public identity, what you're trusted for. And for your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed, and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear.

Here are three marketing moves to help you act like a brand.

1. Make mistakes early and often. Try out lots of different options early in your career. Then watch the responses: how you feel, what the market values, what people appreciate about you. It's the only way to find work that's uniquely right for you. Think of it as the "definition phase" of new product development.
2. Test the market -- and yourself. For most jobs, especially those in the digital economy, there is no objective standard for being "qualified." If you and the team you're working with think you're qualified, you are. One of the best ways I've found to keep enhancing your qualifications -- and fortifying your brand -- is to build a network of talented people to think and grow with. Listen hard to the people you trust when they're responding to what you're doing.
3. Be the brand. Don't jump on the "offer du jour." Great brands stand for something. What you do -- and choose not to do -- defines who you are. I try to devote 70% of my time to my "brand essence" -- the work I'm great at. It's a joyful, liberating, and effective way to create a career. Have the courage not to veer off course.

It's simple, really. When what you do and care about is aligned with what the market wants and cares about, you've created a recipe for career success.

Lisa Gansky was founder and CEO of Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial site on the Web. It was acquired by America Online in 1995. She speaks and consults on building brands in new markets.