If you’re not already a member of the sphinxx successful women group on LinkedIn, I wanted to let you know about a great discussion taking place started by Kim Seeling Smith

Kim shared her experience in recruitment about how many people lack a career plan, and “simply walked through the doors that were opened”. And it seems Kim is right on the money, as career management was the clear leader in our professional development poll on LinkedIn (beating out communications skills, life balance, networking and leadership skills as the area most women wanted professional support for).

Carol Elzink has shared an intriguing point I wanted to share with all our newsletter subscribers not yet part of the LinkedIn group:

“I encourage my staff to see the role they do as separate from themselves as an identity until they have understood where they are going, then embrace it as part of themselves. I get them to understand as much about their likes/dislikes and provide information when I have it on how to get where they are going”

Carol shared her ideas about how incorrectly concluding what you are doing is what you want to/should/could be doing could be detrimental to one’s identity and productivity at work. Another snippet her of answer:

“This if you choose to identify with your job too early and become unsuccessful or fail because of genuine factors such as disinterest or lack of ability/fit, then this could translate to “I’m a failure” rather then just “that is something I am not good at, let some who is do it” or “I’m glad I gave that a go, because I found out for certain it is not the type of work for me… It can be great to identify with your role at work as part of how you define yourself, however I don’t encourage it until someone is more certain that they have found “what they want to do when they grow up”! When someone identifies with something they love to do, their whole demeanor changes and it is great to watch”

Carol says a lot more in her answer,
which is well worth the read, and a response. And if you haven’t
already joined the sphinxx successful women group,
make sure you do to be part of these discussions as they evolve, or
start your own!