It takes a village to build a successful career.
By Maggie McMullen and Erik Burns
As has been suggested before, mentoring is a key function within a successful career. Mentors provide feedback, guidance, direction, and fill an overall role of support, and research supports this idea. However, today’s career pathways are becoming increasingly complex, and the idea that a few mentors can fill all your career needs is likely unrealistic.
As we change roles, titles, industries, organization types, and team structures, we will likely need a diverse cadre of advisors to support us. What if we assembled this group in a similar fashion to how organizations build their advisory boards? What if this board was specific to you in your quest to manage your personal brand? While this may be an uncomfortable thought, think about how other organizations build boards to advise on a strategic vision and a variety of other topics and problems. As you build your personal brand, you will be faced with a number of challenges and situations that will require broad skill-sets that will likely go beyond a single person.
ASSEMBLING YOUR BOARD
According to an MITSloan Management Review article Assembling your Personal Board of Advisors,1 individuals need to gather a “board of advisors” based on their specific needs as well as taking into consideration the level of resources required to build and put these relationships into place. Your board members should be selected to augment areas of expertise that you personally lack.
The Review authors suggest that board members include six types of supporters1 to guide both your social behavior and your career path.
- Personal Guides—individuals who have played a supportive role in your past.
- Personal Advisors—individuals who interact with you frequently outside of the workplace.
- Full-Service Mentors—individuals who provide a wide range of career and social support. The relationship is strong, interactions are frequent, and connections run deep.
- Career Advisors—individuals instrumental in your career-related needs.
- Career Guides—individuals who have limited interaction and are typically triggered by a specific event.
- Role Models—individuals providing inspiration.
KNOWING YOURSELF
A key quality you need to properly assemble your Board of Directors is actually knowing what you need (i.e., where your skills are lacking and how each individual can offset those deficiencies). It requires a keen sense of self-awareness.
Do you struggle with self-awareness? Refer back to the AAPS Newsmagazine article Emotional Intelligence: The Foundation to Managing Conflict. Self-awareness is the first component of Emotional Intelligence and is defined as “the ability to understand and be in tune with your own emotions in real time and understand your typical pattern of behavior.” Beyond behavior, self-awareness encompasses a deep understanding of your “strengths, weaknesses, needs, and effects on others”1 and having a clear sense of your goals.
Remember, these relationships will evolve over time and need periodic reassessment. It is your self-awareness that will guide you to make appropriate adjustments to your Board of Directors. An oft-referenced, yet unknown author poetically stated, “People come into your path for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do with that person.”
If you find the conceptual support roles as laid out in the MIT Review article too challenging to find the right individual fit, consider dialing it back to 3 to 4 key individuals.
BOARD ROLES
Caroline Dowd-Higgins does a nice job of identifying 4–6 key people you should consider in your Board of Directors in her 2011 blog, “Build Yourself a Personal Board of Directors.”2
Dowd-Higgins suggests seating your directors’ table with a variety of people,2 such as:
- Accountability Master—to hold you accountable to your goals
- Motivator—your personal cheerleader
- Connector—to help you expand your professional network
- Strategist—your “big picture” board member
- Specialist—to help you gain the necessary skills to advance your career
Regardless of the roles you fill for your directors’ table, one thing is clear. It takes a village, a community of individuals, to help mold the career path you want. You are in the keen position of selecting your community to develop your career. You have likely already gathered a semblance of a Personal Board of Directors, but perhaps you need to take a step back and look at the key roles you have and perhaps the key roles you’re missing, and put them into place.
FINDING BOARD MEMBERS
To find colleagues willing to help you develop your career, look both inside and outside of your career environment, tapping people from all avenues of life to ensure a balance. Many people love to share their lessons learned and to help others and believe they benefit equally from a mentoring relationship. Look to coworkers, community leaders, and the scientific community at large.
AAPS has several opportunities to find members of your board. At the AAPS PharmSci 360 in November, both the Mentoring Breakfast and the résumé review offer opportunities to meet colleagues willing to provide advice and support. PharmSci 360 will also have opportunities to network with colleagues. Come prepared with your questions and goals. The AAPS Communities are a great place to find fellow AAPS members in your area of interest, post questions, and build relationships.
Overall, when managing your personal brand, you should strive to better understand where your gaps or blind spots are compared to your larger goals. The collection of a truthful advisory group should help you quickly identify those gaps while building a plan to address them. The role of this group is to not punish you for what you are missing, but to help you grow toward the person you wish others were.
REFERENCES
- Shen Y, Cotton RD, Kram KE. Assembling Your Personal Board of Advisors. MITSloan Manage Rev. Published March 16, 2015. Accessed June 12, 2018.
- Dowd-Higgins C. Build Yourself a Personal Board of Directors. HuffPost The Blog. Published October 10, 2011. Updated December 8, 2011. Accessed June 12, 2018.
Maggie McMullen is business development manager at Lovelace Biomedical. Erik Burns, MBA, EdD, is the AAPS director of corporate engagement.