In my coaching sessions, I’ve come across many Senior Executives at the crossroads of deciding what to do next after many years growing through the corporate ladder in the same company but reaching that point when it becomes clear the cycle is over. You can feel it. You can sense it. You just need to spot the signals and make an effort to be sensitive to the changes in the environment and the implications on your role.
There is always the question around when to quit and when to stick and, of course, how to do this. It is always complex and personal and one of those issues normally not tackled in one session but explored, and slowly cooked in several coaching sessions. The process is always fascinating and the learnings sometimes unexpected.
Some commonalities I’ve found is that for Senior Executives, that have spent most of their career in the same company, it is extremely challenging to successfully move to a new organization. Most of the times, it ends up being more realistic, and less risky, to stay in the same company and reinvent and adapt themselves rather than exploring new grounds full of blind spots and hidden traps.
Challenges to be faced are many. I would say the one that always comes up is adapting to the new culture after breathing a different one for so long. Senior Executives developed themselves on certain cultures and adhering to certain values that end up being essential for what drives them as well as how they operate and feel, particularly when reaching a certain age when values are already shaped and settled.
They have left a strong footprint in their organizations and some of them are almost “legends” and part of old successful, heroic, (and funny sometimes) stories that shape the organizational culture; those stories people tell you as soon as you join a new company when you are junior. Moving from that environment into a new one, where you have to prove again from scratch who you are and what value you bring, is a real challenge and requires a lot of effort and gymnastics some people are not capable of doing or not willing to do sometimes; at least for the first couple of years out of the job market, when some of them realize they should have done differently. I haven’t seen too many satisfied and successful Senior Executives moving from one corporation to another after long tenures. There are cases of course, but many have done the change with significant effort and external help.
It’s always lower risk, if you are on that situation, to stay on the boat and carve the space where you can add value on the new environment and put into value your competences, which typically are the knowledge of the business and the company, the relationships with stakeholders and your good judgement. The risk here is that this row might not be enough to take you to the other side of the river.
These decisions must not be rushed as the options to develop could be many and unexpected: from freelancing and entrepreneurship to finding a new role on a very similar company or an adjacent industry or doing something completely different you’ve always dreamed of doing.
I do believe changing companies after a few years is healthy as it helps you strengthen your learning agility; you can round yourself acquiring the right skills and you can expand your experience: find the best multiplier of your competences in terms of diversity and depth of skills. I usually get the comment around changing roles in the same organization as a proxy. I don’t believe it’s the same as you are still in the same company with the same culture where people know who you are, which makes everything less challenging and requires significant less effort from your side and therefore less development.
Changing companies, businesses and roles, with a pre-designed logic, allows exercising your curiosity and becoming better at everything you do. It’s the same logic as doing always the same exercises at the gym or always playing the same sport. You end up being great at one thing and that is great until something on the environment changes and that skill or strength is of no use anymore.
Someone told me the other day: I wish someone would have made me aware of this ten years ago so I could have time to shape my destiny through better career decisions. The things you do and focus on the three key decades (from 20’s to the 30’s, from the 30’s to the 40’s and for the 40’s to the 50’s) and forward should be different and it’s great to be able to have the clarity early on to design your vision; but that should be part of a future post.
Regardless of where you are, I believe the main thing is to take the time to reflect, act and avoid being a passenger of inertia and look back with regret at a life you could have had only if…
If you feel I can help you navigate these changes do not hesitate to drop me a line at gabsmorelli@gmail.com or visit www.gabrielmorelli.com.