I’ve loved rewatching the first series of Ted Lasso. It’s cheesy, but I find his approach to coaching fascinating.
He arrives at AFC Richmond knowing almost nothing about English football. The club’s owner has appointed him because she wants him to fail. The players have little respect for him, and the supporters make their contempt clear.
What interests me is what he notices despite everything he doesn’t know.
He sees the lack of confidence behind one player’s performance, the potential concealed by another’s arrogance and the relationships affecting how they play together. He’s curious about the people, their thinking and how they approach their work. And he remains determined when they give him very little encouragement.
Watching it again, I found myself thinking about how much attention we give to what someone is producing now, and how much less we sometimes give to what would help them develop.
We can do that for ourselves too. We put considerable effort into doing our jobs, meeting expectations and achieving results. But how often do we think about the impact of this, what we could do next, or what would help us get there?
Doing a job well takes time. So does developing a career.
You meet deadlines, solve problems, support colleagues and keep things moving. You might be the person everyone turns to because they know you’ll do a good job.
But being busy and dependable doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting the experience, recognition or opportunities you want.
Perhaps your responsibilities have grown, but your title and pay haven’t. Perhaps you’d like to progress, but you’re not sure what would demonstrate that you’re ready. Or you’ve become so useful in your current role that nobody is discussing what you could do next.
Working hard matters. It also helps to understand what your work demonstrates about you, where you want to go next and what you’ll need to get there.
What would career progression mean for you?
Promotion might be what you want. But what appeals to you about the work you’d be taking on?
Do you want to manage people? Develop specialist expertise? Have more influence over decisions? Lead larger projects? Earn more? You may want a combination of these, but they don’t all lead to the same next step.
The responsibilities you’d like more of, and those you’d be happy to leave behind, can tell you something about the kind of progression you’re looking for.
If a particular role interests you, a conversation with someone doing similar work can help. What fills their week? What decisions do they make? What do they enjoy, and what do they find difficult?
Their answers may help you work out whether it’s a role you want and what you’d need to develop to do it well.
What are you already contributing?
A recent interview-coaching client knew what she’d delivered and could describe the results. But by the time a target had been met, she was already thinking about the next strategic decision.
When we looked closely at particular achievements, there was much more to discuss: the information she’d gathered, the people she’d influenced, the competing demands she’d weighed up and the decisions she’d made along the way.
As far as she was concerned, she’d been doing her job. Examining how she’d done it helped her explain the judgement and experience behind those results.
I think this is easy to overlook when you’re conscientious and focused on getting things done. You finish one piece of work and turn to the next, without giving much thought to what it demonstrates about you.
For a conversation about progression, that detail matters. It helps you explain how you work, the responsibility you’re already taking and what you could bring to a more senior role.
A record of examples can help when you’re preparing for a development conversation or applying for promotion. It’s often easier to capture these as they happen, while you can still remember the situation, what you did and what changed as a result.
Useful questions include:
- What made this work challenging?
- What decisions did I make, and why?
- Whose support or agreement did I need?
- What changed because of my contribution?
- What does this show about what I can do?
My article on how to identify, articulate and communicate your value explores this in more detail.
What would help you develop?
Once you have a possible next step in mind, it becomes easier to identify the experience you might need.
That could be managing a budget, leading a project across teams or presenting recommendations to senior colleagues. It might involve understanding another part of the organisation or developing your approach to managing people.
A conversation with your manager can help you understand what they would need to see to consider you ready for the role or responsibility you’re interested in. Specific examples make that much easier to act on.
“You need to be more strategic” leaves a lot open to interpretation. Which decisions could you contribute to? What would you need to consider? Where could you gain that experience?
A project, some shadowing, mentoring or relevant training may offer a way to develop. Knowing what you’re hoping to learn gives you and your manager something to review afterwards.
Support for new responsibilities
Taking on more work can look like progression without giving you much opportunity to develop.
I’ve worked with professionals whose responsibilities had expanded without the management training or support they needed. They were trying hard to succeed, but taking on more themselves was becoming increasingly difficult.
A development opportunity is more likely to be useful when there’s a conversation about what will help you make a success of it. That could include:
- Training or guidance for responsibilities you haven’t held before.
- Someone experienced to turn to for advice.
- Time to learn and receive feedback.
- Agreement about which existing tasks will be reduced or passed on.
- Clarity about your authority to make decisions.
One way to begin that conversation is:
“I’d like to take this on. Can we discuss what I’ll need to learn and how we’ll make time for it alongside my current responsibilities?”
Talking about what you want next
Your manager may know you’re doing good work without knowing what you want from your career.
Explaining what interests you gives you both a starting point for discussing opportunities. For example:
“I’d like to work towards leading a team. Could we discuss the experience I’d need and opportunities to start developing it?”
Or:
“I’d like to develop as a specialist rather than move into people management. What opportunities are there to do that here?”
Conversations beyond your immediate team can be useful too. People elsewhere in the organisation may know about projects or routes to progression that you haven’t come across.
My Plan a useful career conversation tool can help you prepare what you want to ask and get from a conversation.
What happens after the conversation?
Encouragement is welcome, but “keep doing what you’re doing” can leave you unsure how to move forward.
Something more specific gives you a way to follow up. You might agree to lead part of a project, meet a potential mentor or investigate relevant training, with a date to discuss how it’s going.
For example:
“Over the next three months, I’ll lead the project review meetings, with feedback from you afterwards. We’ll meet at the end of that period to discuss what I’ve learnt and what I need to work on next.”
There may be limits to what your employer can offer. Vacancies, budgets and organisational decisions affect progression too. Understanding those limits helps you consider whether the opportunities you want are available where you are, or whether you might need to look elsewhere.
Giving your career some attention
What I like about Ted Lasso’s approach is his interest in what people could become, alongside what they can do today.
It makes me think about the attention we give our work compared with the attention we give our own development. There’s usually another deadline or problem to deal with. Thinking about what we want next can keep slipping down the list.
A conversation about an opportunity, some feedback or a chance to try a different responsibility can help make progression more concrete.
If you’d find it useful to think through what you want next, recognise what you bring and prepare for those conversations, you can read about my A better role or way of working coaching.
