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Navigating Corporate Culture and Avoiding Career Breakdowns
The culture of the organization which
you work for is very important to your success, as is the culture
of the industry as a whole. An Internet or high technology startup,
for example, with its extraordinarily fast rate of change, would
be terrific for someone who desires creative opportunities, variety,
and prefers to work independently. It would be a bad fit for someone
who is looking for job security, or who wishes to work for a well-known
prestigious employer.
The Right Culture
We feel that corporate culture is
important enough to warrant two ways of approaching it. Firstly,
we'll use CultureMatch to assess where you fall along four
critical elements of corporate culture, and to make any relevant observations of things you'll need to keep in mind (look over the sample):
- Cooperation and Harmony
- Openness and Imagination
- Social Assertiveness
- Structure and Attention to Detail
After reviewing what your CultureMatch
results mean for you we'll provide tips on how you can identify these features in
an organization you are considering working for.
Career Breakdowns
Like the mythic hero Achilles, no
matter how strong we are, no matter how well prepared we are, we
all have some weakness that can be our undoing. Often, as with Achilles,
the fatal flaw was in an unexpected place (in Achilles' case, his
heel).
We have worked extensively as executive
coaches, brought in by companies to work with high performance,
high potential senior managers and executives who, like Achilles,
have some characteristics that are preventing them from reaching
their full potential -- or even threatening them with career failure.
To have a successful career you have to find the right path for
yourself, and navigate that path skillfully -- but equally as importantly,
you will go a lot farther and a lot faster if you are not tripping
over yourself along the way.
We help you to identify those career
breakdowns before they derail your career. Here are some
examples of the 12 profiles we discuss in detail:
- The Hero, who will sacrifice
anything, including driving subordinates to exhaustion,
to achieve a goal;
- The Rebel, who makes a point
of marching to a different drumbeat, even if it puts him out
of synch with the organization;
- The Home Run Hitter, who is always
trying to go for broke even if the necessary experience or resources
are not available;
- Mr. Spock, whose logic and insight
is impeccable and whose attention to others' feelings and emotions
is nonexistent.
Note that these characteristics have
positive sides which can be helpful elements, if you identify them
and learn how to manage the flip side before they derail your career.
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