How to manage a successful career in a large company

Have you ever wondered how to drive a successful career in a large organisation?

How can you navigate and climb the corporate ladder?

Following 14+ years of experience in one of the biggest corporations in the world, these are the top tips and advice I give when asked about this topic:

1. Do you know what you want from your life or career?

Before you can start planning a career you first need to be clear about your aspirations. Don’t set your targets on the CEO role unless you would be willing to make the sacrifices such a position entails. Be honest with yourself when making this assessment. Setting the wrong goal can be hugely demoralising.

There is no shame in targeting a successful career as an individual contributor or manager of a small team if this allows you to achieve your life goals.

One technique you can try is to ask yourself the following question:

“If I bumped into a friend or colleague 5 years from now what would I want to tell them I had done since we last met?”

If you can, take your time and write down your answers. Do you want to have travelled? Been promoted at work? Achieved a sporting goal?

2. What are your guiding principles?

What are the key principles by which you would make important life decisions? If you know these, they will help to guide you when opportunities arise. I have often relied on mine when faced with tough career decisions.

Below are two of my guiding principles and how I used them to align my career:

1. Make a positive impact
   • Positive: this is why I am working in the Renewable Energy Industry.
   • Impact: the energy industry enables me to work on some of the biggest projects in the world and to lead large teams of people.
2. Continuously learn
   • This has been achieved through both academic and business learning.
   • Living internationally is a fantastic way to broaden your horizons and give you new experiences.

Action:

Now it’s time for you to write down your guiding principles. Don’t worry if these principles change over time. That is normal, particularly if you have a major life event such as the birth of a child.

3. Treat everyone with respect

People have very long memories, particularly when they feel slighted or disrespected by someone.

“Trust takes years to build and seconds to lose.”

There is no value in having enemies or people who dislike you due to your actions. It is not possible to “like” everyone you come across during your career but you should strive to treat everyone with respect.

You never know who you might be working with or working for in the future and who might be asked to share their opinion of you.

Not following this rule has led to closed doors for many people.

One caveat regarding this is that just because you treat people with respect, does not mean you have to agree with everyone and make everyone happy. It just means that you listen to them and treat their ideas fairly. Sometimes disagreeing with someone in the right way can build a stronger relationship with them because they will trust you to be transparent with your opinions.

4. Self-promotion with style

Show your work. There are millions of people working hard and doing a great job every day. Doing great work which no one knows about will not improve your career. There is no shame in showing your work to others. You can use this to inspire them, demonstrate new ideas or just for the sake of a conversation.

You can only make an impact if others know what you are doing. That is how you spread your influence.

Warning!

The first step in the process is to do great work in the first place.

Note the “with style” part of this tip. Showing substandard work, being known as a show-off or being known for the wrong reasons, will be detrimental.

You will all know people who fail in the “with style” category.

I would advise that you should err on the side of showing more; the overall benefits far outweigh the negative risks. You will also learn, as you do this, how to refine your communication skills in this area. Practice makes perfect.

5. Get involved in cross-functional initiatives – Make the business better

I credit this as the #1 accelerator of my career. I am always looking for ways to improve the processes, tools, documents and overall productivity of the business. This is driven by my hate of repetitive non-value added work (or laziness as I sometimes call it).

The consequence of the above is that I always have a list of side projects or improvement initiatives that are ongoing. To solve problems in large companies, you invariably have to involve people from other departments or functions. Whether from HR or Engineering or one of the many other diverse company divisions, the effect of this will be that you expand your network outwards across the company. You will become known as a go-to person in your department and this will open up new opportunities.

The secondary benefits of this action are that you can learn new skills, meet new people and generally pursue areas of interest for you. Especially if these side projects are of your own design.

Action:

Block one hour in your calendar and start writing a list of the tasks, processes or tools which are wasteful or inefficient and that impact you. Next form a plan of how to improve them and start involving other people in this process.

6. Who are your role models?

All companies are different, with varying cultures, communication styles and markets. If you want to know how to be successful in a certain business look at the people who are successful and you respect. Watch how they behave closely and even take notes about how they communicate, their thought processes and decisions.

It is critical to pick people who you personally respect, it is more likely their style is aligned with your principles and you will be able to implement what you learn.

Even better, would be to ask this individual to be a mentor, whether officially or unofficially. Make sure to connect with them frequently (monthly at least). Mentoring is a two-way street though, so make sure you are giving something back to the mentor, either through recognition, information or insights.

7. Behave like a leader to become one

A great piece of advice I was once given.

“If you want a particular role or promotion, start to act as if you are already there.“

This is a bit of a strange idea but it really works. If you want your bosses role, start acting like a leader (with style). You will quickly find that others in the organisation will start to see you as the next in line if you are demonstrating the attributes needed for that position. Obviously, this needs to be done sensitively and within the boundaries of what is acceptable in your position. This tip is particularly effective for behavioural actions like speaking up and leading meetings, making decisions and driving strategy within your department.

You will also be surprised by how this is received: most bosses love to have team members stepping up this way because it relieves the pressure on them.

8. Be flexible and ready for change

This is the hardest of all the tips in this list and it is why I left it for last.

Change is hard, the unknown is stressful. This is a natural consequence of our wish for safety for ourselves and our loved ones.

Unfortunately, the world is in constant flux. No one knows what will happen tomorrow. Therefore, a good philosophy is to always be ready for change and ideally drive the change yourself proactively. That way you are more likely to be selecting the path rather than have the world choose your path for you.

This tip is also related to the age-old question that successful people are asked:

“Was your success due to luck or your hard work and intelligence”

Being ready for change and able to grasp an opportunity is why many successful people seem “lucky”.

My best advice to cope with change goes back to tips 1 and 2: know what you want in life and be clear about your guiding principles. If you are confident in what you want and how you want to do it, change and decisions will be easier to handle.

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If anyone has any comments, suggestions or tips of your own please feel free to contribute them in the comments below.