Harvard Business Review Special Issues Spring 2018

CONSTANT CHANGE—in markets, strategy, best practices, technology, and more—means your skills can become outdated quickly. You can’t afford to coast on previous accomplishments and established competencies alone. To stay competitive, you need to pay attention to trends and actively plan where you want your career to go. By borrowing techniques from successful politicians, Dorie Clark, in “A Campaign Strategy for Your Career,” outlines clear steps you can take to “win” the positions you are striving for while building your skills and influence. You want to develop the ability to evolve with the needs of your business. Employers are looking for candidates with the potential to adapt and expand their roles in this ever-changing environment, notes Claudio Fernández-Aráoz in “21st-Century Talent Spotting.” Among the traits they look for are curiosity, insight, and the…

RICK’S BOSS thinks Rick is both brilliant and a tyrant. He recently told Rick he is not on the succession plan to become the next CEO because his volatile temper could destroy the company. Ultimately, Rick retired early and angry, fluctuating between resentment and self-recrimination at failing to achieve his goal. One VitalSmarts study of almost 1,000 managers found that 97% of us are like Rick: We have at least one career-limiting habit, a habit that keeps us from greater success or enjoyment in our career. Unfortunately, our research also shows that although most of us have been aware of this deficiency for years, few successfully overcome it. When our efforts to change fail to change us, it’s usually because the cure doesn’t match the cause, and often the diagnosis is wrong.…

A LOT of talented people grapple with the disruption of having to switch jobs or careers and then figuring out how they can apply their current profession’s skills in a fulfilling new way. The good news is that other industries may value your talents just as much, if not more, than your existing one, but you need to understand what those talents are and package them in a way that makes their value to others apparent. I switched careers nine years ago. I went from working as a reporter at the Financial Times, where I covered health care in the United States, to consulting— advising CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry on thought leadership and articulating their corporate strategies. Since then, many friends and strangers have sought my advice about career paths…

PEOPLE HOLD on to jobs too long for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s loyalty to coworkers at a company you’ve outgrown, or maybe you spent a long time thinking you were just about to get promoted… but never got the call. Or perhaps you had a lot going on in your personal life and your somewhat-dull job felt steadying. During the economy’s downturn, many people decided to stay in the jobs they had, figuring that any job was better than no job. Whatever the reason, if you’ve stayed in a role long after your growth and learning have plateaued, you need a plan for presenting your experience to recruiters and hiring managers. If on your résumé your last decade sounds like the same year repeated 10 times, you’ll face tough…

A FEW YEARS AGO, I was asked to help find a new CEO for a family-owned electronics retailer that wanted to professionalize its management and expand its operations. I worked closely with the outgoing chief executive and the board to pinpoint the relevant competencies for the job and then seek out and assess candidates. The man we hired had all the right credentials: He’d attended top professional schools and worked for some of the best organizations in the industry, and he was a successful country manager in one of the world’s most admired companies. Even more important, he’d scored above the target level for each of the competencies we’d identified. But none of that mattered. Despite his impressive background and great fit, he could not adjust to the massive technological,…

Afocus on potential can improve talent spotting at every level of the organization—especially the very top. When choosing a CEO or board member, as opposed to a young manager, you’ll often find that several candidates have the right credentials, experience, and competencies. That’s why an accurate assessment of their motivation, curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination is all the more important. For CEO roles, succession planning must start very early, ideally when a new leader takes charge but no later than three to four years before he or she expects to leave. At Egon Zehnder, even when a much longer tenure is expected, we help companies assess potential two to four layers below the C-suite, identifying people to retain and develop so that some can become contenders for the top job. I know…