Career development workshops and conversations used to be a staple in my working week. I’ve been a careers adviser, research careers consultant and researcher developer so I’ve got a box full of tools (admittedly some are a bit rusty and others look archaic) to help people think about their progression and development.

As my job titles suggest, for much of my career, the support I gave was focused on researchers and academics. This week I was delighted to have a chance to work with the community I belong to – the myriad of professionals who support and enable research. I started to gather my ideas and planned to “recycle” some of my old slides and approaches, but quickly realised that I needed to come at this rather differently, because there’s a piece missing from my career plan and that of everyone in the room with me. (Particularly thanks to my colleagues Katherine Quinn and Jen Cusiter for presenting with me – there’s a lot more we covered in the workshop that I might cover in future posts.)

Career development for those on the academic trajectory is largely based around a promotion pathway. This brings clarity about which actions are going to result in evidence to support a case for progression. Critically, this means that there are many OPPORTUNITIES designed to provide this evidence and they are aligned with the pathway. (I write this aware that promotions are challenging to achieve, that from time to time promotion processes are postponed and that they need to be improved to account for different kinds of leadership…but stick with me.)

 

Career development for those in professional services roles doesn’t have this “spine” and it means that we need to do additional work to figure out what will help up to move on, then build our own opportunities, then do the work of explaining why they evidence the requirements of our next role. Not only do we need to build this “crazy paving” for ourselves, but when we look at others who’ve managed to progress there often seems to be an element of luck involved.

The workshop was aimed at trying to put as much control back into the hands of the community I’m part of and to see what we could do together to support ourselves, each other and our professions as a whole. I was honest about the resources we have (no funding, no sign of this being addressed at a structural level) but also reminded them of the resources WE ARE. We make things happen, we get things done, we could probably arrange and deliver something like this for others, so we should be able to do SOMETHING for ourselves. It’s not our jobs, we have no budget, but I’m confident we have the initiative and creativity to make it happen anyway. 

Having set out the core idea of “laying the paving for ourselves” I started with an idea from a book you’ve probably heard of but not read (kudos if you have read it…).  Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey is based on observations and conversations with leaders (I suspect predominantly white men). It starts with the Habit of Being Proactive and sets this out as a “Circle of Influence”. If you react positively to your environment and circumstances and take the actions that you can for a positive outcome, this builds your influence and capital with others. But if you react negatively and put all your energy into complaining about things you can’t control without offering any solutions or ideas, your influence will shrink. I had this happen to me in the workshop – several people came up to me saying “I think I could do this; I think so-and-so might help us; I want to help” but I also had a “I’m too busy, I’m too overloaded with work; this is all very nice but I don’t have time to do it”. All valid, but what am I supposed to do with that? And am I MORE or LESS likely to respond positively to that person in future?

 

When this happens I’m reminded of this rather glorious character. Don’t be a Colin Robinson. (Unless that’s actually your name, in which case I’m sure you spark joy in all those around you.)

 

So with the premise set that there’s lots we COULD do and we just need to start doing it, what’s next? We talked about having another workshop and which topics we’d like to cover next. There were various suggestions – the lack of a defined pathway prompted a call for a workshop on working out what might be ahead – how to work out what “I want to be here” looks like for you. We talked about posting opportunities to shadow or visit each other to learn more about different roles. We talked about building self awareness using various tools so you can learn how to play to your strengths and how to adapt to address your weaknesses. Some people committed to talking more about the value they add and being advocates for the value of others. I also created a slide template before the workshop that people had the option to complete so we start to build our own Rolodex. Mine is below. Yes that is an old photo. No I won’t be replacing it with a new one.

 

 

 

I hope that I’m back here soon talking about our second event. That someone right now is thinking about booking a room, building a mailing list, looking for someone to lead on a topic. Because I know this community can do it for others. I just hope that we realise that we deserve to do it for ourselves. 

 

PS This is the first post on my new blog! I’ve sat on this for months working out what to write about so please steer me if there’s something you think I could contribute here. And I want this to be a platform for others so if you’d like a place to post your thoughts about leadership in broader terms, get in touch. 

 

May 22, 2025