SK: Your advice to young associates?
DF: In a published article I wrote for MBA students “Bridging the Gap between Business School and Business World,” I introduced the bridge building analogy by breaking the corporate career into 3 building phases. I share it with my mentees as well because I feel it’s relevant.
Stage one: Engineer your bridge.
Envision and create a clear blueprint stamped with your personal passion and vision. In this stage, you identify and reflect on what you stand for, what your values are, what matters most to you, and then select the right employer that aligns with your values and offers you an environment to bloom.
Stage two: Build your bridge.
Now that you have your blueprint in mind, you are prepared to start construction. The right tools and resources will help you establish not only your place in the company, but also a voice that will be heard and respected from day one. It includes finding valued mentors, building a network, establishing a strong personal brand and becoming a subject matter expert - an anchor for your future career.
Stage three: Cross your bridge.
Management is not as much a science as an art. Artistry triggers insight and vision based on intuition. By crossing the bridge to the career, you try to maintain the balance between science and art. At this stage, you strive to be indispensable. Continuous dissatisfaction with the status quo is the best way to keep growing.
To become indispensable, you must think creatively and deliberately sharpen your judgment and decision-making skills to achieve innovative breakthroughs.
To be successful in today’s business world you need to simultaneously lead and manage - know where you want to go (vision), what is most important (value), how you will get there (strategy), what success looks like (measurement), and then carry out the shared purpose with your team (execution).
SK: Any final words for PERREAULT readers who discovered you now?
DF: Mathew E. May, author of the book “In Pursuing Elegance,” defines elegance as something that is simultaneously simple but surprisingly powerful. Sometimes simplicity isn’t about what’s there, but what’s not. It depends on our capability to connect the dots and make invisible visible.
That is one of the qualities of futuristic leaders - drive for elegance by focusing efforts and resources only on those compelling and impactful things that are closely aligned with challenges and opportunities on the horizon for best future outcomes.
ENGINEER + BUILD + CROSS
YOUR BRIDGE
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