Clients often come to me complaining about their deserved raise they did not get in their job. They lay before me all their accomplishments during their year of hard work, and some even monetize their contributions to their company by putting value and by tallying the revenues, profits, or the savings their company enjoyed as a result of their work. Then they stake their claim for a 3-5% raise that everyone else in their group got, but bemoan that they came out empty at the end of their review cycle.
When they ask for my advice on what they should do to get the raise they deserved, or to get at least what everyone else got in their groupthe proverbial 3% increaseheres my refrain in each case: They are barking up the WRONG tree! Instead of fighting for a puny raise why not explore an entirely different path to increasing their salary in multiples of their current income and put themselves on a path to a career moonshot. This is not just an admonition or an empty challenge, many have gone on to take such career moonshots and have achieved a quantum jump in their income with a career path that puts them on a very different track to boot. One such recent use case is at the end of this blog.
So, what are the approaches to taking such career moonshots? Here are some lessons I have learned from coaching my clients and by helping them take and succeed in such moonshots. The beauty of this approach is, unlike, going after a start-up, where you have to give up your day job, risk it all, and sacrifice your life, you can keep getting your paycheck as you pursue this moonshot.
1.The first step in planning for a career moonshot is to take the inventory of where things are for you and where the job market is if you re-invented yourself to re-define a job that can be and must be done differently. So, going after the job-boards and responding to open jobs in your own field is NOT going to give you that moonshot opportunity, but taking a stock of where you are in your field and where things can benefit from what you have to offer can. For this to work you must first learn how to package what you have differently.
2.Identifying companies that are aggressively going after a market already conquered by the incumbents and challenging the status quo is a good start to see how you want to target your job search. This search is not limited to just the technology companies, but also to any and all companies pursuing their own moonshots by challenging the incumbents in their own markets.
3.Approaching someone within such target companies, who can provide you opportunity and who can champion you internally is the next step in the process. Approaching such a person with a prospect letter and making a compelling case with careful research and insight will help get attention of such a person for an in-person meeting.
4.At this point your focus must be on their mission to conquer the market with the vision they have using the talent and ideas (used and unused so far) that you present to make that possible for them. If the focus is on your missionI want a lot of money NOW to make this workyou may kiss this opportunity good-bye.
5.Your initial engagement must be framed as a trial to show how what you have proposed will work and how it will change to course of their approach to get them to displace the incumbents and to claim the market that they are after, and then some.
6.In staging yourself to engage during a trial period your mission must be to show what you can do to make your idea practicable for them in their environment and how you would execute to succeed.
7.Your secret sauce must be a combination of idea, its implementation, and your ability to execute and deliver results. If you are merely showing them an idea and fail to execute then your trial will end without any further engagement, which is where your focus must be.
8.During this trial period you must develop keen insights into their operations and show them that without your leadership they will fail to accomplish the mission on their own.
9.During these discussions of your trial engagement you must accept what will mutually work for your compensation, with the caveat that once your meet your milestones this part of your engagement will be re-visited and re-negotiated (with a large up-side).
10.Once you are on track with your commitments and you are able to deliver what you promised and show the value of your efforts you must start negotiating your package that will re-define how you will be compensated for your ongoing work and what you will deliver in your continued engagement. At this point you are likely being made a full-time employee with specific responsibilities, duties, and outcomes.
To some, the above framework may read as theoretical with little practical use. Some may also assume that it applies only to very high-level professionals who bring rareeven unique skillsto their jobs that they are so pursuing. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In a recent case one such client was fed up with her situation at work where even a modicum of raise was denied despite her hard work and significant contributions. Going through the above process, which took about one year, as she kept her current job, to start engagement with the right company and another six months before she was made a full-time employee when the target company recognized her value through what she promised and then delivered, she was able to nearly triple her salary to earn a near seven-figure income. Not a bad outcome for someone who complained about not getting even a 3% raise, which prompted this moonshot.
So, if you are fed up with groveling for a 3% raise during your next review cycle, take a deeper look at yourself and see if you can take a leap and design your own career moonshot. It is easier than you think.
Good luck!
Note: The topic for this blog was inspired by an article by Astro Teller, Google-X Head, with the title: Moonshots: Why 10X is easier than 10%.
| About Author | |
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Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader. |
Website: http://dilipsaraf.com/?p=2679
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