The earliest Balanced Scorecard comprised simple tables broken into four sections… these “perspectives” [domains] were labeled “Financial”, “Customer”, “Internal Business Processes”, and “Learning and Growth”. Designing the Balanced Scorecard required selecting five or six good measures for each perspective.”
A Leadership Career Balanced Scorecard is, in essence, a strategy map delineating four domains and the associated questions. Each domain also should have specified objectives, targets, measures, action items and results to be achieved based on the goals of the leadership career vision.
Many executives have told me a variation of the following excuse for not managing their career:
“I update my resume every couple of years and I get calls from recruiters every couple of months. I know that I am not adequately managing my career – but I can’t seem to find time – or I don’t make the time to network, or anything else remotely related to managing my career.”
How might this ‘laissez-faire’ approach impact career satisfaction?
If you don’t manage your career, you can’t assess how you are doing or even if you are doing the right things to up-level your career. When you have a strategy map that articulates your leadership career vision and you develop relevant domains and questions then specify objectives, targets, measures, action items — you are more likely to experience career satisfaction.
Here are some recent statistics that illustrates the trends in top leadership (executive level) satisfaction.
Executive Satisfaction:
* A recent Bluesteps Executive Satisfaction Survey found that “41% of [executive] respondents are dissatisfied in their current position.
* While many executives were concerned about job retention during the recession and were less likely to consider a career move, a tipping point has now been reached as the economy improves. 70% of survey respondents reported that they are now actively looking for new career opportunities, demonstrating a renewed interest in career progression and an increase in the opportunities available within the executive job market.
*The survey also asked respondents to rank the elements of a role that provide the most satisfaction (they were asked to select their top 3). A challenging role (78%) and adequate compensation (70%) were their top criteria, followed by the opportunity for career progression (45%). A good work life balance continues to be important to senior executives, with 37% rating this as an essential aspect. Interestingly, despite the scale of the recession and the effect this had had on executive satisfaction, only 15% of respondents rated job security as a crucial element of their job satisfaction.
* In an ExecuNet Survey, 93% of CEOs, presidents and top business executives reported they’re engaged in their current role, but only 75% said they’re actually satisfied with it. Also, roughly 7-in-10 other C-suite executives and others at the vice president, director and manager levels are likewise engaged in their day-to-day work, but only 5-in-10 said they feel a sense of overall job satisfaction.
Given these statistics, in order to achieve long-term career satisfaction, executives might want to rethink how they manage their careers and implement a balanced scorecard approach that requires a quarterly analysis of results achieved in the four domains.
Questions for you to consider:
1. How satisfied are you with the current state of your career?
2. What performance metrics have you established with which to guide your career attainment activities?
