The 5-Step Career Turnaround

Everybody I know - myself included - has hit at least one snag in their career. After all, nobody's life, business, or career goes straight up and to the right. You may think you're on the right path, then something changes and you're suddenly thrown off course.

A couple of weeks ago a good friend - a senior-level manager at a big company - found out he's getting laid off after 20 years there. Time for a new plan.

The last four jobs another senior executive friend has taken have been with companies that, for whatever reason, get acquired a year or two later. Poof, he's back on the street again. He's getting on in years; can't keep doing that forever.

But you know what? Highly accomplished professionals take their careers very personally. People who pride themselves on their ability to grow businesses and companies sometimes have a hard time seeking advice from others when it comes to their own careers.

Unfortunately, successful career change requires a certain level of objectivity that most people simply aren't equipped with. After all, we're only human and we inevitably see ourselves through a subjective prism.

Look at it this way: would you attempt a corporate turnaround or restructuring without an objective analysis of the situation or without getting input and feedback from a variety of sources - board of directors, employees, customers, analysts? Of course not. Well, the same goes for your career.

In fact, thinking of career change as a sort of turnaround or at least a strategic planning process is absolutely the way to go. Think about it; the methodology works:

The 5-Step Career Turnaround

1. Assess your situation. SWOT analysis works particularly well here. It's also critical that you discover your risk profile and what you really want to do, going forward. Get external input from trusted sources.
2. Determine your value proposition (what uniquely sets you apart from the competition). Contrast that with your risk profile and goals. Make sure what you want to do is reasonably doable and not a pipe dream.
3. Develop your plan. How you're going to go about achieving your goals. If you're changing careers or targeting a big step up, there will likely be interim stages and goals.
4. Restructure financials, as necessary. Most turnarounds require a restructuring - it wouldn't be a turnaround if something hasn't gone wrong. The same goes for you and your career, i.e. you may need to cut expenses to weather the transition.
5. Execute. All the best laid plans fail without solid execution.

• Be brutally honest
• Always seek external perspective
• Remember there are no absolutes - everything is relative to your competition
• A multistep, iterative process is more effective than an all-or-nothing, swing for the fences one
• As legendary oil man and entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens says, "A fool with a plan is better than a genius with no plan." He also says not to analyze things to death. Come up with a plan and act. Smart guy.