Identifying Key Skills
Today I worked with a client looking to move up a rung on the career ladder to the role of Senior Motion Graphics for the video production company he worked for. They needed a manager who was able to over see the animation production at the company. It became clear this was a role that my client wanted to win.
Having established his goal, I asked him to write on pieces of card all the qualities that role required. I then invited him to start organising them. It became clear to me that he believed that this manager would need to be someone highly skilled as an animator, so his intended path to this role involved building up his creative skills
From my experience, I knew the role did not necessarily need animation skills. It’s more about managing the animators in the team, so the role needed more time and people management skills. Rather than explain this directly as feedback, I challenged him to whittle down the cards on the table in front of us to the essential skills. As we went through the cards, he gradually left the animation-based ones behind and started to identify more of the time/people skills he needed.
By the end, he had a list of the key skills he needed to learn, and had a better concept of what the role of the manager needed, and how he could achieve them.
There was a new clarity of purpose to his new career development roadmap, and he was far more likely to win the role than before.
