Summary: The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

Review and Analysis of Citrin and Smith's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9782511016480
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Carreras

The must-read summary of James Citrin and Richard Smith's book: `The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers: The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction`.

This complete summary of the ideas from James Citrin and Richard Smith's book `The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers` reveals the results of a study on over 1.2 million successful people. In their book, the authors identify 5 key patterns that can be seen in the majority of successful people and they analyse each of them in turn, explaining how you can adopt them into your own life. This summary is a must-read for anyone who wants to climb to the top of the corporate ladder.

Added-value of this summary:
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To learn more, read `The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers` and discover the true keys to success.

Summary of The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers (James Citrin & Richard Smith)

Pattern #1: Understand how value is created in the workplace – and get into action

People with extraordinary careers understand in great detail how value is created in the marketplace in which they work. They then translate this knowledge into action by finding concrete ways to add more value to their organization in each phase of their careers.

Careers, like many other aspects of life, are often governed by subtle yet fear reaching factors. As you learn to understand the underlying dynamics better, you can make better decisions which will move you in the desired direction. One of these key dynamics is your career will always be closely linked to the amount of value you create in the marketplace. Simply put, to advance your career, learn how to create more value and then do precisely that. The more you understand and apply this principle, the better positioned you are to align with it.

Your own personal worth in the marketplace for talent will depend on four key macro factors:

1. Demographics – the general level of supply and demand for your professional talents and competencies.
2. Market liquidity – how many people with comparable talents to you are currently seeking positions versus the number of positions open to them.
3. Company volatility – the rises and falls in the market value of the company which employs you.
4. Intellectual capital – how the financial markets value intangible assets by comparison with the value assigned to hard assets.

By continually tracking these factors, you will gain insights in how to go about increasing your personal market value. Most people start their careers with loads of potential value and then gradually increase their experiential value as they gain experience and know-how. The more experiential value you can gain, the greater the momentum your career will have and the more options you will have open up.

In the business world, experiential value is usually more highly compensated than potential value mainly because experience is easier to quantify. However, your worth in the marketplace will not only reflect your present experiential value but will also factor in your potential value as well. The true metric by which career progress should be measured is the way in which you manage to turn your potential value into valuable experiences which in turn generates additional potential value which can be capitalized in the future. The faster you can get this cycle working, the more you’ll be worth.

All careers tend to go through three distinct phases:

1. The promise phase – where your perceived market value is weighted heavily in favor of your potential. This phase generally occurs at the completion of your formal education until sometime in your early thirties. During this phase, who you choose to work for and the variety of experiences you are exposed to can have a significant impact on the trajectory of your future career. If you can succeed in starting to build your experiential value well during this phase, it will have a compounding effect on the results of your entire career. Similarly, the more experiences you are exposed to early on, the easier it becomes to know your passions and strengths.
2. The momentum phase – where the bulk of your market value comes from your experience in different situations and the skills you have acquired. In this phase, you start to take careful control over the direction your career is moving. You stop dabbling and focus more intensively on the areas where you can excel. Typically, you will have many options available to you in this phase (within your own organization and with others) because of your high visibility. To keep moving forward, you have to migrate to positions that are aligned with your strengths and passions.
3. The harvest phase – where once again the bulk of your market value comes from your potential value rather than your experiential value. In this phase, the number of options can be vast – other companies to run, other boards to join, speaking engagements to make, books to write, etc. During the harvest phase, a successful executive can secure some important roles and responsibilities. As executives take on new challenges, there is a cross-border transfer of know-how which frequently transcends traditional industry boundaries.

Although the marketplace for talent can seem confusing and complex, at the end of the day it really does operate just like any other market – values vary according to supply and demand. The key challenges are:

1. To position yourself advantageously with a strong firm.
2. To take control of your own career development trajectory.
3. To be proactive in steering your career in the right direction.
4. To understand how value is created.

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