Many corporations create an HR policy that suggests it’s best to promote from within. Look at the existing talent and resources within your organization before your search to fill current or potential job openings takes you outside the company. It’s a good policy and it makes sound business sense on many levels.
Is it possible for us to mirror this policy for our own personal use?
Can we promote ourselves from within?
This new policy, if adopted, would require us to connect with our own innate talents before looking at external sources. Based on the fundamental premise that we ourselves have a broad range of experiences and strengths, this policy acknowledges and celebrates our uniqueness.
How often do we focus our attention on others and what they are accomplishing before we recognize our own gifts? Someone else has a new product, a new job promotion, a new fabulous website, etc. This type of external focus on others’ accomplishments rather than our own can have a paralyzing effect. With this perspective, it is easy to lose sight of where WE are successful and we can easily become disconnected from our own talent and strengths.
Certainly having a solid understanding of the competition is always important. We can’t build a business or career in a vacuum. However, the first step in a SWAT analysis is to look at your strengths.
Adopt an HR policy for yourself that says “Promote from Within”. Journal your accomplishments on a daily basis. Never lose sight of what you personally contribute and what your accomplishments say about you. Celebrate what makes you unique and capitalize on these qualities to promote yourself in an authentic way.
Promoting from within contributes to your self=confidence and self-esteem. Your internal connection with your talent gives you the solid foundation from which to build your business or career.
I particularly like the emphasis upon the utilisation of existing skill sets and the internally-influenced focus upon a woman’s achievements both individually and as part of a business. I very much identify with that.
I do wonder, however, how paralysing a wholly insular perspective may be; I understand that it is important to recognise inner accolades and to prioritise employment opportunities to exisiting employees. Though I think that, as with everything, there is a delicate balance to be struck. As highlighted in this post, sole focus on external campaigns, successes, failures seeks to result in a loss of appreciation for the implemtation of our own skill sets, but a perspective that is too insular fails to consider externally influenced components of a market (such as in SWOT). In addition, neglecting external skill sets alienates potentially fresh and invigorating approaches to a company and doesn’t project the image of your company as a contender, bravely forward-facing the current economic climate.
I wonder how best to implement the internal strategies discussed in this post with a view of the factors outwith a company’s control? Is there room for any middle ground – and if so, how do you sensibly balance the application of internal and external focus?