An important aspect of career advancement is the establishment of a diverse developmental network which is defined as “a set of relationships an individual has with people who take an active interest in and action to advance the individual’s career by assisting with his or her personal and professional development.” -Higgins & Thomas, Constellations and Careers.

Accordingly, the best developmental networks are diverse across three dimensions:

1. Functional (e.g. policy, finance, operations; marketing, HR, R&D)
2. Positional (e.g. hierarchy – senior, peer, junior)
3. Demographical (e.g. race/ethnicity, gender, generation, geographic region)

Three Roles You Want Present in Your Network:

• Mentor: A trusted person in the organization or industry, often at a more senior level, with whom you can get advice, gain perspective, get connected to others, access information and learn from the experiences of the mentor.
• Coach: An individual who provides support for self awareness, personal development and accountability to achieving goals. Coaches support you to develop ideas and discover answers about yourself and your work. Good mentors are often good coaches too
• Sponsor:  Sponsors help you connect to influential people. Sponsors advocate on your behalf for recognition, funding, promotions and career opportunities gaining support from prominent peers in the organization or industry. Sponsors are seen as critical to career advancement and business development 

Developmental networks are also referred to as a personal board of directors or advisors, a wisdom council, career constellation or a sanity circle. Whatever term you prefer, take the time to reflect on who is currently on your team. What roles are missing? How diverse are your members? Who would you like to invite onto your team? 

Please share your suggestions and experiences below. What name do you use for your developmental network?

On April 18th I ran the 115th Boston Marathon. I achieved my really big goal. However it didn’t turn out exactly as I anticipated. My finishing time was 4 hours 27 minutes – a full 30 minutes slower than my qualifying time!! And the weather conditions were perfect – 55 degrees and a strong tailwind. In fact, the men’s winner finished the race in 2 hours and 3 minutes!! The fastest time ever for a marathon. So while I achieved my really big goal, I have to admit that initially I was disappointed in my result. What happened?? I asked myself this question repeatedly for the rest of that day and much of the next.

And then I watched the video clip I took of finishing the marathon. (Yes I carried my Flip video camera and took some footage along the way.) Hearing the crowds again and seeing the finish line ahead as I ran down Boylston Street brought a rush of emotion. What a spectacular event! And I got to experience it. I ran the Boston Marathon.

Boston Marathon April 18, 2011 (click on this link to see my finishing video clip)

My time was slow and I didn’t re-qualify (yes, I did wonder that at the start line …I couldn’t help it…) and I am now content with my result. Figuring out what happened that caused me to run out of energy half way through doesn’t matter anymore. Sometimes we can get so focused on the end result (finishing time) that we miss the journey along the way. I’m so glad I took my little video camera with me because I will be able to always remember what it was like to run the Boston Marathon – the first time!

I’m running the Boston Marathon on April 18th for the first time. I’m very excited. It’s been a really big goal for me since my first marathon in 1995. Since then I have run 15 more marathons in my effort to qualify to run Boston. For those of you not in the running community, Boston is the premiere marathon. Every marathoner I know wants to run Boston. To do so you must qualify by running a previous marathon within a certain time depending on your age and gender. The question for most people at the beginning of each marathon is “will I qualify this time?”

So here I am – less than 3 weeks from achieving my really big goal. How did I get here?  More »

With the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day taking place on Tuesday this week there have been lots of articles, stories and videos about women – our successes and accomplishments over the years as well as the many challenges and barriers still ahead. For as much as we can measure our progress we still have a long road before us. I sit here wondering what exactly does all this mean? What are we measuring and whose criteria are we measuring against? Do we celebrate or commiserate?

I attended a Women’s Day celebration hosted by the Women and Children’s Shelter of Barrie and Colibri: Centre des femmes francophones du comté de Simcoe. It was one of the most delightful evenings I have had in a long time. More »

When it comes to professional development, mentoring is a popular subject. Co-mentoring is about establishing mutually beneficial learning relationships among our colleagues and friends. Rather than look “up” in the organization or further “out” of our immediate network the way we typically do, we can also look at the people in our more immediate circle and become curious about what we can learn from each other. Co-mentorships add more diversity to our developmental network and that means more varied learning and growth.

Jone Rymer in her article “Only Connect” defines a co-mentorship as “a mutual mentorship of a pair of close, collegial friends committed to facilitating each other’s development.” More »

Today I finished 1^st in my age group in a 5k running race. Today I beat the woman who was holding 1^st place by 37 seconds. Today I got a red 1^st place ribbon – my first ever!! Today I am a winner!! Yay for me!!

And yay to all the other runners who were out there today from age 10  to 80+. They are all winners because they showed up and did their best.

The Snowflake running series is a regular winter event in the town of Orillia which is about a 90 minute drive north of Toronto. The series includes three 5k events and a 10k on New Year’s Day. To place in the series you have to complete all four races. Today I also got a medal for finishing 2^nd overall in my age group based on my combined times in the four races. A double winning day for me! That’s because I kept showing up. More »

Everything I’ve read or heard about having a blog says make sure to write regularly or else it’s better not to have one. If you want people to pay attention to your blog you have to provide something for them to pay attention to on a regular basis.

OK. That makes sense. I get it. And I notice that my last entry was 5 months ago. And the previous one, 3 months prior. Oops. That doesn’t seem very regular.

I could say I’ve been ‘busy’. That’s a very popular word these days. As everything speeds up, we are ‘busier’ and ‘busier’. In the ‘old days’ when we asked someone “how are you?” the answer was “fine”. We were never quite sure what “fine” meant however we would likely answer with the same response. Now, the ubiquitous answer is “busy”. More »