16 Ways To Advance Your Career

No employee should ever be satisfied with doing the same job for a long period of time. While finally getting the job of your dreams is a big step forward for your career, it should be just one part of the process. The next step is rising through the ranks of the organization.

While most people think the most important part of professional development is showing your boss you are capable of doing more, that is only half the battle. As Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller wrote in their book "Great Leaders GROW," the other half is expanding your horizons in the workplace. They came up with 16 steps to accomplish this:

• Shadow someone from another department or team.
• Work at a client’s facility for a day or longer.
• Listen in on donor calls.
• Travel with senior leaders from the organization.
• Serve on a cross-functional team.
• Begin collecting best practices from top performers.
• Interview recent retirees and seek their counsel on current issues.
• Attend the premier of a new program or the grand opening of a new office.
• Go back in the archives and watch presentations from the past decade.
• Meet with leaders from other departments to understand their issues.
• Have lunch with someone different every day until you run out of people, and then start over again.
• Travel to visit your must successful chapters.
• Find a mentor from another department.
• Ask others who best embody the nonprofit’s core values and spend most of your time with them.
• Attend open enrollment training events that will broaden your perspective.
• Lead anything you can, be it a project team, ad hoc group, work group, fundraising campaign, or any other event. Chances are good you’ll learn more by leading than anything else.