The career advice every strategist should be paying attention to
Our latest Salmon Crew event was with career coach and former head of strategy Dana Stevens. Here’s the recap of what you need to know.
Dire agency economics
Agency economics are not even stagnant. They seem to be non-existent. The industry is experiencing a forced reset, rather than returning to past business models. The great smoosh affects us all.
The value of outsiders
Dana started as a radio producer at the BBC, before moving into online and social media, and then to agencies like Naked and VCCP. Starting outside classical strategy ways of thinking initially felt like a deficit but ultimately became a major professional strength.
Don’t just zoom out, zoom in
Strategists constantly zoom out and solve complex problems for brands, while neglecting to apply the same strategic rigour to their own careers. We need to get better at zooming in. Writing a concise, one-page career brief is a practical starting point. Think of yourself as your own best client, without overthinking or creating roadblocks.
Start with the problem to solve
A career brief starts with identifying what’s not working in your career. This could be lack of money, flexibility, intellectual growth, health, recognition, or autonomy. Your personal needs may change over time. Then, evaluate what are the barriers standing in the way. This could be skills gaps, self-doubt, lack of understanding of promotion processes, or fear of rejection. Get precise about this before moving on.
Know the audience you want to shift
Often the target audience is yourself. This happens when it’s your own mindset and perspective that must change first. For example, you may be subconsciously afraid to establish personal boundaries, so you don’t do it, so you don’t get personal boundaries. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once you know this, you have a starting point for your career strategy.
Identify success markers
Know what a version of success looks like. Be precise, and be a bit weird even. They only need to make sense to you. It could be that you want to be able to take your kids to school. Or make it to dinner time. Or wanting a four-day week to practise a hobby on the fifth day. My personal marker of success: going to the cinema on weekdays. What you don’t want is to feel you need to chase standard industry expectations, or emulate your colleagues’ definitions of success.
Be your own creative director
With your problem, strategy and success markers, you can now explore what a creative solution might look like. Explore multiple paths before mapping out concrete steps and taking action. This is where specialist groups can help, or meeting with peers, or indeed finding a collective of people wrestling with the same questions as you are. What you want is to maintain intention and clarity, and avoid distractions.
Where coaches can help
Just as brands hire external agencies to overcome internal blind spots and narratives, career coaches help professionals spot behavioural patterns, hold them to their briefs, and provide practical skills for interviews and career navigation. This is where Dana specialises.
How to get practical
You can have a strategy and not action it. Inaction is typically driven by fear and mindset barriers, rather than a lack of knowledge. Analyse those barriers, and use mindset techniques to reach a constructive baseline to work with, rather than relying on false positivity.
Get ahead of burnout
Short-term tiredness is different from clinical burnout. Burnout builds over months or years of chronic stress, cannot be cured by a simple weekend of sleep, and often manifests as emotional numbness, cynicism, and decreased motivation. It’s when your body shuts down because a fuse blew, and it takes more than a nap to bring it back.
Urgencies are often self-imposed
Constant availability and presenteeism are not the same as being hardworking. Efficiency and creativity actually improve with adequate rest and boundaries. Urgencies are often self-imposed, and you’d be surprised how often people accept boundaries if you do ask for them.
Boundaries are not a discussion
Personal boundaries must be treated as non-negotiable, and communicated with conviction rather than treated as open-ended discussions. Letting go of ego and the need to attend every meeting is essential for preventing burnout and resentment. The more you can practise stating firm limits without over-justification, the better you get at it. It’s like doing exercise at the gym, the value is in the repetition.
Salary negotiations as business decisions
Don’t think of salary negotiations as you asking for things, but as objective business decisions. Document your growth, achievements, and required up-levelling as justification for what you think you deserve. Assume negotiation will happen, but put the onus back on management or finance. State your figure, then ask: “how can we make this work”.
Know when to leave a career
Think about whether the work aligns with personal life chapters and values. If tweaking boundaries or seeking promotions does not resolve a fundamental mismatch, then that’s a signal that you need a change.
“Generalist” is not a useful word
Your career might have led you to a series of experiences that label you a “generalist”, but actually what you have is a series of specialisms all smooshed together. We should reframe generalism as adaptable expertise, and tailor what we lead with depending on the audience. When agencies pitch to a client, they tailor their lead pitch message based on the client’s requirement, even if they then might add that they also do a variety of other things. Your career is exactly the same.
Go deeper underground
Hope this gives you a few starting points to think more strategically about your career. If you want to meet others wrestling with similar questions, join the Salmon Crew. If you want to go deeper on your own career journey, schedule a call with Dana Stevens (Salmon Crew members get 10% off!). Thanks, Dana for the wisdom. As always.
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Written by Rob Estreitinho, a comms and social strategy consultant and the founder of Salmon Labs. You might also enjoy getting my newsletter. 6,000 readers at a 60% open rate, read by agency and in-house strategy leaders from all five continents. Subscribe below.
