Welcome to Career Clarity!
Watch the short walkthrough video 👆 or read the instructions below 👇
What really matters most in your career?
This 45-minute exercise is meant to give you space and process to discover what really matters to you at work.
It’s most effective as a guided conversation, so we strongly recommend inviting a trusted teammate, manager, friend, or family member to participate.
Let’s get groovin’…
Let’s talk about what matters most in your career 👉
This deck contains 50 cards, each with a different career driver on them. These have been tested with hundreds of people and provide a solid framework for thinking about a broad set of values and motivators.
The three-part exercise will help you prioritize and talk about your top 5 drivers.
After this, the Career Roadmap will help you identify steps you can take to better align your career with what matters most to you.
1. Select Your Drivers
(If you’re sorting the cards)
1. Separate your deck of cards into the five color categories.
2. Take one category (10 cards) and lay the cards out in front of you. Select the 3 that represent what matters most in your career right now. Set those cards (your Drivers) aside into a new pile and discard the rest.
3. Repeat this process for the remaining 4 categories, gathering all your chosen cards into your Drivers pile.
Tip: It can help to talk out loud while you do this. Your partner’s job is to listen and help you reflect.
(If you’re the conversation partner)
Your job is to help the card sorter to reflect. People often think they are coaching when they are actually giving advice.
During this part of the exercise watch what they choose and say “tell me more about that word” if they seem stuck.
A few simple reminders:
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Listen more than you talk
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Reserve judgement—they may not be as far in career as you
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You don’t have to have all of the answers (in fact it’s best if you don’t)
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Don’t be afraid to ask questions, but make sure to Listen
2. Narrow to your Top 5
(If you’re sorting the cards)
1. Shuffle your Drivers Pile. Draw five cards and spread them out out face-up in front of you.
2. Draw the next card from your Drivers Pile and compare it to your five face-up cards. Decide whether to swap it with one of the first five drivers or discard it.
You can also stack Drivers that mean something similar to you, placing the most accurate word on top.
3. Repeat for the rest of the Drivers pile until you’ve narrowed to your top 5.
(If you’re the conversation partner)
Continue to listen, as you did in the previous step.
Be genuinely curious as they choose different words.
Remember, the golden question is “Tell me more …”
3. How are these going?
(If you’re sorting the cards)
1. Place the “Needs Met” card above your drivers and the “Needs Not Met” card below your drivers.
2. Move each driver card up or down to indicate how much you feel your needs are being met with each right now.
(If you’re the conversation partner)
As they finished placing their cards, now we’re ready for a conversation about the past, future, and present.
Past • Future • Present
Two questions for each part of the framework serve as the core of the conversation:
Past
- Tell me a story about why this driver is important in your career.
- What has (or hasn’t) been fulfilling about that?
Future
- What future career opportunities would help you feel engaged, challenged, and loving life?
- What details about future options are most appealing to you? (size of company, industry, role, etc.)
Present
- What action could we take immediately to help you make progress towards your desired future?
- How could we increase your fulfillment today?
Note: After designing the exercise we found this article that perfectly aligned on approach and led to a 10-point engagement lift at Google.
What Next?
Check out the Career Roadmap Guide for a step-by-step approach to turn these insights into action.
That guide is a proven process for remembering what matters to you and deciding how to move forward with career experiments.
Other Tips
What does this word mean?
“Does leadership means how I feel about company leadership? Or how I like to lead?”
It’s common to wonder what definition is “best” for some words.
Defining what the words mean to you is an important part of this exercise. They can mean lots of things to lots of people. This is about what you think. Feel free to define words based on what matters to you. Share these insights with your conversation partner.
What if I’m not comfortable sharing some things with my partner?
Some companies may not have a fully safe culture to share dreams beyond working for them. While that’s sad, we encourage you to share what you feel comfortable sharing. This is one reason it can be fruitful to run through the exercise multiple times with different people (manager, friend, spouse).