This document summarizes a career development seminar focused on developing a personal value proposition. It discusses how constant change requires leaders to think differently in order to be effective. Research presented finds future leaders will need skills like adaptability, self-awareness, and strategic thinking. Attendees are guided to reflect on where they are in the career decision process using a buying cycle model. The seminar helps attendees understand how to manage their professional development and create a personal value proposition in order to provide value to their employer or career.

1. Career Evolution seminar

2. ©Grafton 2012
Lets face it
There is
absolutely no
point……..

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Lets face it
There is absolutely no
point……..
Doing professional development
anywhere, unless you are clear on your
personal value proposition!

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Focus tonight
1. Managing your professional
development
2. Creating your personal value
proposition
3. How business education supports
your employer or your CV

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Changes over time / Why bother?
Given change is now the constant for businesses…. based on
your own experience,
1. What are the implications for organisations such as
yours?
2. What are the consequences of this for leaders at the
exec or C level and GM / middle management level?
3. What do leaders and managers need to be thinking,
doing and saying differently as a result? (To be effective
within this context?)

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What the research says
FUTURE FOCUS
The “what” and “how” of development
Horizontal and vertical development
Each person owns development
Collective leadership is spread throughout the
network
Based on the white paper “Future Trends in Leadership Development”, created by Nick
Petrie of the Centre for Creative Leadership as an output of 1 year of study at Harvard
Business School.
It involved:
30 leadership experts from across academic, military, business were consulted,
alongside the Harvard academic faculty. This was supplemented by more significant
research projects undertaken by IBM with 1,500 CEOs etc.

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Current state – Perpetual ‘whitewater’
GFC: The most recent global recession, which began in December
2007, has contributed to an environment that many interviewees
believe is fundamentally different from that of 10 years ago.
Backed up by an IBM study of over 1,500 CEOs….
These CEOs identified their number one concern as the growing
complexity of their environments, with the majority of those CEOs
saying that their organizations are not equipped to cope with this
complexity.

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Challenges for future leaders
In addition to the above, the most common factors cited by
interviewees as challenges for future leaders were:
• Information overload
• The interconnectedness of systems and business communities
• The dissolving of traditional organizational boundaries
• New technologies that disrupt old work practices
• The different values and expectations of new generations entering
the workplace
• Increased globalization leading to the need to lead across cultures

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More complex thinkers are needed
Reflecting the changes in the environment, the
competencies that will be most valuable to the future
leader appear to be changing. The most common skills,
abilities and attributes cited by interviewees were:
• Adaptability
• Self-awareness
• Boundary spanning
• Collaboration
• Network thinking

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The literature also supports this
The need for future leaders to develop complex “thinking” abilities
These manifest as adaptive competencies such as
• Learning agility
• Self-awareness (EQ)
• Comfort with ambiguity
• Strategic thinking
Combine these with the importance of ownership of our own
careers and self driven learning and you are in the right place this
evening!!

11. ©Grafton 2012
Grafton’s experience of career
coaching across industries with
Auckland leaders and executives

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Changes over time / Why bother?
Assuming Auckland Business School delivers to the needs that….
1. You have identified from your own experience as key for leaders
2. That Gerard has also heard first hand from coaching execs and leaders
3. Have been highlighted by the research as being critical for current and
future leaders
……what difference could doing some professional development such as
an MBA programme or post graduate diploma make to
1. You personally in your career?
2. Your team?
3. Your BU or organisation?
Consider both short term (1 to 2 years) and longer term (5 to 10 years)

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The Buying Cycle - Huthwaite
Huthwaite was originally a behavioural research company, before moving
into sales transformation. Their original ground breaking research in the
early 1970’s into high performance behaviours of B2B sales people covered
30,000 observed sales meetings, across industries, across the world. This
has since grown to 60,000 observed sales calls.
The top 1 to 2% of high performing sales people sell aligned to the way
customers buy. A key tool developed from their research was the sales
funnel, which then became The Buying Cycle. For large scale or complex
purchases this is the process that buyers go through in engaging suppliers
or products or services.
I provided a basic outline to The Buying Cycle – see next slide, and used my
own example of buying a car to demonstrate the process steps buyers go
through.

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The Buying Cycle – Huthwaite
In red – summary of the appropriate sales approach at each stage
EXAMINE
DIAGNOSE
DIFFERENTIATE
MINIMISE RISK
DELIVER

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Where are you at? Pair share.
Based on your understanding of The Buying
Cycle…..
1. Where are you at in the buying cycle regarding
the decision to invest in further career
enhancing professional development?
2. What do they need to think about now or
questions do you need answered to be able to
move onto the next stage of the cycle?
3. What actions will you take to get the input you
need?

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Improving you personal value
proposition requires different ‘thinking’
Doing Difference
Transactional Transforming
From To
From To

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Thinking differently…
“Greatness and near-sightedness are incompatible.
Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's
sights and pushing toward the horizon.”
― Daniel H. Pink,
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us

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Describe a time you had a strong strategic view
of the future direction of the business and how
you sold others the bigger picture and made
this view a reality?
From The Buying Cycle, continuing the CAR analogy….
Context, challenge, risk and opportunity
Actions, what was your role, how did you
undertake this?
Results, outcomes, what difference did you
make?

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Focus tonight – how we covered it
1. Managing your professional development –
Why bother? This network, your experience, the
research, our experience executive and career
coaching, Auckland Uni Business School & The Buying
Cycle
2. Creating your personal value proposition – Buying
cycle, needs, value proposition, do to transform & CAR
– focus on the difference you make
3. How business education supports your employer or
your CV – WIIFM & your organisation + your value
proposition.