Career Speedrun - MAC109
Managing A Career
Welcome back to Managing A Career, the podcast that helps you put yourself on the fast track for promotion. I’m your host, Layne Robinson. Today’s episode is all about a concept I’m calling the Career Speedrun. If you’re into gaming, you probably know what a speedrun is: it’s when players try to beat an entire game as fast as possible, skipping unnecessary parts, using shortcuts, and optimizing every move. Now, when it comes to your career, you can’t literally warp-jump from your first job straight to the corner office—but you can learn to recognize what slows...
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Early Promotion to Career Success - MAC108
Managing A Career
Reframing the Premature Promotion Back in , I tackled the tricky terrain of getting promoted too soon—when the title lands before the readiness does. That episode unpacked the complications that can follow a premature promotion: skill gaps, team tension, imposter syndrome, and even layoff risk. This week, I’m flipping the script. Instead of focusing on the pitfalls, let’s talk about how to turn that early promotion into a strategic advantage. Because if you play it right, what starts as a stumble can become your fastest leap forward. The Risks Beneath the Ribbon-Cutting ...
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Career Stagnation - MAC107
Managing A Career
Has your career quietly veered off course—not with a dramatic crash, but with a slow, almost imperceptible drift? One missed opportunity. One unchallenging role. One “maybe next year” that turned into five. Then one day, you look up and realize you’re nowhere near where you thought you’d be. Here’s the good news: every detour has a reentry point. You won’t fix it overnight, but you can start with one small, intentional correction. And that shift—however minor—is how momentum begins. How Did We Get Here? Before we talk solutions, let’s rewind. Career drift...
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Non-Verbal Communication - MAC106
Managing A Career
In last week’s podcast episode of the podcast, Episode 105 – Communication Etiquette (), I talked about how seemingly small, everyday actions can shape how others perceive you at work. While these habits may not directly earn you a promotion, they quietly build your reputation with the very people who influence those decisions. This week, I want to take that conversation further by focusing on something even more subtle but just as powerful: non-verbal communication cues. Why Non-Verbal Communication Matters Whether you’re in a casual hallway conversation, presenting in a...
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Communication Etiquette - MAC105
Managing A Career
On other episodes of the Managing A Career podcast, I tend to focus on the big-picture strategies that can propel your career forward—things like building influence, earning visibility, and positioning yourself for future opportunities. But advancement isn’t just about the major moves. Sometimes, it’s the subtle, everyday actions that shape how others perceive you. This week, I want to zoom in on one of those seemingly small details that won’t directly earn you a promotion, but will absolutely impact the impression you leave on colleagues, managers, and executives: communication...
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A Seat At The Table - MAC104
Managing A Career
You Need to Be in the Room Where It Happens — But How? You’ve heard the phrase before: “You need to be in the room where decisions happen.” It sounds powerful—exclusive even—but no one ever hands you the playbook for getting in that room. Working hard isn’t enough. Being the best at your job isn’t enough. The truth is, opportunities to sit at the table where decisions are made don’t simply appear—they’re earned, often through deliberate actions, strategic visibility, and building the right kind of influence. So the real question becomes: how do you earn that seat at the...
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What Are You Prioritizing? - MAC103
Managing A Career
What You Prioritize Is What You Grow In your career—just like in life—whatever you prioritize is what takes root, grows, and ultimately defines your trajectory. Whether you’re intentional about it or not, your attention acts like sunlight and water: it nourishes certain parts of your professional life while leaving others to wither. Even worse is when you don’t make a conscious choice at all—when your career just “happens to you.” That passive approach can lead to years of drifting, missed opportunities, and invisible ceilings. So take a moment to reflect: what are you truly...
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Creating a Career Vision When You Don't Know What's Possible - MAC102
Managing A Career
We've recently gone through a reorganization at my job, and with that change, I now have several new team members reporting to me. In my one-on-one meetings, I like to focus on more than just status updates—I emphasize career development. One of the tools I’ve consistently found to be effective is the Individual Development Plan, or IDP. If you’ve been following this podcast, you may remember Episode 37 () where I broke down the Vision and Roadmap section of the IDP. It’s a framework I believe in deeply. But here’s the thing: many of my new team members are struggling with...
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Leadership Isn't Assigned -- It's Taken - MAC101
Managing A Career
“Being a leader isn't an assignment that is given to you, but an assignment that you TAKE.” Let that sink in. Leadership isn’t about waiting for permission. It’s about stepping up when others step back. In today's episode of the Managing A Career podcast, we’re diving deep into what it really means to TAKE leadership. Anyone can be a leader—because leadership is a quality you demonstrate, not a job title you hold. Sure, some roles come with authority baked in, but real leaders don’t wait for the title. They lead because they choose to. If you have ambitions to advance...
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Grow Your Team, Grow Your Self - MAC100
Managing A Career
There’s a common misconception the corporate world: to get ahead, someone else has to fall behind. It’s the old zero-sum thinking — that career advancement is a competitive, cutthroat race. But today, I want to challenge that notion. Whether you're managing a team or just stepping into a leadership role, the truth is that investing in the growth of others doesn’t slow you down — it accelerates your own career trajectory. Helping others succeed is one of the most powerful, and often underestimated, ways to grow yourself. This zero-sum outlook is rooted in fear and...
info_outlineLast year, I covered the Individual Development Plan or IDP in a series of episodes.
In Episode 036 (https://www.managingacareer.com/36), I introduce the IDP and cover why it should be an important part of your career growth.
In Episode 037 (https://www.managingacareer.com/37) I describe the Vision and Roadmap sections of the IDP and how they represent the foundation for understanding where your career is headed.
Episode 038 (https://www.managingacareer.com/38) covers the Assessment and Next Role sections. These sections break down which skills you will need in order to advance and how you rank against them.
Episode 039 (https://www.managingacareer.com/39) shows you how to build an Action Plan for reaching your goals and to document your Successes as you build the skills you need.
And I wrapped up the series in Episode 040 (https://www.managingacareer.com/40) where I explained the process of how you can integrate your IDP into your career discussions with your leader.
If you're like most people, the last time you thought about career goals was last year during your annual planning sessions. But the purpose of the IDP is to help you take a high level career vision and break it down systematically ultimately into an action plan that you can make measurable progress against. Career advancement isn't something that happens instantaneously, but instead is the culmination of a series of purposeful steps. This week, I'd like to talk about how, by turning your Action Plan into daily habits, your career growth becomes almost automatic.
If you read books such as Atomic Habits by James Clear or The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, they break habits down into three main components.
- A cue or trigger - something that sets the habit in motion. An example might be the habit of brushing your teeth as part of your regular morning or nighttime routines -- the trigger being the time of day.
- A routine - this is the action that you want to become a habit.
- A reward - this is some sort of positive response that reinforces the routine action.
Your Action Plan should follow some sort of Goal framework. Episode 047 (https://www.managingacareer.com/47) lists several common frameworks such as OKR - Objectives and Key Results, Backwards Goals, and SMART goals.
If you take the example from Episode 039 of "Improve my presentation skills" which I turned into a SMART goal of "give a 30-minute presentation in front of an audience of at least 30 people", you can turn this into a series of daily habits that help you build the skill and confidence to deliver the presentation. With a goal of giving a 30-minute presentation, you could form a daily habit of creating a summary of every article that you read. The cue or trigger would be reading an article. The routine would be to write the summary. The reward could be anything that encourages you to perform the routine.
As you work to create these habits, there are some things that you can do to increase your likelihood of the behavior becoming a true habit. The first is that you can attach them to some of your existing habits. For example, as you drink your first cup of coffee, you could attach a habit of reading an article -- that you later summarize. If an existing habit is the trigger for the new habit, you are practicing "Habit Stacking".
The next thing you can do to increase the likelihood of forming a habit is to use some sort of system for tracking progress. This could be as simple as the process made popular by Jerry Seinfeld. Every time you complete the habit, mark the date on the calendar. See how long you can build the chain of consecutive days performing the routine. If you aren't a fan of that one, there are several habit tracking programs you can find in your phone's app store.
The third thing you can do to increase the chances of success is to keep the activity simple. If it takes more than just a few minutes to perform the routine, you're more likely to skip it when time is tight. Remove as many barriers as possible so that it's almost more convenient to perform the habit than it is to skip it.
As you start the process of breaking your Action Plan into daily habits, start with one. It can be overwhelming to try to start multiple habits, so focus on one habit at a time. Take advantage of some sort of reminder, whether that is built in to a tracking tool or posting sticky notes around your house. And if possible, find an accountability partner who will check in on your habit-forming progress.
The key is to find small, repeatable steps that build towards the defined goal in your Action Plan. By building these as daily habits you'll find that completing the goals gets easier. If you would like a copy of my free IDP template, reach out to me via the Contact Form (https://www.managingacareer.com/contact/) on the ManagingACareer.com website and I will send you one.