Upwards and Onwards: The Career Breakthrough

Are you tired of waiting for the Powers that Be in your organisation to recognise the amazing work you?

Do you have enough of seen less skilled people to get promoted ahead of you?

Do you feel overworked and underappreciated?

That’s my story too and this is how I changed it.

My career promotion story

The idealized version of my career path is that I I started as a training scientist for a mid-size tech company and I’m now Global Director of Scientific Support and Customer Operations for a Fortune Future 50 tech corporation. Wow!

The real version is much less dreamy. To get where I am now, I changed departments twice. I was passed over promotion serveral times. I wasted precious time – specially at the beginning of my career – working extremelly hard and waiting for others to realise the great work I was doing.

Maybe, the most interesting fact is that in spite of being a person that spent so many years in the university learning how to do things – I have a Chem. Eng. B.Sc, M.Sc., Ph.D. as well as a post-doc – I simply assumed I knew how to get promoted, even if nobody had taught me how to do it!

What could I have done better?

Life is not a movie or Instagram, so we should expect challenges a long the way.

Still, the major problem was that I assumed I had to figure it all out by myself. Or at most, with the advice of one or two friends or peers that wanted to help me out but didn’t have more direct experience than I had.

Through the years, I discovered that whilst I confronted my share of bias in my career, I had also internalised a long list of limiting beliefs. Uncovering them and putting a plan to neutralise them took coaching, mentoring, sponsoring and, above all, time and effort towards understanding how showcase my strenghts and value to the business.

In addition to progress faster in my career, by knowing what to expect, I could have enjoyed more the ride and felt less frustrated.

How can you go faster and make it easier?

I know that for me it wasn’t enough to discover the career promotion myths or how to counter them. It has taken mentoring, coaching, learning about behavioural science, my experience as a manager for 15+ years, and very time-consuming trial and error experiments.

I wish my past self could have learned from my present self how to get the next promotion.

That’s why I’ve created the 3-month Career Promotion Breakthrough Program so you claim your power back and thrive in your career in 2023.

In this program, you and I roll up our sleves and examine where are you in your career, what’s the promotion you are aiming for, and how that fits in the lifestyle you want for yourself. Then, identify the gaps, create a plan, and implement it.

Smiling Asian businesswoman working at women and making a video call. — Photo by Ketut Subiyanto.

The Career Promotion Breakthrough Program

In this program, you will

Assess your current career status.
Get clarity on your career goals and your next career move.
Examine your limiting beliefs, understand how they impact your career progression, and how you can overcome them.
Learn to befriend uncertainty to embrace new challenges.
Understand how to build your professional and personal support ecosystem.
Gain awareness about your negotiation comfort zone and enrich it with complementary approaches to enhance your career prospects.
Experiment with powerful communication styles that are aligned with your strengths and values and resonate with your interlocutors.
Reframe office politics as a tool to help you get things done, build relationships, and access opportunities.
Build the habit of lifting others as you climb.
Embrace self-coaching as a tool to build resilience.

Through our 1:1 work, you’ll gain interpersonal skills and learn tools that will strengthen professional career.

Results people have got when working with me

An internal promotion.
A job in another organisation more aligned with their career goals.
A more senior job in another organisation.
Applied for an internal promotion and received detailed feedback on the skills and experiences needed to get the promotion next time around.

In 2023, I helped 50 women and people from underrepresented groups to get a promotion this year, will you be the next?

What if you’re just starting a new role?

Getting promoted is a process. The earlier you start putting in place a strategy and acting on it, the higher the chances of success once you’re ready to get that promotion.

Wha’ts the scientific evidence that this coaching approach works?

Yes!

As somebody with an engineering, master, and Ph.D. degree, in addition to my years coaching individuals in my role as manager, it was important to get a certification that accredited me. Not only for the “title” but because I wanted to add further skills to my toolkit and get supervision.

Also because of my academic background, I’m keen on scientific evidence that proves the methods I use.

That’s the reason I was delighted to learn recently that the methodology I was certified on has been backed up by two peer-reviewed articles published in 2022 and 2023

“Effect of a Novel Online Group-Coaching Program to Reduce Burnout in Female Resident Physicians A Randomized Clinical Trial” JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(5):e2210752.

Findings: In this pilot randomized clinical trial of 101 female resident physicians, participants who were randomly assigned to a 6-month group coaching program and a follow-up survey had a statistically significant reduction in emotional exhaustion and self-doubt, and an increase in self-compassion.

“Online Well-Being Group Coaching Program for Women Physician Trainees A Randomized Clinical Trial” JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(10):e2335541.

Findings: In this randomized clinical trial of 1,017 women trainee physicians, participants randomly assigned to a 4-month group-coaching program had a statistically significant reduction in all scales of burnout, moral injury, and impostor syndrome, as well as improved self-compassion and flourishing, compared with the control group.

Testimonials

“Patricia has excellent knowledge and expertise on mentoring / coaching, in particular leadership for women. I greatly benefited from working with Patricia and found the experience & learnings extremely valuable for my own personal development and overall career growth.”
Aisling Mulhall, Events Senior Manager, Software company

“Patricia knows how to ask the right questions to let you come to the right conclusion and decide on next step in the journey. Patricia dared me to step out of my comfort zone”
Jolanda Bussner, Project Manager, Sotware company

I had the opportunity to work with Patricia through a coaching scheme at work. I personally got a lot out of the joint coaching sessions. Patricia has the skill to come across as supportive so you feel safe but she also will challenge you about why you think that way or what made you approach it from that angle, not this. There’s no judgment from her as she questions you, you can tell she’s just trying to understand everything. I hope to have the opportunity to work with her in the future.
R.B., Senior product designer

Patricia is an extremely knowledgeable and caring coach. In my short session with Patricia, she helped me to envision a future I want for myself and create a plan for that by myself. For a senior university student, Patricia was an insightful companion who supported me in navigating my career choices and living a happy life.
T.T., 4^thyear Economics Honours student at the University of British Columbia

For more testimonials, go here.