The Career Strategy Framework, or CS7 Framework, comprises seven strategies with supporting mental models to shape your thinking and actions to manage your career. Understanding and applying the strategies can increase the likelihood that you will gravitate to a job you love, full of meaning, while earning the rewards most vital to you. By becoming a master strategist, you will live the life you wish for and use the most valued asset – time. This framework is influenced by many years of building software products and personal successes and failures.
The Overview
The career path we choose is one of the most critical decisions in our life.
It will impact our success, wealth, the people we come in contact with, and ultimately our happiness.
But yet, how we should strategically approach and answer this question is not taught in schools.
We are given a slice of time on this earth, and how we manage the journey each day will influence the experience of our professional and personal life.
Mastering a career to achieve happiness and success over a lifetime requires more than deep domain expertise.
It demands strategy and social skills to manage oneself and master interactions with others.
By becoming a master strategist in your career, you will increase the likelihood that you will live the life you wish for and use the most valued asset – time.
This can lead to making more money, realizing higher levels of contribution, and mastering your internal state of happiness.
The Career Strategy Framework, or CS7 Framework, comprises seven strategies with mental models to shape your thinking and actions to manage your career.
Understanding and applying the strategies can likely lead to higher income, more options, and a boost to well-being. You will increase the likelihood of gravitating to a career you love and earning achievements unique to your talents, experience, and personality.
Your actual life will evolve into the life you wish for.
The framework was influenced by many years of experience in product management and building software products. You are the essential product of your life. Your ability to productize your talents into a portfolio of products that can be monetized as a portfolio will dictate your financial rewards and degree of freedom.
The Structure
The framework is composed of the following building blocks.
Strategy – one of seven strategies to productize a career to its full potential.
Mental Model – is an idea that supports a strategy summarized in a few sentences. It is an explanation of how something works - an overarching term for any sort of concept, framework, or worldview that you can carry in your mind1. Each strategy contains one or more ideas, and internalizing these mental models will shape your thinking.
Overview – This section provides a deeper discussion of the mental model, including an example from my career and life. I have found that stories effectively describe the situation, how the mental model helped, and what outcome can be realized.
Directives – are a brief list of actions to apply the mental model – the “things you should do.” These include adopting behaviors and actions to support your transformational change. In my experience, people value a synthesized list of steps instead of an extended theory. These directives are nuggets that can be acted upon. I caution you that these are my recommendations and suggest you adapt them to your life as appropriate.
Experiment With This – a list of probing questions to tease out thoughts and ideas with recommended actions to experiment with applying the mental model in the wild.
Resources – a list of books, podcasts, articles, and videos related to the strategy and mental model. In many cases, I synthesize and organize concepts from multiple sources that form the critical point of the mental model. I highly encourage you to digest these resources when you want to go deep on a specific topic, and I recommend you read the whole book if you want a deep understanding of the concept.
Why a Framework
For Me
I am responsible for the choices and outcomes of my life.
My happiness and freedom hinge on executing a career strategy that creates a unique path I control doing work I love.
I could not find a career process deep in strategy yet practical to guide action.
In 2008, I created a framework to help me succeed in my career and broader life.
If we are not methodical in our approach to what is truly important, we will succumb to the daily machine of unconscious inertia.
Serious issues emerge when we diverge off our path.
The changing business landscape and forces make people irrelevant.
Managing a career strategy is required to sustain a unique value proposition that fuels my livelihood and my children’s dreams.
Continuously practicing a set of strategies that evolved from my life has become an effective form of self-therapy to overcome obstacles and irrational behavior.
As a leader, a career process attracts, develops, and exports talent across an organization.
As a father, educating my kids on topics not taught in schools will accelerate their development and reduce learning the hard way. Their success in life influences my happiness.
As a human being, helping others in their career pursuit can inspire a movement for people to do the same.
All boats rise when people help people.
For You
It’s life and death – your ability to strategically evolve a career will dictate your options and long-term prosperity.
Without a strategic direction that you control, you will be drawn into supporting the goals of others and not reach your true potential. You will be disappointed later in life.
People are busy and often make quick decisions to hear your pitch.
Think of yourself as a product with a succinct brochure on your achievements, persona, and value proposition.
You are responsible for your career. Don’t expect organizations to provide answers and look after your best interests.
Leaders are not mind-readers. Articulate what you want to achieve, your high-level path, and where you need their help to garner support.
Your life will inevitably be rocked by failure or issues outside your control.
A solid strategic plan and a confident mindset will mitigate irrational actions and reinforce calmness.
Who is it for?
Students need direction to choose fields of study and apprenticeships and establish an early vision of the life they wish for.
Parents need a collection of strategies and philosophies not taught in school to help shape their children’s thought processes about choosing a career and how to get the most value from education.
Professionals who feel stuck in their current job need guidance on making a job/field transition or market themselves. Significant life-changing events are often a catalyst to re-evaluate your path.
Side Hustlers who want to create options experimenting with unique passions while learning new skills and earning money on the side.
Human Resource (HR) leaders are seeking to build a culture of mutual success that aligns talent with the needs of the organization, improves retention, and an organization that is a magnet for talent.
Managers seeking a proven framework and best practices to develop people within their team and export talent to the organization.
Event organizers seeking valuable career strategy content from a master strategist and executive to help professionals accelerate their path to full potential.