Progression

The most common question I receive in a ‘career discussion’ with someone is: ‘how do I advance in my career?’.

In an interview on Stratechery, Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, gave perhaps the perfect answer:

I had three things that I mentioned. The first one is don't take your current job for granted, the next job doesn't come if you don't do the one you've got well. The second piece of advice was be a great teammate - you learn how to lead, you learn how to influence by the way you interact with your peers, treat them well, help them, help them do a better job. And then the third one was volunteer for something extra, volunteer for something hard.

One of the reasons that I got the opportunities that I got was that I would raise my hand when my boss was out of town and he or she was visiting stores or something, and someone needed to pinch hit and go to a meeting, I would go, and if I knew the answer to the question that came up, l'd share it, if I didn't, I'd say, "I don't know, but I'll find out fast and get back to you." I then put myself in an environment where I became a low risk promotion because people had already seen me do the job.

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