Want to succeed in tech? Here are 5 lessons from people who have

Do you struggle with what direction to take in your career? What drives the success of the people you admire? I find that many people in my network (and team) have these questions. I had them too, and given the good fortune of experience, have some lessons to share. In fact, I will be compiling my learning into a short course (more details very soon). I’ve always had a passion for helping people develop. Through this course, my hope is to help people chart their direction for their career success, where success is defined by what is important to them.

As part of my research on building the course, I reached out to successful people I know. This included the executive responsible for one of the global cloud platforms, the global CIO of a $62B aerospace company, a partner at a venture capital firm, and a former telecom company CIO now responsible for the global network of a social media company. I’ve very thankful for their responses and their answers had a lot in common. Some of the themes might even surprise you. Here they are (in no particular order):

1. Learn not earn. Almost all the executives at some point in their careers made a lateral move, often earning less than in their previous roles. They did this to expand their learning, setting them apart when new roles opened in the future. Good guidance from one executive was to ensure you do this before you get too senior in an existing role. For me, the decision to choose roles where I learned the most had the biggest positive impact on my growth. I spent two years being a sales coach and consultant. When I returned to technology services leadership, I had a unique understanding of how to connect our services to the sales team and process.

2. Work at the core of your business, not the side parts, but understand the side parts. Core of the business refers to those areas directly generating income. Sales is one of the obvious areas. If you are a company building a product, then being part of the design team charting the direction of the product is another obvious area to be at the heart of your business Get to know the other areas. For instance, if you are in a product management role, understanding finance helps you learn how you can find investment to advance of your product. By knowing how the overall business works, you’ll be better in your existing role. For me, taking the time to understand other parts of the business has helped me communicate how the goals of my team connect to the overall company strategy.

3. People are key. This idea ranges from your team to peers that challenge you and having a mentor to guide you. A very consistent theme among successful tech executives is that they had mentors offering advice and support. Beyond mentors, they mentioned colleagues, customers, and subordinates as important contributors to their continued learning and understanding of the business. One executive even went as far as to say working with people that will challenge you even if you don’t necessarily ‘like’ them could be immensely beneficial. In summary, look for people, whether it is a mentor or co-worker, who will have a direct and caring discussion with you no matter what the situation (as outlined in the book Radical Candor by Kim Scott).

4. Choose markets and companies, not positions. If you are part of a rapidly growing industry or company, chances are there will be new roles. This can accelerate the responsibilities you take on in your career. Just ensure you have support for rapid career growth (point 3 above). I lucked out a bit on this one. Early in my career, I was a software developer working on products for building internet applications and I also built transactional websites. This was in the early days of internet applications and my career growth was able to ride the wave of the growth of the internet.

5. Always have a goal. As one executive said, “if you don’t it’ll be set for you”. By having a goal, you can then break down the steps needed to get there, making it much easier to execute and have forward motion. It helps you decide what to say no to and helps you get support from people (point three above) because you’ll be able to communicate how they can best help.

To feel more in control of your career, don’t just let it happen. Be proactive with it. Evaluate where you are at today. Decide where you want to go. And then, consider these questions. For starters, pick one and see how you might action it over the next week.

• If you made a lateral move, what role could you take?
• How does your current role contribute to the revenues of the organization?
• If you were to get exposure to another part of the business what would that be? What is the first step to do that?
• Evaluate your people support. Do you have a diverse group of opinions and experience? Do they challenge your thinking?
• Do you understand the growth opportunity for the market your company is in?

Have you made any critical career decisions that could add to this list?

This article owes its insightfulness and credibility to the incredible generosity of the professionals who offered me their time. Thank you.

If you enjoyed this piece, follow me to get updates on the progress of the course I’m building and to get tips for your tech career. I’m sharing all I’ve learned and would love for it to help you.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.