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Advance

The Ultimate How-To Guide for Your Career

Gary Burnison
Wiley, 2019
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Well Structured
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

In Advance: The Ultimate How-To Guide for Your Career, CEO Gary Burnison of management consulting firm Korn Ferry provides many actionable tips to break out of a professional dead-end and get on the road to success. Burnison is as entertaining as he is helpful, offering memorable anecdotes to illustrate his points. The book includes timeless advice common to the management genre, though Burnison also effectively covers today’s globalized and digitized workplace. Some of Burnison’s techniques are less helpful than others (he’s a bit overly fond of acrostic mnemonic devices), but readers will appreciate his checklists, self-quizzes and concrete examples. 

Summary

You have the tools to advance your own career.

It can be tempting to blame your boss, team or company for feeling stuck, professionally. Few people realize that it’s up to them to take action about the state of their careers. Others think they’re taking the right steps, but are mistaken. Most careers follow a six-stage path, with variations in order and length of time in each role:

  1. Follower – Younger employees, just starting out in their careers, fall into this category.
  2. Collaborator – These employees work together with their peers and develop better people skills. 
  3. Instructor – These workers have learned enough to teach others. 
  4. Manager – These individuals can oversee larger teams, projects and goals. 
  5. Influencer – This less hands-on role might entail leading multiple departments. 
  6. Leader – This role is focused on delegating work and motivating others to achieve. 

An employee can move...

About the Author

Gary Burnison is the CEO of consulting firm Korn Ferry and author of several other business books. 

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