The ‘FLASH Framework’ can help you move forward

The word ‘situationship’ is most commonly found in the dating world. It’s when you find yourself uncertain about where you stand or about where the relationship is going. All you know is that you’re somewhere between a friendship and a committed relationship. You might feel frustrated. You might feel resentful.

What about your career? It’s where we spend at least a third of our lives. Maybe there’s tension or uncertainty about where your job is heading. Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to get to the next level. Maybe you don’t know where you want your career to go. If you’re feeling uncertain, frustrated, or resentful about your job, then you might be in a Career Situationship.

That’s how I felt early in my technology career. Up to that point, year after year, my year-end performance reviews were filled with positive feedback. For a time, I assumed that as long as I did my job well, eventually I would be promoted. However, my career wasn’t moving and I didn’t know why. That was the typical blueprint, right?

It turns out that’s an outdated blueprint. Thirty years ago, if you were consistently great at your job, it was reasonable to expect a promotion. Your performance drove your advancement from junior to intermediate to senior and then to management. Growth was practically guaranteed.

Contrast this to the current state. Employees can no longer expect to be promoted simply because of consistently strong performance. It’s unlikely that you’ll be tapped on the shoulder for a promotion without asking for one.

So, there I was. I felt trapped in the fog without a map of how to get out. All I knew for certain was that if I continued to do a bang-up job, I was destined to stay in my current role.

When I first realized this, it sounded like bad news. Until it didn’t. After all, others around me were climbing the ladder so there must be a way, right? I set out to discover what would clear that fog in front of me: Destination Clarity here I come!

Clarity Feels Good

A 2015 study, “The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity”, showed how when subjects looked at blurry images it triggered curiosity and tension. The sharper the images became, the more the subjects’ reward centres lit up. Getting more information about the picture alleviated the tension caused by curiosity.

Creating Daylight

Just like in the experiment, I was keen to acknowledge the fogginess about my future and work to try to clear it. Fog evaporates as daylight arrives to raise the temperature above the dew point temperature. So, how would I create the daylight?

As a photographer in my spare time, I’m lucky to know a thing or two about light, like when using a flash. Using a flash, even when photographing outside, fills in the shadows and brings out the details in your subject.

I gathered information from my recently promoted peers and found that they all used a metaphorical flash on their careers.

“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust

Although everyone did it differently, their actions shed light on who they were, where they were, where they could go, where they wanted to go. Once they knew a little about these things, they would be able to determine what they needed to do to get there. The common key for everyone seemed to be continuous discovery. That was my light bulb moment and The FLASH™ Framework was born.

It was created out of my need for some structure and my love of repeatable practices. FLASH™ became the lens through which I looked at everything around my career. This structure can be used by anyone who wants to expose the details around their career to create an actionable growth plan.

Using Your FLASH™️

FLASH™ stands for Find, Learn, Action, Stop, and Happy. These are the five (5) practices that make up the framework. Grab a fresh notebook and let’s examine these, one by one.

Find

Start where you are. Before you get clear on where you’re going, you’ll have to get clear on where your “You Are Here” arrow is on the map. What drives you? What do you like doing now that you want to do more of in the future? Write these down.

As you expose your values, your interests and your experiences, you’ll gain valuable insights that you can use as data to drive your decisions about where you want to go. Use these insights to create a few goals. For example, if you love giving presentations, one of your goals could be to seek out more opportunities in your current job or look for other jobs that would allow you to do more of that.

When I started on my own Find practice, I noticed a trend. The most fulfilling aspects of my work experiences were related to helping people navigate through processes. With that, I also gained clarity about one of my priority values, which is service to others.

Learn

Once you have one or more goals, start looking for what stands between you and those goals. Identify knowledge gaps, areas for improvement and anything that might be an obstacle. Make a list of these. For example, a knowledge gap could be that you lack advanced PowerPoint skills or that you want to be more confident in public speaking. An obstacle could be that you feel like you don’t have time to dedicate to learning.

Decide what things you could learn so that you can deal with the gaps or the obstacles. Write these down, too!

Action

This is my favourite of the five practices. It’s the “How” part. It’s your executable FLASH™ plan. With some goals, knowledge gaps and obstacles in mind, as well as some potential learning items, you can now figure out the things you can actually do to address them. An example of one action could be to research free courses for advanced PowerPoint skills or time management. Another could be to find public speaking courses or to join Toastmasters to improve your skills.

Think of singular actionable steps and write them down. Once you have a few written down, you’re not done with this practice yet! Start executing those steps NOW. You’ll find out why later in this article.

Stop

Take regular pauses as you’re moving through the Find, Learn and Action practices. Ask yourself these questions. What’s working? What’s not working? Are there any adjustments you need to make to your goals or your action items? Use this retrospective information to grow and adjust your action plan.

The more you discover about yourself and the things you want to do, the more you can expose the details of your path forward. These “stop and review” activities are meant to be regular checkpoints to assess how you’re doing and to provide opportunities to refine your FLASH™ plan.

To do this, schedule FLASHlight and Floodlight reviews. Put them in your calendar. The FLASHlight is a daily or weekly review that you would do on your own. The Floodlight is a monthly review that you would do with someone else like your manager, mentor or coach. They might be able to provide you with a different perspective, some insights and also some support.

Happy

Do you remember that study I mentioned earlier? Researchers Kidd and Hayden showed us that finding clarity feels good. Do you know what else feels good? Accomplishments! The Happy practice harnesses our built-in rewards gained by seeing actual progress. The Happy practice is a reminder to celebrate each completed step as a small win. The more steps you complete in your action plan, the more progress you see and the more it builds your confidence and motivation.

I practice Happy by playing a song by Queen: Another One Bites The Dust. I play it every time I finish one of my action plan steps, no matter how small. It keeps me motivated and creates momentum. Choose whatever celebration method works for you.

Now, back to continuous discovery. Working through the FLASH™ practices is not a one-time activity. As I learned while figuring out my own direction, career growth and development is a continuous proactive process. Keep going and refining your FLASH™ plan as you go.

Final Thoughts

We spend about a third of our lives in our career. There’s no need to spend that time feeling uncertain and frustrated. Use the FLASH™ Framework to shine a light on where you are and where you’re going!

No more Situationship.

Get curious.

Get clear.

Get into a committed relationship with your career.

Mary Kay

💙

Thank you to Elizabeth Dawber, Editor @ The Startup + Curious + Blank Page.

(originally published March 11, 2021 by Curious on Medium.com)