What does career growth mean? Is it growing to the next level a change of your title in the visiting card and an increase in reward? Is it an enriched job responsibility? Is it a responsibility to manage a bigger region or a team? Or is it some combination of all that and maybe a few things more?
There is also “Horizontal Growth”. Many years back while working with a consumer and retail company as an HR head I had the opportunity to get deeply involved in many aspects of retail sales and marketing as we were building the retail organisation from the very scratch. It was a great experience to learn first-hand about many aspects of retail store design, merchandising, branding, warehouse management, and after-sales services. Directly interacting with the customer and visiting retail stores in different states every week was at times physically stretching as there were other core HR responsibilities for the overall business and manufacturing operations. Still, it was a great first-hand exciting learning about the retail business. At times, horizontal growth can lead to a nonlinear career path, helping in building new perspectives and learning about a new functional area depending on the interest and career choices.
Some of the key opportunities that can lead to Horizontal Growth are mentioned below:
Short-term assignment: If you can get a short-term assignment in a different business area or function or within the function to which you are not exposed, grab it. While some organisation will promote that for talent development purposes, others may or may not. But, if you are interested, make sure you put your efforts into getting such an assignment, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s formally designed or informal as long as it’s contributing to the purpose.
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Cross-Functional Projects: It’s one of the best places to learn and network with other functional teams. Many organisations will have Cross-Functional Teams (CFTs) and projects as it’s one of the well-established collaborative ways to get the best out of the teams. It will not only help to broaden your horizon beyond your domain but also you learn to collaborate, listen, and get different perspectives. The best part is it’s outside your formal structure so you can learn how to see things from a distance and not get personally affected by the decision outcome.
Special Project: While setting performance goals, I have found one interesting way to create challenge, or break the operational monotony is to identify certain special projects for the team. This need not be a top-driven process but certainly a mutual process to deep dive and identify continual improvement areas or maybe something completely new that needs research for future preparedness.
How does all of these are going to benefit me? That’s a pertinent question. Let’s see some of those aspects below:
Business Acumen: In today’s world, whichever role or level you may be operating, it’s very important to know your company’s business, customers, suppliers, competition, and overall industry dynamics. When you get involved with activities and projects horizontally, this learning starts happening automatically.
Directly interacting with the customer and visiting retail stores in different states every week was at times physically stretching as there were other core HR responsibilities for the overall business and manufacturing operations.
Wider Skill Set: Horizontal involvement brings in the opportunity to learn a new skill e.g. if you are part of a quality improvement initiative, you tend to learn about the quality management system, concepts of continual improvement, quality audits, etc. If you happen to work on any project that is aiming at productivity and efficiency improvement, you get to learn about process study, LEAN, Six Sigma, etc.
Increased Visibility: Horizontal involvement takes you to different places, and departments and creates opportunities to meet and interact with a different set of people and in turn your organisational visibility may grow beyond your function. If you contribute well, your chances of getting into more such initiatives increase, and of course career growth accelerates.
So, if you think you want to sign up for horizontal growth and explore it further, then don’t hesitate to reach out to your manager or such project sponsors in your organisation. It may lead to the land of opportunities and a fulfilling career.
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