Traveling Beyond Your Home Planet
When I started my career in the Nonprofit world, It was as though I touched down on a new planet.
Here I was in my first professional job, surveying the landscape of the office (development over here, education there, finance and operations down the hall), the language ("strategic plan," "mission," "logic model"), and the customs (eat lunch at your desk, stay late, work on holidays).
I took it all in with wonder. I had been a good student all my life, and this was a new world to learn.
I was vaguely aware of other planets in the solar system—The Public Sector, Corporate America—but they seemed so foreign and far off.
I felt I couldn't possibly travel all that way or inhabit those other plants. I would stick out like an alien, too set in my Nonprofit ways. I wouldn't know how to survive there, let alone thrive.
Not Quite Worlds Apart
Seven years ago, when Penney Leadership launched, I set off in my little solo spacecraft. I exited my home planet on Nonprofit and began my journey across the vast solar system.
No one planet is my home now; I travel the galaxy as an independent career and leadership coach. (Kind of like Interplanet Janet. Remember her?)
I've landed for brief stints on all varieties of planets:
Public Education
Philanthropic Foundation
Fortune 500 Corporation
Startup Pharmaceutical
And even navigated a constellation of Membership Organizations
I've dropped into each of these landscapes for coaching and training at the individual and team levels. And while the atmospheres each have a unique quality and the dialect varies, I've found that the commonalities outweigh the differences.
We are not nearly as separate as we imagine ourselves to be.
➡️ Can you travel between worlds? Yes, absolutely.
➡️ Can you inhabit a new planet and type of work without feeling completely out of your depth? Yup.
➡️ Can work be meaningful and mission-driven beyond planet Nonprofit? Definitely.
Our work might vary, but the challenges we grapple with are the same across sectors:
How do we execute on ambitious goals with insufficient resources?
How do I lead a hybrid team when I've hardly had any management training?
How can we stay focused in our work instead of saying yes to everything and spreading ourselves and our efforts too thin?
How do I contribute my skills in a way that makes me feel valued?
Even on an alien planet, the challenges will feel familiar.
Interplanetary Travel
Lately, I've been doing some interesting work with teams and organizations. I'm working on:
A four-month team coaching program for senior leaders at a medical school research center
Individual leadership coaching for hand-picked leaders across functions at a Fortune 500 automotive company
A custom workshop series for emerging leaders at an Ivy league university
A women's leadership development program for a cohort of mid-level leaders at a prominent confectionary company
I never dreamed I'd get to work on these kinds of projects when I was back on planet Nonprofit.
I'm surprised and delighted at how natural it feels, how meaningful the work is, how rewarding it is to offer tools that leaders are hungry for, and how creative I feel when designing a program custom-fit to a particular set of leaders' needs.
If you have leaders who are ready for coaching support and leadership tools, check out my new web page of what Coaching & Training for Organizations can look like.
And when you're ready to gain some new perspective, I'll have Scotty beam you up to my spaceship so we can learn, together. 😉
