Making the Move: Tips for scaling the corporate ladder
Whether you’re switching lines of business or exploring a promotion across the country, executive moves are challenging. Rob Myers, who successfully navigated from retail to business banking and back again at Wells Fargo & Co., shares a couple tips.
Do your research. Myers sought key business banking players at community events and meetings to inquire about the job he was jumping in to.
“I approached them not with, ‘I want your job,’ but, ‘I really want to learn more about what you do and how you do it and what you’re looking for in people,’” he says. “I would find out what they liked, what they didn’t like, what their challenges were, what their opportunities were. I identified who the managers were. I found out about career opportunities — not just the job I wanted but: Are people moving? Are they developing? What’s their retention rate?”
On broader scope, also look at the potential job’s viability in the overall marketplace. Myers evaluated economic drivers in Orange County like employers and jobs. He affirmed that many employees work at small businesses, and that Wells Fargo was investing capital in business banking to better serve the owners.
“I’d like to look five years from now and say, ‘OK, is my line of business going to be operating and growing, or is it a line we could and would contract?’” he says. “You have to do a great deal of research into how the business line fits into the community, where you think the economy’s moving, are there any regulations coming down the pike that could impact the business?”
Learn to learn again. The challenge of moving around once you’re in an executive position is that you go from senior council to being a freshman again.
“I knew my business really well and so my learning curve (shifted),” Myers says. “In jumping into a different business, you really have to learn how to learn again — and you’re learning from people that you may be managing, but they know far more than you do. You have to be humble and modest and appreciate what they can contribute and how they can help you and the fact that you’re dependent on them.”
Wells Fargo’s Executive Development Program exposed Myers to most business banking positions so he learned firsthand what was important to employees and how each function drove success.
“I don’t think everybody knows everything about an organization or a job,” he says. “It would be really arrogant of me to think that I do. In any job, I want to make sure I’m serving the team members that are working for me. I realize that they have a lot to offer me. Everybody has the power to learn different things and they can make an impact on our organization.”
