The Mérito Mindset
Listening time: 4:07
The Mérito Mindset is a new career coaching framework explicitly developed for the professional environment. It is a holistic mindset that connects the dots for professional career growth and success. It focuses on four professional development pillars that merge leadership and human resource concepts and practices. Achieve, Develop, Grow, and Mature.
A Mérito Mindset is when you try to be the best you can be in your professional career because your work has merit.
The framework operates as a continuous cycle, with achievement marking both its beginning and end. For instance, securing a new job signifies the achievement of an initial goal. Subsequently, your focus shifts to professional development within this role. This involves honing skills, cultivating organizational awareness, maturing behavioral competencies (also known as soft skills), and striving for a high-performance evaluation. The cycle then renews annually, as new performance objectives are established with each evaluation.
The Achieve pillar addresses the often complex and challenging area of performance management. A significant hurdle is the reliance on supervisors to track and recall yearly performance. To consistently achieve a high performance rating, individuals must actively demonstrate their abilities, accomplishments, and contributions. It is crucial to take responsibility for documenting and highlighting your achievements, rather than solely relying on your supervisor's memory for recognition.
Tracking your accomplishments in a journal can be a valuable tool for self-advocacy, particularly when it comes to performance reviews, promotions, or interviews.
The Develop pillar is dedicated to crafting a professional development plan. Professional growth is an ongoing process that extends beyond the initial employment stage. It involves a distinct form of mental development, requiring you to refine your professional expertise. This includes understanding organizational processes and procedures, improving your technical and behavioral skills, and staying current with industry standards.
While creating a professional development plan independently can be challenging, it is achievable. Begin by outlining a career path for the professional role you aspire to reach within the next 3-5 years. A Development Plan aims to develop, acquire, or enhance the necessary skill sets for your current or desired position.
The Grow pillar emphasizes the development of organizational awareness, also known as institutional knowledge. This involves a deep understanding of the organization's internal workings, including its processes, procedures, key personnel, and culture. While researching an organization is essential for interview preparation, the need for continued research extends throughout one's tenure.
Ultimately, the goal is to comprehend all factors that impact the organization, including partners and competitors. Achieving comprehensive organizational awareness typically takes 5 to 10 years. However, by delving beyond stated missions, goals, values, and beliefs, and actively listening and cultivating relationships, this timeframe can potentially be reduced to as little as 5 years.
The Mature pillar emphasizes that professional maturity extends beyond courtesy and tact. It requires an honest self-assessment of your behavioral competencies, or soft skills. This involves questions like, "How effectively do I collaborate?" or "How well do I manage my time?" It's an opportunity to identify your strengths and areas for improvement in these behavioral competencies.
Achieving the next level of professional maturity requires self-assessment and reflection. Instead of merely estimating your competency level, it's crucial to genuinely understand each behavioral competency's definition and how it applies to your expertise. Ultimately, professional maturity is about fostering self-awareness.
That’s the Mérito Mindset Framework: A holistic mindset that connects the dots for professional career growth and success.
Achieving high ratings by managing your performance management
Developing as a professional by creating a career trajectory and a professional development plan
Growing within the organization by building organizational awareness and
Maturing as a professional by developing self-awareness
While it may seem overwhelming, you do much of this almost daily as a professional. The only difference now is to organize your mind through a Mérito Mindset Journal so you can take…
“Professional growth in your hands!”
Ish & Raquel
Schedule a call with us to learn more about the Mérito Mindset
