Executive Coaching | Leadership Consultants - Trumble & Partners
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Career Coaching

The Career Coaching Matrix

Where are you on the career Matrix?


The career coaching matrix is a simple tool to help look at where you are in your career.

The grid is a 2X2 matrix based on the strength of your relationships and the value of your technical expertise or knowledge. People commonly fall into five categories:

The ‘vulnerable targets’ are generally new in their careers. Therefore, they don’t have a large professional network and they also don’t have highly valuable skills or expertise. Their predominant job is to form relationships and expertise as quickly as possible. Companies are willing to invest in them, but only up to a point. If they don’t perform, they will not last long.

— Theodore Roosevelt

‘Business Developers’ are people with a strong professional network, but without much in the form of technical skills or knowledge. They generally do well in business development roles. However, those who are not in business development roles, or those who are but lack expertise place themselves at risk. These individuals need to strengthen their knowledge and expertise so that they are not perceived as ‘hollow people’.

‘Masters’ are at the opposite end of the spectrum from Business Developers. They have great technical skills and knowledge, but lack a strong professional network. These people usually do well because others learn about their expertise. However, they could do even better if they developed their professional network. The more people know about them, the more opportunities will emerge.

Professionals ‘Caught in the Middle’ fall in the middle of the range for both relationships and expertise. They are at the greatest risk of all categories. That’s because they are commonly paid at the high end of the scale, but can be passed by ‘vulnerable targets’ who are developing, and because they are not as strong as people who are on the higher ends of both scales. These individuals need to take charge of their career development, or constantly be looking over their shoulders.

‘Double Spikers’ shine in both expertise and professional relationships. They have strong professional networks and bring great value to others due to their knowledge and technical skills. While they can’t take this for granted, they are the group that gets the most opportunities, by far.

The questions are: Where do you fall on this grid? What can you do about it?

If you would like a discussion about moving forward – whether in a new career or to strengthen your position in your current role, then please contact us.