Career Compass · You Are Here
Notice your current work, identity, priorities, and conditions. The question is: Where am I now?
BRITER™ · Competency Compass
Explore the capabilities you want to grow.
Choose a competency to explore what it looks like, what may be getting in the way, and a next step to practice.
What you are working toward
Explore the gap
Compare a recent example of how you acted with how you wanted to respond. What got in the way: understanding, practice, support, or the conditions around you?
A next step to practice
Notice the change
Try it in one real situation. Ask someone what they experienced, then reflect on what changed and what still needs attention.
THEN REPEAT
New experiences. New information. New choices. A more intentional you.
2230405060+
Each cycle begins with a somewhat different person.
One cycle, one person
The person changes while traveling.
Dana is a nurse manager, thirty-eight, eight years into the role. Nothing is wrong, exactly. Here is one turn of the cycle.
Dana did not leave, and she did not stay the same. The environment made one experiment possible, which is often the difference between crafting a career and simply enduring one. Her next cycle will begin with a different person.
Person ↔ Work ↔ System
Careers are not crafted alone.
You shape the work.Through the tasks, relationships, boundaries, and meaning you bring to it.
The work shapes you.Every role develops some capabilities and leaves others quiet. Over time it changes who you are.
The system shapes what is possible.Structures, leaders, culture, and circumstances open some paths and close others.
The person brings
KnowledgeWhat the person knows from education, practice, and lived experience.
JudgmentHow they weigh tradeoffs, risk, timing, and consequence.
Identity and perspectiveValues, history, roles, and the vantage point they carry into the work.
Relationships and presenceTrust, credibility, steadiness, and the way their contribution moves through people.
The organization can
Amplify or constrainMake contribution easier through clarity and authority, or harder through structure and norms.
Recognize or overlookName what someone brings, or miss knowledge and perspective that could change the work.
Invite or silenceCreate room for voice and questions, or teach people what not to say.
Develop or enableUse coaching, resources, trust, and feedback to build capability and responsible action.
Career Crafting does not make individuals solely responsible for a satisfying career. Sometimes a person can craft the job successfully. Sometimes what crafting uncovers is that the environment itself no longer fits, and that is useful information, not a personal failure. Leaders shape what is possible through the conversations they hold: coaching, recognition, stay interviews, and development plans, all guided by the Leadership Conversation Standard.
Two lenses, one system
Career Crafting and Job Crafting.
How they relate
Job Crafting
Reshape the work I have.
Current-role focused
Career Crafting
Use what work teaches me to intentionally shape what comes next.
Longitudinal and evolutionary
Job crafting changes aspects of the work. Career Crafting uses work, experience, and self-knowledge to continually shape an evolving career. Neither is better. Job crafting is one mechanism inside Career Crafting, at Stage 2.
How the experiences connect
Start where you are. Shape what comes next.
Career Crafting
Use what work teaches you to reshape a role, test a possibility, and adjust direction as you change. The question is: What can I shape next?
Six stages of the cycle
Locate yourself
Notice strengths, values, interests, identity, and the work environment you are in.
Reshape current work
Experiment with tasks, relationships, boundaries, meaning, and contribution.
Learn from doing
Observe what builds energy, reveals capabilities, and changes your understanding.
Revisit who you are becoming
Use your story and the 15 BRITER competencies to notice development over time.
Examine fit and direction
Consider whether this role, environment, and life moment still support what matters.
Try a next move
Choose a small experiment, learn from it, and return to the cycle with new evidence.
Possible outcomes
More is not automatically upward.
More self-awarenessKnow yourself more clearly.
More alignmentWork that increasingly fits who you are.
More growthCapabilities keep expanding.
More contributionUnderstand where and how you create value.
A BRITER lifeWork supports, rather than defines, the life you are creating.
These are not destinations or scores. More means increasingly intentional.
Create work that fits your becoming.
Self ↔ Work ↔ System ↔ Life