A Framework to Unlimited Career Growth: The Two Trekking Poles
You need two poles for your ascent.
Imagine you're on a steep mountain hike.
You have a pair of trekking poles, one in each hand, helping you on your ascent.
With each step, you drive your trekking pole into the ground to support you. It adds to your foundation, making your journey easier.
Now imagine that you only have one trekking pole.
How helpful is it?
You don't have a different pole to assist you with each step. You have one pole to assist two legs. It's awkward. You don't have balance or symmetry. It's almost easier to proceed with no trekking pole than to only have one.
The awkwardness and difficulty of hiking with one trekking pole is the same as the awkwardness and difficulty of your career when you only focus on one skill set.
Sure you can make progress, but growth is accelerated when you have more than one skill set.
When you have more than one trekking pole.
The Two Trekking Poles Framework
Just as it's better to hike with two trekking poles, it's better for your career to build and solidify two different skill sets.
That's what the Two Trekking Poles Framework helps you do.
Specialize in two sets of skills:
- One technical skill
- One leadership skill
Focus on one meta-skill in each bucket and bring it up to legitimate competency.
The technical skill is the baseline to do your job well. The leadership skill will scale your impact and amplify the tech skills you have.
Focusing on one bucket is like hiking with one trekking pole. You're out of balance, hindering your progress.
Focusing on both buckets is like having both of your trekking poles. You have the tools to support your journey and make unlimited progress.
Choosing the technical skill
When you work in data, there are many tech skills you can choose:
- Gen AI
- Data modeling
- ML engineering
- Data engineering
- Machine learning
- Data visualization
- Marketing analytics
- Statistical modeling
- Exploratory analysis
The list is endless.
Pick the skill maximizes these three things:
- Your interest in the skill
- Your capacity to learn the skill
- Your ability to use the skill in your job
If you're not interested in the skill, you won't be disciplined to become proficient.
If the skill doesn't come naturally to you and you find it very difficult to learn, pick something else.
If you can't incorporate the skill into your job, you won't learn it deeply and it won't help advance your career.
So pick a skill, start learning it, and incorporate it into real life projects.
Choosing the leadership skill
Now that you're building your tech skills, it's time to lead.
Leadership is the key that unlocks growth for the rest of your career.
When you increase the capability of your team and influence others, you prove you can be effective in any team or with any company.
A few leadership skills you can choose from:
- Influence
- Delegation
- Mentorship
- Prioritization
- Project management
- Process improvement
- Stakeholder relationships
Some of these may not sound like leadership, but they are.
Leadership is about getting a group of people to accomplish an objective.
Anything that supports the team is leadership.
If you have the technical chops to contribute individually and the leadership skills to get the team to perform at a high level, you will experience endless growth.
You will:
- Prepare yourself for promotions
- Create a path aligned with your interests
- Build skills that will support the rest of you career
Don't get caught on your journey with only one trekking pole.
Make sure you have two.
That's how you reach the summit.