Taking Chances on Yourself

I recently had the opportunity to make a significant career change with Corazon, and for the first time in a long time, I took a risk. For nearly fifteen years, I worked with our client relations and marketing teams in various capacities, learning healthcare and our business. An opening was posted for a Business Consultant, a member of Corazon’s analytics team who would dive into large quantities of data to understand clients’ profitability, market capture, unmet needs, opportunities, and more related to the services we offer. I had always had an affinity for numbers, enjoying the process of building complex spreadsheets or sifting through internal performance data with the team to identify opportunities.

Despite that affinity, I felt hesitation. Opportunities had arisen in the past for a similar change, and I had let them go in favor of maintaining the comfort of what I knew. There can always be a reason to avoid rocking the boat – responsibilities in your personal life, not wanting to give up what you enjoy in the present, fear of failure or the unknown – no matter how strong the support system will be on the other side of the change. This time, though, I decided to jump in with both feet.

To avoid making this just a personal story, I’ll add some context to consider that made this such a welcome transition and something I was able to so confidently seek out. These are all things that can, and should, be replicated in nearly any workplace to support the advancement and satisfaction of your employees:

• Integrated Culture: I already knew the team that I would be moving into. Everyone in the company interacts on a regular basis so I knew who I would get to work with day-to-day, at least something of their working style, and the expectations of the role. In fact, certain programs even encouraged “work shadowing” across departments or other types of education to better understand each person’s role a little better.

• Systems for Success: Everyone at Corazon has the same end goals – to find success for our clients while providing excellent service. This means there is always a helping hand ready to assist or provide education when it is needed.  On top of that, resources were available to assist with orientation and training, while also getting hands-on education through active engagements.

• Employee Investment: It was clear throughout the transition process that company leadership was fully supportive of this change and wanted to see me succeed. Fostering this type of environment, focused on positive outcomes, ensures that mistakes (which are inevitable in training scenarios) will be brought to light and fixed as quickly as possible. There’s no sense of “sink or swim,” but rather that I simply moved onto a new rowboat and we’re all readjusting to keep up momentum.

• Open Communication: The transparency from Corazon leadership has always been excellent. Understanding changes at the organizational level means that employees know when they can speak up or seek out opportunities through times of growth, or step up to demonstrate or hone new skills. Expectations related to the transition period, who would take on former responsibilities, how the new responsibilities would ramp up, all need to be communicated clearly so that the change causes as little turbulence as possible.

Since making this career change, I have been learning new things almost daily and find myself with renewed energy for coming to work each day. On top of that, I know that I am working directly with programs that are seeking ways to expand access to care or optimize the services they already provide. It is truly fulfilling to be able to provide support to these kinds of institutions and the incredibly important work they do every day.

I encourage anyone reading this to think about opportunities and seek them out, particularly within your own organization. Corazon has supported many program expansions over the years that have resulted in new roles for Managers, Directors, Supervisors, and more. Many of those roles were filled by people who had been with the organization throughout the change and decided to take a step forward in their career, and with a positive environment and their own considerable knowledge and experience, they were able to become highly effective leaders who were instrumental in strategic changes that have had a lasting impact on their communities.

On the other side, there are always options to step back as well. Part of what made this decision more comfortable was knowing that there’d be a place for me in one role or another. I’ve known clinicians who spent time in leadership roles and decided that they missed the bedside, and they were able to return to it, but they gained a significant amount of experience for taking the chance to try something new.

There are innumerable adages and cliches about these types of situations. If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we always got. Change begins at the end of your comfort zone. I encourage you to take the chance on yourself, try something new, and see where you end up.

By Michael Church