Mid-career strategies: how to take it to the next level in corporate America

WESTINA L. Matthews has experienced a career trajectory that most professionals in corporate America can only dream of. In a steady climb up the gilded corporate ladder at Merrill Lynch, she has flourished, even through mid-career. Today, she is a managing director in planning and strategy, where she is charged, in part, with strengthening strategic alliances to support the company's new business development efforts.

It was not easy. And it did not occur by accident, says Matthews, who managed her career by setting and achieving goals, and accepting new challenges. During her 20 years at Merrill Lynch, one of the world's leading financial management and advisory companies, she has held several key positions, with responsibilities ranging from managing global philanthropic efforts to supervising community development to monitoring global diversity.

"You have to manage your own career," she says. "Careers don't just happen." Further, Matthews urges mid-career workers to network if they are looking to move up the ladder. They may also want to consult a career coach and seek out mentors, who were instrumental in helping Matthews.

Coleman H. Peterson also had good mentors during his successful 10-year career at Wal-Mart Stores. Before his retirement in 2004, he worked as executive vice president of the "People Division," or human resources, where he was responsible for recruiting, retaining and training Wal-Mart's 1.5 million employees worldwide, he says.

He achieved his goals, in part, by eschewing shortcuts to the corner office, avoiding substitutes for hard work, practicing honesty, honing his human relations skills, and learning to accept feedback from his superiors and to dote it out carefully to his workers. "Feedback is the breakfast of champions," he says. "If your boss shares something with you that needs improving and you become combative, he or she will practice avoidance in the future. Who wants conflict? Meanwhile, your co-workers are getting the good assignments because they're getting it straight and you're being screened."

Today, Peterson, 57, who sits on several corporate boards, is president and CEO of his own company, Hollis Enterprises in Bentonville, Ark. He consults with major companies and headlines major speaking engagements. He also helps executives structure growth opportunities for their employees, implement talent succession plans and coach senior executives.

"I was always willing to grow and to help others grove," says Peterson, That willingness to learn to grow and help others grow was the key to his upward mobility; especially at mid-career, he says.

While Matthews and Peterson represent the gold standard for how to succeed in corporate America, they are unusual. It is no secret that managers in their 40s and 50s, especially African-Americans, are clamoring to protect their job security as they travel a narrowing corporate path and a tightening employment market. Competition from ambitious young workers is sharpening, as global experience and technology take a front seat in the workplace. Many employers are struggling to find ways to stimulate these sometimes valuable professionals, who at times end up pigeonholed and trapped in jobs they mastered long ago.

The best way for mid-career managers to avoid being sidelined is to develop their own blueprint for success, which may involve reinventing themselves at their current workplaces, or seeking new jobs, says Cheryl Mayberry McKissack, founder and CEO of NIA Enterprises, a company that serves partly as an online community that's intended to empower Black women.

McKissack knows firsthand about mid-career strategies and moving to the next level. The founding of her company is a journey that began in the midst of a highly successful career as a technology executive, first with IBM and then with 3COM (formerly U.S. Robotics). While she enjoyed success in corporate America, she set out to take control of her own career path. "When I assessed my strengths and weaknesses, the kind of things I wanted to do involved creating a new opportunity for myself," she says. "I didn't see an exact fit where I was working." So she began to work for herself.

McKissack recommends to professionals exploring the same issues to take their strengths and brand them. "when you're mid-career, having a strong personal brand can make the difference between moving to the upper echelons ... and stagnation."

McKissack also advises mid-career success seekers to:

* Understand the value that you bring to a job, and do it with excellence.

* Don't be afraid to use a career coach to help hone your personal brand.

* Use networking and mentor relationships to help you advertise your personal brand.

* Create high-profile opportunities.

* Exhibit skills that highlight your authority.

* Align yourself with professional organizations.

* Polish your presentation and public speaking skills.