Positive Minds | Positive Quotes | Edition 014

If you are a marketing expert or business strategist, you are probably familiar with the Ansoff Matrix and have applied it a few times. It's a tool that helps executives and marketers understand how they can grow their businesses and devise strategies to achieve more growth.

When I do career coaching with young Africans, here are some of the questions they ask me:

• How do I get a job in the humanitarian sector?

• How can I work with a large INGO?

• How can I move from the private sector to the humanitarian sector?

• I want to move into the humanitarian sector; how can I achieve this?

• I want to change my career path; where do I start?

It is always challenging to answer these questions for young people trying to find their way through the professional labyrinth. After a few dozen conversations with young people, I decided to adapt the Ansoff matrix to the career. It is a 2x2 matrix that maps skills and industry. This gives 4 quadrants, from the lowest risk quadrant to the highest risk quadrant.

• Quadrant 1 or low risk: Consolidating current skills in the current industry. This is your safety and comfort area.

• Quadrant 2 or Medium Risk #1: Developing new skills for the current industry. This is your growth area.

• Quadrant 3 or Medium Risk #2: Use current (transferable) skills in a new industry. This is your stretch area.

• Quadrant 4 or High Risk: Develop new skills for a new industry. This is your self-invention zone. It is a leap into the unknown but can result in a huge return on investment.

Which quadrant are you currently in, and which do you aspire to be in? And what strategy would you use: evolve smoothly (move from quadrant 1 to 2 or 3, then to 4) or self-invent (move directly from quadrant 1 to 4)?

Leave me your thoughts.