Do you need a career plan to become a CFO?

Career plan to become a CFO Look there, the rapport of the thing.

Ah!I do it my way.- Thank goodness I don't sing.

It does help a lot.When I arrived at Microsoft, almost on my very first day,my manager asked me: "Rita, have you already made your career plan?" And I said: "Career plan? What career plan?

What's that?" She said: "What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you want to achieve?Where do you want to go?

What is your goal?" And I said: "Well, I don't know, right?" I mean, at Deloitte, the company where I worked before,I wanted to be a partner, the highest role.

That's what my high school teacher told me:"Become a partner, you'll make money." "So now, here at Microsoft, what's the highest position one can reach?" And she said: "CFO." "That's it! That's what I want to be!

I want to be the CFO of Microsoft." And she said: "Okay, then make your plan." I made my plan, I asked the finance director what skills I needed to develop to get there.

And she told me, and all the roles, all the special assignments,all the projects I worked on, in all those countries:Portugal, the United States, France, Brazil, the United States again,Spain... Were with the intention of developing those skills.

Everything was part of my career plan to get there.

Always with the help of mentors who gave me advice on how to develop certain skills. They helped me, sometimes, deal with more difficult situations.

I believe that if we really want to achieve a goal,we have to make a plan.

We have to divide into stages what we are going to achieve in order to reach the final goal.

I think that maybe the biggest mistake I see in Portuguese people is going a bit adrift in their careers, delegating the responsibility for their development to the manager or to Human Resources and not building their own life goal.

Strange, isn't it? Because we don't delegate to Human Resources the choice of our partner,or the choice of our other half.

So why would we delegate the choice of our career,the development of a career plan?

It has to be our responsibility.And from the moment we decide what we want to be when we grow up, right?

That question people ask us when we're little:"What do you want to be when you grow up?" "An astronaut", "a firefighter," "a doctor"... But then we graduate from college,we realize there are many more professions than firefighter or nurse,yet we forget to keep asking ourselves that same question:"What do I want to be when I grow up?" "What do I want to achieve?" "Where do I want to go?" To make that plan, to keep asking ourselves those questions almost every day:"What do I want to be? Where do I want to go?" "What do I want to accomplish?" It really helps us give direction to our careers, to have a vision of what we want to achieve, and to set a plan with goals,with concrete objectives we want to develop in order to get there.

Sometimes they say:"I don't know what I want to be when I grow up." Let's think of three different sets, three different buckets.

The first bucket is: "What do I do now that I really like doing and that I want to keep doing for the rest of my life?

I just love doing this." Okay?The second bucket is: "What are the things I do now that I hate,that I never want to do again, that bore me and I refuse to do anymore?" Okay. What are those things?

And then a third list: "What are the things I don't know how to do,the skills I don't have, but that I would like to learn,and I'm willing and eager to learn?" And based on these three pillars, you'll be able to understand which professions, which goals you can set for your life.

Based on this, what can I achieve?What can I aim for?

And notice that I'm talking about skills,I'm not talking about titles… Like CFO.

Back in my day I said CFO but it was different.Now with AI and all these new technologies,the jobs that exist today may not even exist 50 years from now.

Therefore, it's extremely important to focus on skills."What do I like to do and want to keep doing?" "What skills do I have? What am I really good at, and therefore makes sense to keep developing?" And from there, make a plan to get there.

But never, ever just drift along. I think that's what we see the most.

People who aren't happy with what they do, who don't like their jobs, don't like their boss, think they earn too little,think they pay too many taxes and yet do nothing to change this circle.

That's why I believe that having a plan, taking the time to think about what we want to achieve and accomplish, and how we're going to get there makes all the difference in our lives.