CIOZone.com - Professional Network for CIOs and IT Professionals

By Lisa Yoon

I have mentioned before that most of the endless supplies of career advice we devour in our quest for professional fulfillment is the same stuff packaged in different forms. It's also true that at the highest ranks, there are new rules. The usual protocols (research the employer, ask intelligent questions at the interview, follow up) still apply, of course. But senior executives face a new, additional, qualitatively different set of career challenges.

If you are at this stage in your professional life, when the stakes for success are so much higher, mastery of these new challenges calls for guidance. You need a map, and Michael D. Watkins has produced one for you.

A former Harvard Business School professor, Watkins now runs Newton, MA-based leadership development consultancy Genesis Advisors. What makes his new book, Your Next Move: The Leader's Guide to Navigating Major Career Transitions (Harvard Business Press), a useful guide is that it targets specific types of career transitions. It's likely one of those scenarios is relevant to you. I recently spoke with Watkins about a few types of career-transition scenarios that might have special resonance with CIOs.