Whether you planned a career as a Stabilitarian or landed on the Stability Group, intending it to be the next toehold on the rock wall to success, you have options to build career capital. Work life can get in the way of taking many of these steps, but it is worthwhile to pursue them, for both you and the company that benefits from your career growth.

Stable pursuit? Stability looks like a good choice. Your goal is to produce accurate product information. Overall product success or failure rests in the hands of those both upstream and downstream. You are the proverbial messenger. Unless you screw up the process, you won’t be shot. If you possess the prerequisites, “Stability” is a good leap to take.

How many letters? Having a Bachelors in a life science field is a great place to start, but depending on the tribal rules of your organization, you may climb the Stability ladder with a lesser degree, certificate, or a collection of wisdom from the School of Hard Knocks. That said, a degree in Chemistry floats many boats, but Microbiology, Pharmacy and Biology have been well-represented. For Manager-up positions, a Masters or Doctorate opens many doors. A degree in management or statistics is a great value add.

Finding your Guru. Whether you are joining a group, leading it, or building it from scratch, it’s a great idea to seek out a stability guru, someone who’s been around the block, seen all the opportunities and pitfalls, and enjoys sharing his or her experiences with newcomers in the field. This person may work in your corporate realm or out there among your competition. Mine was a director of stability in a large company with a distinguished history. I had never met or even heard of him, but through an introduction by a manager in my company, I secured a visit to his site, got a tour of Stability Operations and a great overview of the process. It was also the beginning of a long term friendship. You may not get an open arms welcome in response to your initial efforts but keep contacting your potential heroes until a door opens. It will be well worth the time invested.

Got to know the Territory. If you are a new supervisor to an existing group, request any previous Stability process maps as well as a list of Stability Stakeholders. Review and validate these documents with knowledgeable staff members. This is the best comprehensive way to know your new environs and opens the door to the associated SOPs (or lack thereof) that will impact your service.

What’s at Risk? There are things we know that we know. There are things that we know we don’t know. There are also things that we don’t know we don’t know. Conducting a (or accessing an existing) Risk Assessment is an important way to prioritize what needs to be addressed and avoid being blindsided before you even get established, (A word to the wise is to never communicate these risks via email. Invite appropriate individuals to view a secure file without capability to copy.)

Reduce Risk. De-risk through consensus of your SME peers Don’t make high risk, corporate-impacting stability decisions alone. Establish and consult organizations such as Stability Review Boards and Validity Committees to bring much-needed science and experience to critical actions. Likewise, cultivate and meet regularly with strategic partners from Quality, Regulatory, Budgeting and Human Resources. Amazing amounts of valuable input emerge from having professional relationships with members of these internal groups. In turn, you will win their trust and they will seek your input.

Detox, Remediate, Rejuvenate. Without being overbearing, and before you learn who has a reputation as a clique leader/problem child, lay out a clear expectation of zero-tolerance for unprofessional conduct for all. This establishes ground rules and leaves an open path to those who need to turn over a new leaf. Group members don’t have to be best friends, but they do need to be best teammates. You may consider rewarding various voluntary acts of team building. A great team is the hallmark of a great leader.

Balance Bold with Humble. Get around. If you’ve always eaten at your desk, start haunting the cafeteria, visit the gym before hours, join or support in-house organizations, Introduce yourself and enlist a colleague that knows everyone, to make further introductions. From time to time, if one of your plans goes south or you drop the ball, apologize to your management as well as your team and lay out a plan to get back on track by applying lessons learned to achieve a better outcome. Coach your team members to do the same. Mistakes are inevitable and costly but can be a down payment on stronger programs and individuals. That said, vigilance and a team approach can minimize humiliating situations.

Network Within. Isolationism will ensure that understanding and cooperation will be limited commodities in your corporate environment. No matter your rung on the ladder, you, your team, your role, and your abilities need to be known to your colleagues. There will be committees you will be expected to join but going beyond the obligatory and volunteering for ad-hoc groups, task forces or even internal clubs can go a long way to building awareness of your presence and capabilities. “It takes a village” is a proverb with many applications. All those who supply you with information, materials, and services and all those who receive your samples, data and reports are Stability Stakeholders. More than 30 stakeholders in the stability process have been identified, ranging from chamber cleaners to regulatory professionals. Establishing a relationship with each of these groups may be the most critical networking you ever do. Putting serious effort into cultivating stakeholder relationships through group liaisons pays big dividends. Everything between cross-reviewing each other’s SOP’s and giving an informational seminar to groups like HVAC technicians who have no concept of the impact and contributions they are making to the success of a blockbuster drug, are important to your networking efforts.

Network Without. Join industry committees, associations, seminars, and meetings. Participate in discussion groups and forums. While these may not contribute directly to reaching your internal objectives, you will be promoting your company’s standings in the medical product industry and creating a high profile for yourself, which can result in speaking invitations, publication opportunities and establishing yourself as a top candidate on the job market, with frequent recruiting contacts.

Read the Tea Leaves. Corporate culture and shifting sands of industry fortunes can take you up or down in your career. It’s good to “read the tea leaves” as it were, to discern whether an opportunity is about to open, close, or lock you into a sorry state of affairs. Corporate mergers, takeovers, site closings or relocations are good times to dust off your resume and turn on “career radar.” Many times in these circumstances, the company will be looking to clean house and set mass layoffs in motion, but sometimes, those in the know and in dire need of retaining the best players to cope with reduced resources will reach out and make you an offer you can’t refuse. Be especially watchful when the person who hired you is no longer with the company by the time you report for work or a new manager who has no knowledge of your skills or resume, shifts into the position over you. Their vision and expectations may be vastly different than the ones you agreed to work under. Though just having arrived, you may want to return to your recent job search than experience the downside of these quasi “bait and switch” changes.

Enrich along the way. Most companies offer a great selection of in-house courses to enhance your professional and personal skills. Don’t let an overloaded schedule keep you from availing yourself of these. It’s another avenue of networking, as well as sharpening the saw in career-advancing tools like management and technical skills.

Recruit your lieutenants and midshipmen. Good leaders build more leaders. Deliberately recruit or give opportunity to those with skills needed to support your program and management initiatives. You may discover candidates internally as well as externally, gifted in areas like IT, statistics, change control, investigations, mining data for reports, stakeholder relations, or a myriad of other skills and talents. If your company provides internship programs, put effort into developing meaningful opportunities for talented candidates who can work in a close mentorship environment to apply their emerging skills as they learn whether Stability is a career that they might like to pursue.

Be that employee. If you are not yet a leader, be a great communicator, verifying expectations, equally reporting progress, setbacks, and unexpected events, and submitting ideas. Make it a point to keep your supervisor in the know. They should not be surprised that you took a personal day, went home sick, had a heated disagreement with another employee, won an award from another department, signed on for an industry committee, or moved your desk to another hallway.

Be that manager. There are two kinds of managers: the one whose absence is a big relief to their employees and the one whose presence is a big relief to their employees. Work hard to be the latter.

Keeping an open office is a helpful practice. Try posting a few “Not Now” hours daily rather than just a few “Open” office hours that may be tough for busy staff to make.

Share any information that is not confidential or restricted. It’s better for your team to hear news, whether good or bad, from you rather than gossiping employees from other groups. It’s also comforting for them to know your whereabouts. No one wants to run down the hall in search of the boss to discover that he or she has been overseas for several days.

Meet frequently as a group and individually in 1 on 1’s. For the sake of information exchange, training, and the power of group think, gather staff regularly on a set schedule. On a rotational basis, also schedule 1 on 1 meetings to get input, review progress on goals and objectives and give feedback. Holding these meetings has benefits in many areas and will also cut down on daily interruptions in your schedule.

Build promotion paths for yourself as well as your staff. Be aware and document when each individual’s last promotion and raise was. If necessary, create benchmarks for staff to reach in between official promotions.

Give to Receive. While rules exist for a reason, it pays to be lenient in seeing to the interests of your group members, Giving parents an hour or two to see their child in a school play, understanding when snow keeps a timid driver home, and allowing some study time to an employee-masters student are examples of enriching the lives of your staff and usually pays big dividends in loyalty and extra effort in crunch times.

When you reach the ceiling. What happens when you’ve reached the top of your company’s “stability” advancement space? For some it’s at the group leader level, with big internationals, you could top out as a VP. No matter the situation, be thinking about what’s next… a smaller fish in a bigger pond, a transfer to Quality or Regulatory, taking an overseas rotation, or maybe a foray into consulting?

What time is Sunset? There’s a good GMP answer for when you might think about bowing out of corporate life: “It depends.” Whether you want to retire at 50 or 70, when to hang up the Stability shoes can depend on how happy you are and how happy people are with you. Despite all the progress the corporate world has made in erasing ageism, age discrimination can still creep in. The classic scenario is finding yourself edged from the group setting and assigned a reviewing role with a never-shrinking stack of papers on your desk. If that is not your greatest silver years aspiration, there are still satisfying options as a consultant in a variety of settings such as start-ups, suppliers, contract organizations and others. Extensive travel, speaking engagements, good earnings and well-deserved respect are often found in these settings. Whatever your path, find your best career finale.