Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Senior Leaders Use Career Sprints for Breakthroughs
Transcript
- Lucas: So earlier this year I had coffee with a friend who's a CTO at a mid-cap industrial firm. He's been in the role four years, done solid work, but he felt stuck — no board seats, no visibility outside his company. Then he told me about something he called a 'career sprint.' And honestly, the concept has stuck with me. Luna: A career sprint — like in Agile software development? Time-boxed, focused effort toward a specific goal? Lucas: Exactly. He borrowed the term from engineering. The idea is simple: instead of trying to constantly grind and network and publish and speak — which is exhausting and often unfocused — you pick one high-leverage objective and go all-in for a defined period. In his case, he wanted a board seat, and he gave himself 90 days. Luna: Did he get the board seat? Lucas: He did. But the process is what's interesting. He didn't just update his LinkedIn and start sending cold emails. He structured the sprint around three things: a clear objective, a measurable deliverable, and a strict timeline. For him, the deliverable was a published white paper on AI governance in industrial automation. That paper became his calling card. Luna: So he built expertise in a hot topic — AI governance — and used that to open doors. That's smart. But why a sprint instead of just making it part of his ongoing workload? Lucas: Because ongoing workload doesn't produce breakthroughs. It produces incremental progress. A sprint creates urgency and focus. When you know you have 90 days, you prioritize ruthlessly. My friend blocked two hours every morning before his regular job started, and he cut out almost all non-essential meetings for that quarter. His team knew what he was doing, and they bought in because he framed it as a strategic initiative, not a distraction. Luna: I've seen something similar with a COO I know. She wanted to reposition herself for a CEO role, so she did a six-month sprint focused on turning around a struggling division. She didn't just manage it — she documented every step, quantified the results, and built a narrative around the transformation. That story got her interviews for CEO roles she wouldn't have been considered for before. Lucas: That's a perfect example. The key is the deliverable has to be something external and verifiable. A white paper, a case study, a turnaround metric, a public talk. Something that exists outside your performance review. That's what gives the sprint leverage. Luna: But not every senior leader can just block out two hours a day for 90 days. How do you sell that to your board or your CEO without sounding like you're neglecting your day job? Lucas: You don't ask permission. You align it with a business need. My friend's white paper was directly relevant to a risk the board was already worried about. He framed it as, 'I'm going to develop our thinking on AI governance so we're prepared for regulation.' The board loved it. The sprint wasn't a side project — it was part of his role. Luna: So the sprint has to serve the organization's interests too. That makes sense. Otherwise it's just a hobby. Lucas: Right. And there's another crucial element: the timeline has to be short enough to create real urgency, but long enough to produce something meaningful. 60 to 90 days is the sweet spot for most senior leaders. Less than 30 days and you're scrambling. More than 120 and it loses the sprint energy. Luna: What about the risks? I imagine if you promise a big deliverable and it falls short, that could backfire. Lucas: Massive risk. That's why you choose something you're already 70 percent sure you can deliver. The sprint isn't for moonshots. It's for accelerating something already within reach. My friend had been following AI governance for a year. He had the raw material. The sprint forced him to synthesize and publish. Luna: And if you fail? You've just spent 90 days visibly working on something that didn't pan out. That's a reputational hit. Lucas: It can be. But you can mitigate that by being transparent about the learning. If the white paper reveals more questions than answers, you frame it as a strategic inquiry. The value is in the rigor, not just the conclusion. Boards respect thoughtful exploration. Luna: Still, it takes courage. Most senior leaders are risk-averse when it comes to their own careers. They'd rather keep their head down and do the job well. Lucas: And that's why career sprints are rare — and why they work. Look, the average VP or C-suite executive has dozens of demands on their time. The ones who break out are the ones who deliberately concentrate their energy on one high-leverage move. The sprint is a framework for doing that without burning out. Luna: I want to talk about how to pick the right sprint target. Because if you pick the wrong thing, you're wasting time. Lucas: There's a simple criteria: the target should be something that, if achieved, would clearly change your career trajectory within 12 months. For my friend, the board seat was that. For your COO friend, it was the CEO pipeline. It's not a vague 'get better at strategy.' It's a concrete outcome. Luna: And it should play to your strengths. If you're a finance person, don't sprint to become a marketing guru. Sprint to become the go-to expert on, say, capital allocation in a specific industry. Lucas: Exactly. The best sprints amplify an existing strength, not build a new one from scratch. The timeline is too short for that. You're adding a layer of visibility and credibility to something you already do well. Luna: So what does a sprint look like week to week? My COO friend told me she spent the first two weeks just defining the problem and the metrics. Then weeks three through eight were execution. The last two weeks were packaging the results and socializing them. Lucas: That's a solid structure. My friend's sprint had a similar arc: weeks one and two were research and interviews, weeks three through ten were writing and refining, and the last three weeks were outreach — sending the paper to board members, speaking at one conference, setting up meetings. He didn't wait until the end to start networking; he used the deliverable as the reason to connect. Luna: The networking part is critical. A white paper sitting on your hard drive does nothing. It has to be launched into the world. Lucas: Which brings up another point: the sprint should include a communication plan. Who needs to know about this? Your CEO, your board, your peers, your network. You don't broadcast it as a 'sprint' — you talk about it as a strategic initiative you're leading. The language matters. Luna: I've seen leaders mess this up by oversharing. They say, 'I'm doing this career sprint to position myself for a board seat.' That's too transparent. It looks self-serving. Lucas: Right. The framing is always business-first. 'I'm developing our approach to AI governance because it's a board-level risk.' That's the story. The career benefit is a byproduct. Luna: And after the sprint? What's the next step? Do you immediately start another one? Lucas: No. You take a breather. Sprints are intense. My friend took two months off from any extra projects after his board seat was confirmed. Then he started thinking about the next sprint — but only after he was sure he had the capacity. The danger is sprinting continuously, which is just burnout with a fancy name. Luna: So maybe one or two sprints a year, maximum. Lucas: That feels right. And the sprints should ladder up to a larger career narrative. Maybe year one is a sprint to get a board seat. Year two is a sprint to build a reputation as a thought leader. Year three is a sprint to land a CEO role. Each sprint builds on the last. Luna: That's a long-term strategy disguised as a short-term tactic. I like it. Lucas: If today was actually useful to you — and I hope it gave you a concrete framework to think about — the way these shows stay ad-free is listener support. You can head to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo to help us keep producing episodes like this. No pressure, just if you found value. Luna: Yeah, we love making these, and the support really helps us invest time in the research and guests. Every bit counts. Lucas: So back to the sprint concept — I want to leave you with one practical takeaway. If you're a senior leader feeling stuck, ask yourself: what is one thing I could achieve in 90 days that would meaningfully change my career trajectory? Write it down. Then block the time. The sprint framework gives you the structure. The rest is just execution. Luna: And don't forget to tell someone about it — in a business-first way. Accountability helps. Lucas: Exactly. So next time you're in a coffee shop with a fellow exec, maybe ask them what their next sprint is. The conversation might lead somewhere unexpected.