A Walk on the Business Side

Let's say you're a designer or art director who's eager to move up, but you're being told you don't have the business chops to be a creative director. How can you get your nose out of the art department and make it happen?

In some circumstances it may be possible for you to move over and spend some time as an account executive. This will develop your sense of how the business works, and you'll get to use your people skills in a quantifiable way -- when you do the job right, you win a sale and make the client happy.

If your employer isn't wild about this idea, you may have to consider whether you need to move out in order to move up.