Even Mike Robertson finally accepted the fact that he could no longer depend on any organization to provide him with a meaningful position for any significant period of time. Prior to his termination, Robertson's career moves had always been motivated by the chance for increased responsibility and personal challenge as well as for economic rewards. But when he was terminated in 1989, he began to notice that any job within an organization would probably be subject to this new set of rules. Looking beyond personal challenge and economic wealth, Robertson began to question the basics-will a job last two years? Five?-and realized that there was a strong chance that he could be back on the street again fairly soon. It was at that moment that Mike Robertson said to himself "Nobody is going to do for me except me."
What Mike's experience serves to illustrate is that when the resolution of the trauma of losing one's job involves becoming more self-directed and relinquishing the notion that anyone else will "take care of you," the resulting attitudinal shift, though initially frightening, can leave an executive better equipped to thrive in a marketplace that places a premium on workers with the independence and flexibility to move in and out of assignments at will. The critical shift here is in realizing that one's identity as a person is not, and never should be, dependent upon a relationship with an organization. In the words of Jim Schwarz, a thirty-six-year-old marketing consultant who refers to his independence as "individual sovereignty," "I don't want an organization to set my value."
Valuing Yourself More than Any Employer Ever Would
As an employee, Mike Robertson "gave credit to others and took the hits." Today, he counsels others to recognize their contributions and not simply credit the organization. Says Robertson, "Had I done that before, it might have made a difference in how I felt about myself." Today's executive, whether employed full-time or operating as an interim manager or consultant, must recognize that their core skills have value in the marketplace, and that employment relationships now are a delivery system for those skills. In coming to understand this, Mike Robertson made the most critical attitudinal shift of all: He recognized that his skills were transferable and had value in and of themselves.
Once an executive fully accepts the idea that his or her skills are independently valuable, the next step in the transformation is to become the type of player the current marketplace demands. As publishing executive David Moore put it:
One of the toughest things to get through your bean is to realize that there are other ways to use your talent. You have to recognize the talents you have beyond what you have done in the past.
Benefits of a Broken Covenant
Though losing one's job at any time is unavoidably traumatic, losing it during the restructuring of America in the 1980s and '90s is not without its consolations. A generation ago, when the covenant of lifetime employment was operational and those who were terminated were likely terminated for cause, severance pay came nowhere near the proportions it does today; and while not every executive walks away from a termination with a comfortable financial cushion, several factors do make it easier for today's executive to make the transition to portability.
When the true economics of the paternalistic covenant of lifetime employment became apparent to organizations, attractive early retirement packages became, in effect, the payoff for breaking the covenant. The invention of "golden parachutes," or what some now refer to as "parachutes of lesser metal," has given some executives who are downsized out of an organization a degree of economic freedom that allows them time to think through their next career move.
Severance packages and, for some, the ability to accumulate more disposable income in the sixties, seventies, and eighties through stock options, bonuses, investments, and savings-additional legacies of corporate America-are often significant factors in reducing some of the economic pressure brought to bear on executives being terminated today. Thus, though faced with enormous personal and professional transitions, executives in the nineties sometimes have the economic means to examine what they really want to do and make choices based on a careful consideration of their career options. This relative economic freedom in the immediate period following termination is a tremendous boon for those embarking on the path to becoming portable executives. But even when an executive lacks such means and must find work immediately to maintain cash flow, it is not only possible but necessary to make the transition to portability.
The superb ongoing training offered by American corporations throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties has also given downsized executives an edge that their counterparts just a generation ago did not possess. In preparing employees to function in an increasingly high-tech business environment, corporations equipped many executives with strong, basic capabilities that they could fall back on, and most of today's portable executives are quick to recognize that their training has actually prepared them to market themselves effectively in a variety of ways.
