LOOKING AHEAD A CAREER INSTEAD OF A JOB
What seems different in yourself; that's the rare thing you possess. The one thing that gives each of us his worth, and that's just what we try to suppress. And we claim to love life. ANDRE GIDE
If you don't decide where you want to go, you may wind up drifting from one company to another each time you're dissatisfied, with pretty much the same job in each case. Even if you decide that you want to continue doing what you're doing right now, that's a goal in itself and may be difficult to achieve.
The first step in career management is goal setting. There are a lot of processes involved in the goal setting area. But the one considered most central is that by which a person examines his or her past accomplishments, looking at the strongest and most enjoyable skills.
This process is not only the one favored by counselors, it is also the one most often used by successful people. In reading the biographies of such people, I see again and again how they established their goals by identifying those things they enjoy doing and also do well. This process of identifying your "enjoyable accomplishments" is the most important one you can go through.
WHAT SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO?
When Steven Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers, was fired by John Sculley, the man he had brought in to run the company, he felt as though he had lost everything. Apple had been his life. Now he had lost not only his job, but his company. People no longer felt the need to return his phone calls. He did what a lot of us would do. He got depressed. But then:
Confused about what to do next ... he [Jobs] put himself through an exercise that management psychologists employ with clients unsure about their life goals. It was a little thing, really. It was just a list. A list of all the things that mattered most to Jobs during his ten years at Apple. "Three things jumped off that piece of paper, three things that were really important to me," says Jobs.
MICHAEL MEYER, The Alexander Complex
The exercise Steven Jobs went through is essentially what you will do in the Seven Stories exercise. The threads that ran through his stories formed the impetus for his next great drive: the formation of NeXT computers. If the Seven Stories exercise is good enough for Steven Jobs, maybe it's good enough for you.
"Successful managers," says Charles Garfield, head of Performance Services, Inc., in Berkeley, California, "go with their preferences." They search for work that is important to them, and when they find it they pursue it with a passion.
Lester Korn, Chairman of Korn, Ferry, notes in his book The Success Profile: "Few executives know, or can know, exactly what they aspire to until they have been in the work force for a couple of years. It takes that long to learn enough about yourself to know what you can do well and what will make you happy. The trick is to merge the two into a goal, then set off in pursuit of it."
This will help you decide what you want to do in your next job as well as in the long run. You will become clearer about the experiences you have enjoyed most and may like to repeat. You will also examine your interests and values, and look at past positions to analyze what satisfied you and what did not. In addition, you will look farther ahead (through your Forty Year Plan) to see if some driving dream may influence what you will want to do in the short term. I did my Forty Year Plan about fifteen years ago, and the vision I had of my future still drives me today. Knowing where you would like to wind up broadens the kinds of jobs you would be interested in today. Look at it this way:
The line represents your life. Right now, you are at A. Your next job is B. If you look only at your past to decide what to do next, your next job is limited by what you have already done. For example, if you have been in finance and accounting for the past fifteen years, and you base your next move on your past, your next job is likely to be in finance or accounting.
If you know that at C you would like to wind up as vice president of finance and administration, new possibilities open up. Think of all the areas you would manage:
- Finance
- Operations
- Administration
- Personnel
- Accounting
- Computers
HAPPY IN YOUR WORK
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.
DANIEL BURNHAM
People are happy when they are working toward their goals. When they get diverted or don't know what their goals are they are unhappy. Many people are unhappy in their jobs because they don't know where they are going.
People without goals are more irked by daily petty problems than are those with goals who are less bothered because they have bigger plans. To control your life, know where you are going, and be ready for your next move in case the ax falls on you. When you take that next job, continue to manage your career. Companies rarely build career paths for their employees any more. Make your own way. There are plenty of jobs for those who are willing to learn and change with the times.
MOTIVATED SKILLS YOUR ANCHOR IN A CHANGING WORLD
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Your motivated skills are your anchor in a world of uncertainty. The world will change, but your motivated skills remain constant.
Write them down. Save the list. Over the years, refer to them to make sure you are still on target doing things that you do well and are motivated to do. As you refer to them, they will influence your life. Five years from now, an opportunity may present itself. In reviewing your list, you will have every confidence that this opportunity is right for you. After all, you have been doing these things since you were a child, you know that you enjoy them, and you do them well!
Knowing our patterns gives us a sense of stability and helps us understand what we have done so far. It also gives us the freedom to try new things regardless of risk or of what others may say, because we can be absolutely sure that this is the way we are. Knowing your patterns gives you both security and flexibility and you need both to cope in this changing world.
