Managing Careers.
Image using Midjourney
This 260th edition of “The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past” marks its 5th year anniversary ( 5 X 52= 260).
Over these past 5 years the content has spanned a dozen different topics including The Future, Managing Change, Creating Great Cultures and Future Forward Organizations, Leadership, How to Upgrade Our Mental Operating Systems, Strategy, Rethinking Media, Marketing and Creativity, Selling Better, Personal Growth, Wisdom, and Managing Careers.
The Substack has remained completely free and has grown from 100 to nearly 31,000 readers. Starting today, I will revisit each of the 12 topics combining the key points from the past with some new thoughts.
Today we begin with some thoughts on Managing Careers.
1. Plan Careers with a 50 year horizon.
With life expectancies nearing the mid-eighties, social security being pushed back and most people enjoying good health till the mid seventies, it is unlikely that we will be parked on a beach when we near sixty. And even if we do not have to work for financial reasons we will do for reasons of meaning, connection and growth. Thus if we are in our 40’s we have three decades ahead of us so it is never too late to learn new things and start again and if we are in our 20’s or 30’s we should try not to get hysterical or depressed about a lost business or a bad quarter.
Rather, we should not make job or career decisions with three month horizons but at least three year horizons. Ideally one should stay in a company as long as one is finding ways to grow. With time in a firm one builds relationships, reputation and acumen. Avoid switching from something that is working just because more money is offered unless we have financial stress. Remember that often the grass is greener on the other side because it is fertilized with bullshit. Wherever there are people there is drama and nonsense . By taking a longer term perspective our decision making will be better, our skills will mature, and we will take daily and weekly gyrations in perspective.
2. Having a job and having meaningful, purposeful, rewarding work are not the same thing.
We are likely to see a decline in jobs but an increase in the opportunity to find work.
This shift is already underway as full-time employment in a company via holding a job is being supplemented and complimented by part-time well paid opportunities outside holding a job. Every force from unbundling of the office, the rise of AI, the explosion in marketplaces such as Shopify, Etsy, Upwork and more will further drive this change.
Thus a career is a “career of work” and not a “career of jobs”. It is a “working” career not a “jobbing” career. We must prepare for a career that combine a series of jobs and gigs and projects, sometimes serially and often in parallel.
3. The people you work with and for are more important than most other things.
When given a choice between someone who could mentor us, teach us or help us grow versus a higher salary or a better known company we should go for the former. Our skill growth, our work satisfaction and our future potential are highly driven by the people we work with rather than the company we work for.
The ideal is to find a great person or team to work for in a well regarded company or to find your way to these leaders and teams.
To grow we must align with people who can help us grow.
This is particularly true in the first two decades of our careers.
4. Be data and reality driven.
Money never comes accompanied.
Whomever pays us expects we will deliver a quality product or service at a market competitive or even under market price. We are a unit of production that can be replaced by another unit of production that offers more for less.
Nobody is irreplaceable and beyond a point our personal drama is friction and heat and considered a hindrance so pouting and bad mouthing should be kept to a minimum if one wants to stay in an assignment.
Work is not a spa and there is a reason one is being paid.
It is a tough and fast moving marketplace. And change is so difficult because we have to constantly adapt and learn and twist ourselves into new shapes. This is harder the more senior and accomplished we are in a firm.Change sucks but irrelevance is even worse.
Facts matter. Truth has a habit of breaking in. Reality matters.
The market, the company and the future will never adapt to us. We have to adapt to it.
5. Learn to operate with “a company of one” mindset to maximize our optionality.
The best way to control our careers is to have options. There are many ways to increase our optionality.
The most powerful is to have “a company of one” mindset even if we are working for a company of thousands. It’s a way of being and operating and behaving. It is not necessarily about having to set up shop as a company of one.
To operate with “a company of one mindset”we need to combine craft, collaboration, reputation, and make investments in our own growth while keeping our costs under control.
It is key to work really hard at honing a craft, expertise and skill that the market is demanding since that is what people are buying. Second it is critical to be very collaborative since it is teams and network that make work happen. Individual contributors will be isolated without also being collaborators. The third is to build a reputation so people will think of and call us when there are opportunities inside or outside the company. Next, invest in our own growth program. Do not only depend on your future learning on the company for two simple reasons. First, they will invest to teach us what they need but that is not what the market might need. Second most companies are barely investing in training these days. We ourselves should subscribe to the latest and greatest AI engines, communities and much more. It is our career not theirs.
Finally to increase our options we should not price ourselves out of our dreams. Keep costs as low as possible so we do not have to keep working at a job we dislike to pay for things that impress others versus something that gives us purpose, meaning and joy.
The goal is to craft expertise, earn a stellar reputation, practice a growth mindset and build a fortress balance sheet so we have the option to walk away anytime people try to control us or make us feel less.
The option to walk away does not mean we should. In fact the option allows us to stay and deal with the drama and find ways around the problem. When we feel we have optionality outside we can stay in a company for much longer than if we did not.
Optionality is true power that comes from a Company of One Mindset.
6. Invest in the 6c’s to Future Proof.
The world keeps changing and technology is replacing a lot of knowledge, experience and even some skills ( from translation to coding).
Now the ability to learn, to grow relevant skills and expertise and to bring insight and crystalized intelligence (wisdom) to the task at hand is what matters.
Here are six skills we should work at that will stand the test time. They are the 6c’s : Cognition, Creativity, Curiosity, Connection, Convincing, Communication
Cognition: We need to upgrade our mental operating system which means unlearning and learning is key, particularly the more senior and accomplished one is. Today careers die when we stop learning. Clear an hour in every day to learn ( take it from anywhere but sleep and family). If you do not have time to learn be aware that we are becoming irrelevant.
Creativity: Creativity is an expression of self and a way to connect dots in new ways. To do so we need to combine our past and our futures, hone our voice and taste and bring our insights, intuition, instincts, imagination to the knowledge and processing bases of AI
Curiosity: Lets ask two questions as often as we can. Why not? What if?
Connection: The ability to connect and resonate with other humans, other firms, other expertise means we will need to hone our API’s and MCP’s ( Machine Context Protocols) but also our empathy and vulnerability.
Convincing: In a world where everybody has the same knowledge bases since AI will be like electricity , a commodity that we will all use, what we will need is the ability to story tell, inspire, and motivate.
Communication: When a Samsung phone can translate Mandarin in real time and coding will need English ( or our native language) the old advice of learning Chinese and Coding may be less relevant. Learning to write well and present to hold a room are skills that will help us thrive.
7. Practice Resurrection
Even if we are amazingly successful, we may find ourselves kicked to the curb, right sized, passed over for the promotion, layered, denied the prize, removed from the business, or marched out of an office…
The world will seem to end. Our self worth crushed. The story sullied. Our reputation tarred.
But we must practice resurrection
And rise like a Phoenix.
For in the ashes of our setbacks are the seeds of learning that will help us take flight again.
Ask anyone with great achievements and they will tell us how the stops at failure made their journey more successful.
8. Keep things in perspective.
Work is central to human satisfaction and happiness because it provides us not just income but also identity, community, purpose and growth.
We need to work seriously and with passion to excel.
But relationships and health are the other keys to happiness and very few people you work with will be at your funeral.
Notice how people who have lost a position are surprised that they are no longer popular. The reality often is people were not interested in the person but the Company and Client they worked at or budget they controlled.
So we should chill about our supposed fame, popularity and clout.
It will be gone and one day we will need to be by ourselves.
Time rather than money is the only real currency we have.
Many people will run out time long before they run out of money.
For many people work is a key part of a good life.
But there is much more than work to a great life.
Much more on Managing Careers in Section 6 here :https://rishadtobaccowala.com/100 and in Rethinking Work that is unleashing people and helping prepare for the future at Rethiningwork.io
