Staying Smart: Advice
on Navigating Your Career Millions of career changes occur
each year. Some are natural, but many more occur in adverse circumstances. Other
forces at work today further alter the work environment. The Internet tidal wave
destroys existing business methods and creates new ones. Many jobs get shaken up
in the process. In 1998 the momentum of the Asian economies went from
fast-forward to reverse. With their appetite for new products and services,
these countries had fueled economic growth all over the world. The change in
their fortunes has affected and untold number of careers throughout the
world. Clearly, environmental changes like these beget strategic
inflection points for companies. Even more acutely, however, they bring career
inflection points to the employees of those companies. Your Career is Your
Business Every person, whether he is an employee or
self-employed, is like an individual business. Your career is your business, and
you are its CEO. Just like the CEO of a large corporation, you must respond to
market forces, head off competitors, and be alert to the possibility that what
you are doing can be done in a different way. You must protect your career from
harm and position yourself to benefit from changes in the operating environment.
This business of one often encounters a defining point where an action you take
will determine whether your career bounces upward or slumps into decline. Let’s
call it a career inflection point. A career inflection point
most often resets from a subtle but profound shift in the operating environment
in which you work, a shift that demands that you respond with action. This
action will not necessarily introduce an immediate discontinuity into your
career, but it may unleash forces that in time will have a lasting and
significant effect. A strategic inflection point reflects a wrenching moment in
the life of a company, hot the effort of navigating through it is spread among
members of a community. Career inflection points are more intense, because
everything rests on the shoulders of one individual — you.
Career inflection points happen to everyone. Consider the case of a
business journalist I know. This man used to be a banker. He was happily and
productively employed until the day he went to work and learned that his
employer had been acquired by a larger bank. In short order he was out of a job.
He then became a stockbroker. For a while, things went well and the future
looked promising. However, a short time before we met, online brokerage firms
started to appear. Several of this man’s clients left him, preferring to do
their business with low-cost online firms. The handwriting was on the
wall. This time our man decided to make his move early. He had
always had an interest in and aptitude for writing. Building on the financial
knowledge he had already acquired, he found himself a job as a business
journalist, a less lucrative position but one less likely to be done in by
technology. This transition was not as traumatic (痛苦而难忘的) as the move from bank
to brokerage; this time he had initiated it rather than waiting for change to be
forced on him by outside forces. To know whether you’re facing a
career inflection point, you must be alert to changes in your environment.
Working inside an organization, you’re often sheltered from the world at large.
In some ways you tacitly relinquish (放弃) responsibility for your we[fare to your
employer. But if you take your eyes off the environment in which your company
operates, you may be the last to know of potential changes that could have an
impact on your career. The Mental Fire Drill You
should train yourself to look for strategic inflection points that may affect
your career. Simply put, you need to be a little paranoid about your
career. One way to do this is to go through a mental fire drill:
Act as if you were the CEO of a large company, a CEO who is open to outside
views and stimuli. Read newspapers. Attend industry conferences. Network with
colleagues in other companies. Listen to chatter from colleagues and friends.
When different sources all reinforce the idea that change is afoot — whether in
your industry or another one — it is time to sit up and ask yourself a series of
questions like these: ◇ Do these anecdotes indicate changes
that might somehow apply to you ◇ What would you do if you
were affected by such a change ◇ }tow likely is your company
to be affected by changes in your industry ◇ If you think that
developments originating in other industries could have a ripple effect on your
job, are you confident of learning the new ways If not, what should you
do Only through this kind of vigorous debate with yourself can
you determine whether you’ve reached a career inflection point. The only way to
hone your ability to recognize and analyze changes is to question the tacit
assumptions underlying your daily work. Timing Is Everything
Success in navigating a career inflection point depends largely on a sense
of timing. But you have invested a lot in getting your career to where it is and
you’ve got great hopes of rising further along the current trajectory (轨道) of
your career. So it’s more than likely that after asking yourself the kinds of
questions listed above and deciding that a troublesome shift is underway, your
whole being will probably work to try to deny that this is so.
Denial can come from two wholly different sources. If you’ve been very
successful in your career, the smoothness of success may keep you from
recognizing danger. If you’ve just been hanging on, fear of change may make you
reluctant to risk what little you have. Either way, denial can cost you time,
causing you to miss the best moment for action. As in managing
business, it is rare that people make career calls early. But the truth is that
a change made under the benign bubble of an existing job will be far less
wrenching than a change made once your career has started to decline. If you are
among the first to take advantage of a career inflection point, you are likely
to find the best pick of the new opportunities. Simply put, the early bird gets
the worm; latecomers get leftovers. Get in Shape for Change
The period between an early sense of foreboding and an actual career
inflection point is valuable. Just as athletes get in shape for competition,
this is your time to get in shape for change. Picture yourself in different
roles. Talk to people in those kinds of jobs. Conduct a dialogue with yourself
about how suited you are for a new line of work. Train your brain for the big
change. Experimentation is a key way to prepare for change. This
can take several different forms. For the stockbroker-turned-journalist, this
meant dusting off his writing skills and contracting potential employers early.
You might consider moonlighting (兼职) or going back to school part-time. You may
want to ask your current employer for a new and entirely different
assignment. As you experiment, avoid random motion. Don’t take
blind steps just to head in a different direction. Guide yourself by your
understanding of the nature of the changes that are upon on you. Look for
something that allows you to use your knowledge or skills in a position that’s
immune to the wave of changes you have spotted. Better yet, leek for a job that
actually takes advantage of the changes. Go with the flow rather than fight
it. When a corporation navigates a strategic inflection point,
the CEO is called upon to describe a clear vision of the new industry map and to
provide the leadership to get the organization across this valley. As CEO of
your own career, you must supply the vision and commitment yourself. Arriving at
the clarity of direction through a dialogue with yourself and then maintaining
your conviction when you wake up in the middle of the night filled with doubts
is not easy. Yet you have no choice. You have just one career. Your might take
control of it with full focus and energy, and with no wavering. A journalist succeeds more easily than a stockbroker.