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1. TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR CAREER
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What does your future look like? Chances are you don’t have too much confidence in the years ahead, and no
clue as to what will happen to you. You may not feel the same loyalty to
your employer you did years ago, and you may be on the alert for the worst.
Lifetime employment went out with the Brady Bunch - even the big old
paternalistic companies are terminating people by the thousands.
Every day there are new reports of downsizings and layoffs. Nearly 7 million
people have lost permanent jobs in the last five years. Recently, speaking
to a group of 200 young professionals, I asked the group how many of them
expected to be with their present employers twenty-five years from now. Not
a single hand went up.
A few years ago, if you lost a job, you would just go out and get another.
Maybe it paid a little less, but in a year or two merit increases would get
you right back to where you had been. No more. Half of those who find new
employment today settle for jobs at lower pay and responsibility.
This if a new era of lowered expectations.
It might surprise you, but this is not all bad. You can make up your own
mind and take charge of your own career.
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This means:
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You have more options.
Today, you may be forced to do something new even if that’s not your dream.
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Your loyalty will be first to yourself, second to a team or project, next to
your profession, and last to your place of work.
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Boss-subordinate relationships are changing. Traditionally, the boss had
most of the power, but no more. Now, power is shifting to subordinates. They
participate in decision making or make decisions themselves. They take more
control over their work, their careers, and their lives. They initiate
rather than wait for orders, need to be problem solvers, communicators, team
players. Follower skills are becoming as important as leadership skills. For bosses, the commander style of
management is out, and there is more
delegation and more teamwork. Top-down just doesn’t work very well today. It
slows decision making, new product development, and action of all sorts,
making it difficult for companies to satisfy customer needs and compete
effectively. It kills candour and creativity and weakens commitment. The new
relationship is less structured.
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Traditional rewards will be fewer. Promotions and salary increases are
becoming as scarce as chicken molars. First-class travel, and big expense
accounts are disappearing.
- If you are a manager, you need to find new ways to recognise good work and
to motivate people. As a subordinate, you have to learn to reward yourself
rather than depend on hand outs from your employer.
- You will find yourself working harder and longer for fewer rewards (pay,
advancement) than your predecessors did.
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Career planning is becoming an oxymoron. When you think about the word
career, you think about moving up. But that is not the way it works today.
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You will have new career patterns. Research from Generation X indicates that
many young people aren’t sitting still for the old tired corporate ways.
They want to be recognised for good performance on the job. They want to
jump around. They want praise and recognition and want to get rid of dress
codes and other stuffy traditions.
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You will have more responsibility. You are in charge of you. You need to
decide for yourself.
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Layoffs will continue. Experts tell us that - even with all that has
happened - organisations are still fat by a third and that downsizings and reorganisations will be with
us till well after the turn of the century.
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You have more incentive to learn new skills. Your very survival depends on
learning and growing. Your energies have to be directed toward adding value
to your present employer and upgrading your skills and abilities so that
lifelong learning is your ticket to future success, and you have to take
charge of your own development.
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Become an Entrepreneur. Prepare to love your job. Make sure your reputation remains intact. People tend to slack off
when threatened with retrenchment.
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To begin with, let’s look at what you have now. How well does
your present job stack up? Are you secure? Are you satisfied? Do you see
opportunity? Or are you struggling to hold on, apprehensive about the
future, working harder and harder for less and less?
The Present Situation Analysis (Chart 1) will help you see a
little more clearly where you stand today. Start with the “Love of Job” section. Take each factor in the left-hand column and scan across
till you find something that most closely describes your situation. Circle
it and enter the numerical value from the top line. Do this for each of the
factors; then add up your total “Love of Job” score and enter it at the bottom. Do the same with the “Confidence
in the Future” section.
If you hate your job and have little confidence that it holds any kind of
decent future for you (lower left-hand corner), you should be planning your
escape.
If you don’t like your job, but you feel there could be a relatively decent
future with your present company (lower right), you ought to try to change
the scope of your job within the company. If you love your job but don’t
think there’s a future with the company (upper left), you have to decide.
Want to stick it out, have fun, and take your chances, or explore other
employers now? If you love your job and have a great future (upper right),
you are indeed a lucky dog.
Three of the four quadrants call for some kind of change. Even if you are in
the “Lucky dog” quadrant you should be getting ready - because you never
know.
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