Looking back

We were ahead of our times. What we encountered was a direct challenge to our set patterns of thinking about careers and of organisation design. We were a bunch of fortunate oddballs thrown together in an organisation that was willing to be a laboratory. Here is the story:

A couple of decades ago, as a member of a consulting company, we were at an off-site retreat. The theme was ‘career design’. The idea was that rather than lean on ‘career paths’ scripted by the organisation, each member could become the author and architect of one’s own career and negotiate roles with the organisation. The team dialogue that followed was stimulating, as each of us presented our picture on the organisation canvas. Feedback came fast and thick from peers and bosses present, many an undervalued capability was elevated to its correct level, blind spots were revealed, inflated self-perceptions dented, and talent as classically described became the cornerstone for the career discussion. The options were not boringly reduced to vertical growth, specialist or horizontal spread, or generalist. Instead, it was flexible and allowed for fluidity and the emergent ideas to have a bearing on the direction that one’s career took. Even the contract of employment was open to redefinition, if needed to facilitate relevant exposure to a consultant in line with career aspirations. The organogram, as a consequence, was a tapestry of mutually agreed expectations and commitments to performance and career enrichment (not necessarily career advancement or growth).

That was then.

The times, they are a changing…

Much has changed. We are now in an era where accumulating exposure is held as more important than experiencing and consolidation, learning is accessing what is processed, archived and available on tap rather than an upgrade to our operating system and idea of self that is gained through study and reflection.

These are also times where people are bold and willing to take chances. Many pursue their own vocations to express, experiment, discover their latent talents, eke out a livelihood in a way more aligned to their interests rather than be trapped in the ‘mainstream’ of jobs, positions, status and promotions and dated notions of significance.

‘Checking things out’ is increasingly the case rather than staying the course even when it comes to work preferences. Fidelity to task requirements and limited-period loyalty to transient work groups seem more likely. This may be viewed as ‘life enhancing’ rather than ‘career-limiting’.

So, how should we be thinking about careers now?

Careers are not just about role progression and growth within organisations; it is not a mere succession of jobs that one has done to earn a livelihood or the act of riding the wave of economic boom and opportunity, thereby enriching oneself materially. Today, one can speak of having many careers, some short lived while others having long life, and some sequential while others are concurrent. 

It may be worthwhile to now think of it as a summation of experiences – coherent and converging, or disparate and varied, strung together in a narrative that brings together many elements: one’s context and commitment, passion, talent, intent and their translation, good fortune and opportunity, learning and contribution, journeys and destinations, successes and near-misses.

Careers are now stories of striving; it will have little to do with organisation tenures. For some it is a quest to express one’s talents to the fullest potential, for others a story that is of reconciliation with limitations or mediocrity, and for some others, a story of self-defeat and lack of appetite.

One’s career is a personal journey of maturation – of seasoning, developing a visceral feel for things of interest, and wisdom that comes with extended exposure along chosen directions.

In these changing times, what does being at the peak of one’s career mean? Do we have a picture in mind of the best that we can be? Do we know it when we are at our peak in ‘any of our careers’? Do we know it after the fact? What will take the place of thinking of it in terms of socially desirable or organisationally approved markers of growth, peaks, and paths? Would we offer time to ourselves to pause, quieten and examine it in terms of an inner feeling, a sense of one’s own expansion or redefinition of identity, an enhanced response capability, an altered state of being?

Some final thoughts

Is there such a thing as a career decline after a peak? A plateau? While it is true there are numerous resources ranging from self-help tomes to insights from academia on crafting careers and summitting, I wonder what the literature is on the view from the career summit and the path from thereon. A migration to other careers, a new beginning?

Is this discussion of relevance to the vast multitudes in the workforce who have to make ends meet and whose lives oscillate between the compulsions and constraints of their socioeconomic situation? I am not sure that there is a definitive answer. There are numerous examples of those who have followed their bliss, braved the odds and have shaped a life’s work in line with their deepest yearnings and passion. Perhaps the coming years augur well for more people to make active career choices without the pressure to follow the beaten path, or to allow hurdles to become impenetrable walls.

Image: Pxfuel.com