The stepladder is gone, and there’s not even the implied structure of an industry’s rope ladder. It’s more like vines, and you bring your own machete.
If a young man in a gray flannel suit represented the lifelong corporate type, what’s today’s image? Taking individual responsibility and not depending on any particular company. Equally important is managing your own career. You don’t know what you’ll be doing next, or whether you’ll work in a private office or one big amphitheater or even out of your home. You have to take responsibility for knowing yourself, so you can find the right jobs as you develop and as your family becomes a factor in your values and choices.
Remarkably few Americans are prepared to select jobs for themselves. When you ask, “Do you know what you are good at? Do you know your limitations?” they look you in the eye with a blank stare. Or they often respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer. When they prepare their resumes, they try to list positions like steps up a ladder. It is time to give up thinking of jobs or career paths as we once did and think in terms of taking on one assignment after another. We have to leap right over the search for objective criteria and get into the subjective—what I call competencies.
ACTION POINT: Take responsibility for your own career. List your strengths and limitations. What assignments are you prepared to take on next? Prepare to take on these assignments either inside of or outside of your current organization.
Managing in a Time of Great Change
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker