Managing oneself is based on these realities: Workers are likely to outlive organizations, and the knowledge worker has mobility.
Managing oneself is a REVOLUTION in human affairs. It requires new and unprecedented things from the individual, and especially from the knowledge worker. For, in effect, it demands that each knowledge worker think and behave as a chief executive officer. It also requires an almost 180-degree change in the knowledge workers’ thoughts and actions from what most of us still take for granted as the way to think and the way to act.
The shift from manual workers who do as they are being told—either by the task or by the boss—to knowledge workers who have to manage themselves profoundly challenges social structure. For every existing society, even the most “individualist” one, takes two things for granted, if only subconsciously: Organizations outlive workers, and most people stay put. Managing oneself is based on the very opposite realities. In the United States MOBILITY is accepted. But even in the United States, workers outliving organizations—and with it the need to be prepared for a second and different half of one’s life—is a revolution for which practically no one is prepared. Nor is any existing institution, for example, the present retirement system.
ACTION POINT: Begin thinking of a second career you find fulfilling. List areas of work that interest you, including that of a volunteer in a nonprofit organization.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker