Career perspectives

Dictionary.com defines perspective as, 'the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship'. Perspective can also mean, 'the choice of a single point of view from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience' (Wiktionary.com). The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary simply calls perspective, 'a particular way of considering something'.

Perspective in the context of career planning is essential to success and all of these definitions play a part. The ability to see all relevant data is important but almost impossible to achieve without outside help. For example, you may be convinced that you are the best candidate for a job but that conviction needs to be shared externally in order for you to be successful.

Perspective as a single point of view is vital to a healthy relationship with work. If you are not happy in your career it doesn't matter how many other people envy your position, your sense of fulfilment or ability to achieve personal success is greatly reduced.

Personal success is a particular way of considering success. Not better or worse in comparison to anyone else, just appropriate to your unique perspective.

Knowledge, choice and understanding

No one is born with knowledge of work. Knowledge of work is something we have all acquired. In acquiring our knowledge of work we all make choices. For example, some choose to be doctors or teachers and acquire knowledge appropriate to these professions.

Admittedly, the choices for some are more limited than others but even limited choice does not change the fact that our knowledge of work is largely dictated by what we have chosen. Choice has played a large part in your understanding regardless of whether you have chosen to understand corporate finance, global investment markets, JIT manufacturing processes or people and business leadership.

So if knowledge is the result of a choice to understand, choosing to understand is a critical, early step in knowledge accumulation. To steal from an old maxim, if power lies in knowledge maybe understanding lies in choice?

Don't worry, all of this unsophisticated wordplay does have a point. The reason behind the above is to test the following statement: When choice - even limited choice - is available, knowledge and understanding are available too. The choice to understand your relationship with work - and the knowledge that this choice can create - is therefore within reach of us all.

So says the theory at least...!

Career Decision Making: The longer term view

In any decision making there are always essential, short-term priorities to be considered. For long-term plans to be successful, they must be able to interpret and adjust to everyday events. If they fail to do this, decision making begins to lose its relevance or, worse still, the long term plan becomes obsolete. Career decision making is a good example of planning that needs to be alive to the moment but also mindful of longer term aims.

For instance, you might be offered a promotion but you had planned on retiring in a few years time. Flexing your retirement plan to accept the promotion might be the decision that serves you best before and after you retire. Without the ability for your long-term plan to change, taking the promotion is out of the question and all of its positive effects are placed out of reach.

Good career planning should move us closer to what we want in the future by enabling better decision making in the present. A clearer understanding of our values, talents and goals can move us closer to personal success, one decision at a time.

work/life: A long term relationship

One advantage in working with the same people over time is that you get to know them very well. You learn to appreciate what people/colleagues/friends are good at, where they need help, what situations or tasks they would rather avoid. All the while they are learning the same about you. In the long run, good relationships are lasting while those that challenge without reward tend to fall away.

Relationships that last don't always do so through everyday contact. Sometimes there are prolonged gaps between encounters but you always recognise a good relationship because that call out of the blue or chance meeting can be uplifting for some time afterward. It can lead to more regular contact in the future as well.

There are similarities in the way we as individuals relate to work. Sometimes our relationship with work isn't easy and we don't feel rewarded. Occasionally there can be a separation we would like to avoid -- redundancy is a good example of this.

Through the good times and bad, our relationship with work is one we are tied to for the length of our career. For this reason alone, it helps us to work through the difficulties and learn what we can to make the relationship work.

Just like good relationships created with colleagues and friends over time, a successful relationship with work can be achieved through an appreciation of what is important to you, where your strengths lie and what keeps you going. Values, talents and goals defining personal success.

Redundancy: Is there a positive future?

Some employers are quick to turn to redundancies when times get tough. The business case often used is: 1. We need to cut costs. 2. People are a big cost. 3. Let's get rid of some people.

Making people redundant is viewed as a risk but that risk is believed to be overshadowed by the need for business survival. In other words, without the cost saving of redundancies the business will fail.

There are undoubtedly circumstances where this is true but also true is the underestimation of the risk that redundancies pose to the business. Alongside this underestimation of risk on the part of the employer is an over-experiencing of difficulty by the individuals being made redundant.

Today's Times Online article - The day I was made redundant - is a good example. It describes the difficulties of the redundancy experience from an individual's point of view as well as the hit-and-miss nature of the organisational support on offer. So how could the experience be different on both sides?

Employers can identify the faults in their traditional responses and act with targeted solutions in mind. Employees can be offered support that helps them embrace and manage the opportunities that changing circumstances create for them. Risk and opportunity on both sides can be managed more effectively. Agreements can be made that address priorities within the context of success as seen from all sides.

For sure, redundancy will never be a perfect experience but it could be given a future more positive than its negative history might suggest.

Laura's story: Career Inspiration

Every now and then - almost without fail - a personal story about work comes along that is just plain inspiring. Such stories are hard to do justice when they are re-told because the person telling their own story brings it to life best. I hope the following story doesn't lose too much in translation. 

Laura's family had a successful restaurant business. She worked in the restaurants from an early age and loved the interaction with the customers and being part of the team. She was talented, hard-working and the natural choice to lead the business in the future. After leaving school everyone expected Laura to continue in the family business but to their surprise, she turned this down to pursue a career elsewhere.

After carving out a successful entrepreneurial career in property development, having a family, buying several houses at home and abroad - all without family assistance - Laura had reached a key moment in her career. After a lot of thought, she surprised everyone again, this time by choosing to join the family business.

This story has been simplified a great deal but although it misses the vibrancy of its original telling it can still inspire. This is because it demonstrates a number of attributes essential to a successful relationship with work: determination, commitment, self-sacrifice, humility, self-direction, clarity of thought, the list could go on. But, more than any of these, Laura's story demonstrates the value of exploring your relationship with work at a fundamental level.

Laura could have easily taken the job in her family's business and been very successful but she realised - at an earlier age than most - that success without personal meaning isn't enough. Laura wanted to prove to herself that she was the best candidate to lead the family business and that this career choice was relevant to her values, talents and goals once she understood them better. Laura's reward is the knowledge that a genuine connection did exist and that with it comes a greater chance of success with personal meaning and a far more rewarding relationship with work.

Prepare for the worst (Question that is..)

I've spent most of today preparing for an upcoming meeting. Making sure I have done my homework. Trying to anticipate the kind of questions I am likely to be asked. Looking for the unexpected holes that the other person always seems so skilled at finding.

The whole process has reminded me of preparing for an interview. So it seemed appropriate to post a few thoughts on preparation or readiness. As always, these thoughts aren't so much my own as they are a collection of the best advice and best practice I am lucky enough to have encountered over my career in live interview and assessment.

The best advice I have encountered on the subject of preparing for a big interview is knowing the outcome you are working towards and why you want to achieve it. There are snappier lines but for one reason or another, this is the one that has stayed with me.

When everything else is removed, the components that remain are you, the person(s) you are meeting and what each of you would like the encounter to achieve. Yes, it is important to know what the other side wants but turning up to an interview just to please the interviewer is rarely a winning strategy on its own. At some point, your interests have to be aired and justified too.

If you are asked, 'Why are you here today?' or 'What would you like this meeting to achieve?' or an old interview favourite like 'What would you like to be doing 5 years from now? ...', if your preparation on the above is clear, your answer will be clear too.

Good luck to anyone preparing their answer at this moment in time!