What would you like to do?

In your past experiences of career advisory services you may have been asked the question, "What would you like to do?" at some point. I don't think I am alone in being asked this question previously or in wishing that some of my answers had been a little more careful. The reason for bringing it up is that answering the "What would you like to do?" question can be relatively easy but ensuring that the answer is a useful one requires a little more thought.

For that reason, a key component in measuring the success of the work/life fusion approach to career direction finding is changing an individual's perspective from "Where is my career going?" to "Where my career is going". Arguably, only confidence in the latter can change fortunes going forward.

It would be good to hear examples of questions you have been asked or those that you use yourself in similar situations. As always, the conversation is an open one!

Opportunity management II - Response to change

Career change is sometimes within an individual's power to control but there are also occasions where change is forced upon us and control is not possible.

In each case a clearer idea of career direction is an important reference point that allows change to be dealt with in context and opportunity to be more easily recognised.

Do you agree or disagree?

Splitting decisions

When faced with decisions traditional career planning often starts with the perfect solution and works backwards. Less than perfect is the reality we are schooled to accept but does this mean that all we can do is resign ourselves to less than perfect choices? In my view and in the view of work/life fusion, proof continues to build that there is more in our power than just learning to live with imperfection.

As demonstrated in Lise's story we have the opportunity to change decisions from a simple weighing-up of good and bad attributes into something that resembles a more empowered choice. With a clearer idea of personal success (based on foundations that we can test individually and externally) a genuine choice can be made for its relevance to the present and the future as well.

Individual choices will have their challenges but they can be made with greater assurance (or less doubt if you prefer) that the decision is the right one in each case. The perfect option might present itself one day but until it arrives, progress can be made toward goals that a growing number of individuals are now defining for themselves.

Gray's story - Career Choice from Within

Traditional career planning feels more secure in itself when the destination is known and the task at hand is working towards it. That can work just fine but what is the best response when an individual is unsure about his or her direction or destination?

I spoke with an executive in the past who was in that position. We'll call him Gray for ease of sharing his story. Gray was paying for career guidance with a consultant who told him to aim for a CEO job in a very specific business sector because that was what he was best qualified for. The trouble was, Gray did not share this consultant's view.

Thankfully, there is a happy ending because Gray was hired into a role that he is extremely happy in. This was due in part to setting aside ideas around destination and exploring the questions that led him to pause instead. By gaining a better understanding of these areas, as well as a clearer definition of personal success, Gray was able to look more broadly at jobs, companies and industries and test each of them against the new benchmarks that this knowledge provided him.

Destination-first career planning has its uses but as Gray found it is difficult to apply in every case. It might also be a long wait for reward and satisfaction if a destination is the only place it can be found. As anyone happy with their career will tell you (too regularly in some cases), they get something from it every day. To anyone making career decisions, that is an equation worth thinking about.

Have a great weekend!

More about values

An earlier post on this blog attempted to define the term 'values' in this context (work/life fusion: values) but, what values relate best to career direction finding and decision making? The short answer is that people value different things. You could also say that people value things differently but that would be an argument for a bigger pedant than me. Sorry, than I.

Going beyond the short answer, if a number of individual answers are combined a list of the more popular values could be created. Lists like this can be found in a number of places on the web and elsewhere. Alternatively you could visit any number of company websites and find lists of values that are very similar indeed (honesty, integrity, teamwork, community and so on).

These lists and statements are great reading but do they help relate values to career decision making or are generic values confusing and difficult to apply to individual situations? If you are unsure, the next time you are interviewing try answering 'honesty and integrity' when the interviewer asks what you value. You could be hired as the next CEO for verbalising their corporate values statement but you are just as likely to be asked for a more personal example of how these values have been demonstrated in your actions.

In the context of work/life fusion, the only values that help to direct your career towards meaningful success are your values. Exploring and understanding the things that you value offers a solid platform for your direction finding and decision making. Being prepared to look behind commonly used words like 'honesty and integrity' and ask yourself how you have placed value on their meaning through your actions is simple to do and rich in insight. If our behaviour reveals to us what we truly value, it becomes easier to find our values in our decisions and for these decisions to begin defining meaningful, personal success in each case.

Thanks for your comments on the subject of values. I look forward to the conversations continuing!

Keep battling

I have a couple of very talented friends, running their own small business and delivering great value to their clients. They are also doing this with a level of diligence, care and integrity that their larger competitors spend millions trying to achieve.

The element of surprise in this story isn't that I have two friends, it is that the two individuals in question have had to work so hard carving a niche for their business when the value they can deliver is so clear. Starting a small business isn't easy. There are few favours and there are definitely no short cuts, especially when you are building your reputation on client satisfaction and success.

The good news is that work/life fusion can offer a means of support because it can clarify the choices an individual makes in situations like this. Having a clear understanding of why you are doing something is very useful, particularly when the going gets a little tough.

When you have tested the belief that what you are doing is the right thing for you, your family and your career (as well as your business and your clients), you only have to apply yourself to the tasks directly in front of you to see progress being made.

When you apply yourself to something that you value, something that you have a proven talent for and something that offers goals that you are inspired to work towards, everything you do and all that you encounter takes you one step closer to achieving personal success.

Keep battling lads, it will come!

Lise's story - Returning to Work

To end this little run of case studies is a situation that most of us face at some stage or other in our careers, having to choose between one option and another. A devilish twist that might sound familiar too is when neither option seems ideal.

Lise was a successful senior executive with an important decision to make about her future. She was returning to work after a short career break, catching up with her family after a history of jobs with a demanding work and travel schedule. Lise's job search had reached the stage where a couple of choices had presented themselves. Both were exciting but she could not ignore the fact that each one had its negative aspects too.

Work/life fusion assisted Lise's decision because it helped her gain a better understanding of what was important to her. With this new knowledge, Lise could explore the positives and negatives in each option and for the first time have a meaningful benchmark to compare them against.

Supported by a clearer view of her values, talents and goals, Lise was able to chose a role that delivered both personally and professionally. In the context of work/life fusion, Lise's story is an excellent example of defining personal success to enable you and those around you to recognise the opportunities that deliver it best.