The Career You'll Love

I’ll admit it: I’m a bit of a tech geek. I started out with a career in computers and have enjoyed keeping up on it.

But even I get worn out by the rapid changes in technology these days. Not just high tech – computers, phones, networks – but technology in every realm of life. I was remarking to my optometrist recently that dramatic increases in price seem to directly stem from technologies that didn’t even exist until recent years. The options are dizzying.

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You’ll hear lots of variations on the “80/20 rule”:

• 20% of the people do 80% of the useful work.
• If you do the right 20% of the solution, you’ll fix 80% of the problem.
• 80% of your time is spent doing relatively useless stuff, but the other 20%, when you’re productive, delivers 80% of the value.
• 80% of this blog post is probably wasted, so look for the 20% that you can learn something from.

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We all have our famous heroes that serve as models of what we dream of becoming. That’s all well and good, but it can tend to make us into passive observers, rather than active contributors.

I might hold up Nelson Mandela as a personal role model, but I don’t really have the opportunity to make the kind of contribution to the world that he has. My situation is much more modest.

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Let me have you ponder the difference between these two questions:

• “Why is this problem important?”
• “Why is that problem important?”

It’s a pretty subtle distinction, but potentially quite crucial. Perhaps I’m the boss and you work for me. When we talk about “this problem,” it’s quite close – something that is within our grasp. When we speak of “that problem,” it’s a little more distant, something which is perhaps out of reach. We both might have a little more ownership of “this problem”, but perhaps be more objective about “that problem” because it’s more distant.

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The term Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) was introduced by James Collins and Jerry Porras in 1996. It’s a powerful concept.

It’s one thing to have a goal that’s practical. Let’s say that I want to save enough money to retire on – that’s very sensible and, hopefully, achievable.

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On our journey through the stakeholders, people often think that “management” is the easiest one to figure out. But it may be trickier than you think!

I define “management” as the people who are given the power to direct your work, and as such are responsible for whether you do a good job or not.

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Why are you here?

It’s one of the core questions of human existence, really, because without any purpose there’s no reason to live. Some people would frame this question as, “Why are WE here?”, but that’s really only motivating to philosophers. It really hits home when you make it personal.

By default, I suppose, I’m here because of the random circumstances of my birth and upbringing. But that only says how I ended up acting the way I do, not that there’s a reason for me to be here in the first place.

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Everyone’s a leader. No, really!

We often assign the term to people who are in recognized positions of power and authority, but that weakens the term.

If someone is going along with you on any kind of journey, you’re a leader. You are in a situation which you need to exercise some kind of influence over others who are with you on that journey.

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I’ve been fortunate to have a few wonderful bosses over the course of my career. Not just decent, not just good, but truly exceptional people. I’ve also been fortunate that the number of truly terrible managers has been very low.

The truly exceptional ones have treated me with honesty and respect, supported me in tough times, cared about me as a unique individual, and given me challenging and valuable work.

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