Career Transitions and Continuing Education

This coming week I am spending time learning more about the work I do from a global perspective.  It is the kind of training that I am sure will take my knowledge to the next level. This has given me an opportunity to reflect more on the issue of career transition, and the role that continuing education plays in that. And in this process I also drew on the teachings and lessons of management consultant, educator, and author, Peter Drucker.

It is typical for many of us to choose our primary training or qualification based on what are seen to be our intellectual capabilities. Sometimes, we make these choices because we think a particular technical field may give us more money, or because our parents pressured us. Sometimes we are influenced by friends, and at times we just made the choice because we did not know any better. Whatever the reason, it does not matter. The most critical issue is what happens when you reach a point in your life that either what you studied does not define you or that the work you are doing is not using the best of your abilities or helping you in your career advancement.

Some may be fortunate to have a mentor or a network of people that can help them transition to the career they desire after a journey of self-discovery. Many do not have that luxury or opportunity. In my career, I have found the value of continuing education to be vital in this process. It is important because over time the knowledge that we gained in our initial training may no longer be sufficient for the world we are in or the challenges that many organisations face. Peter Drucker once said “Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes”. And many may ask, what of those who have gone this route but have not successfully managed to make this transition?

I see continuing education as a start rather than the end of the process. On its own, it cannot work unless there is a clear plan. Most fundamentally, a decision on continuing education must have a sense of purpose. It should also be defined by the potential career choices that one can make after completion, and an understanding of who would likely value this new knowledge gained. It requires that one has a better understanding of the world around them, how is it changing, what are its needs, and matching those to one’s better knowledge of self.

If you are employed and your employer helps you with continuing education, it provides both advantages but also risks. The advantages being that your employer may present you with career options after you have completed this training. Often I find, however, that for most employers, they provide continuing education without a plan for the employee. And the employee makes the dangerous assumption their career will be mapped out for them.

Hence I emphasise that it is the person being trained who must make a decision as to what is the purpose for the training they are pursuing. The person needs to be the one who evaluates the potential options that such training will give them, and have a plan on how to pursue them. Most importantly, they must see the training not just from the perspective of transitioning from the current career, but also how it can have lifetime value.  Peter Drucker again says, “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn”. How can this continuous learning provide skills that can leverage not just the next career transition, but at least one more after that?

Reflecting on Peter Drucker’s long and successful career, what is it that made him transition and also have such staying power?  He emphasised these important things: lifelong learning; being multidimensional, and not relying on just one person or organisation (hence my advice on creating options above); always focusing on the future and not dwelling on past achievements, but thinking about emergent trends that will impact a career; being prepared to take risks to create that future;  paying attention to innovators, and using their lessons from a career perspective; being prepared to let go of things or relationships that are no longer relevant.

In my life I have made a number of career transitions that have been risky but immensely beneficial. Fundamentally, I have used lifelong learning as a basis, but not as the end goal. I have supplemented this through developing relationships, understanding myself, creating options, and being prepared to take risks. I still maintain, however, that without the learning from continuing education, it would have been more difficult to make these transitions.

The Dilemmas of Career Changes

One of the most challenging phases for a professional is the discovery that what they studied or specialised in is not really what drives them. It becomes even more difficult when one has practiced in the field for a period of time. How does one make a late career change without studying something new, a lot of my mentees ask me? What guarantee would one have that such a change will not impact negatively their lives, such as reduced ability to secure meaningful employment?

One of the easiest ways to make a career change is to study further, through a relevant post-graduate qualification which can build on your previous career. Alternatively, one can be fortunate to find an employer who is open-minded in their definition of skill, and thus in their talent identification process they allow themselves to have a broad definition of what is a relevant skill in their business. However, not everyone has the luxury to wait for such a qualification or is fortunate enough to find such an employer. We face these challenging questions daily and the solution may not always lie with such a qualification or finding this elusive employer.

I have often found that we tend to confuse either a job or a specialisation with the character and core competence of that individual. We thus describe ourselves through our qualifications and/or qualifications, such as saying I am an accountant, engineer, doctor, lawyer etc. The fundamental flaw with such an approach is that it does not tell us anything about the person. Having narrowed one's description of self to these technical definitions, then it should not be a surprise if we battle to see ourselves surviving except in these technical fields. This becomes even more difficult if we feel social pressures to live out these definitions, either from friends or family, because that is the only way they see or value us.

In my mentorship discussions I always get people to focus on their character, core strengths and competencies. Essentially, what is it about them that made them successfully complete whatever qualification, as that will get them thinking more about their strengths? If they have actually worked in this profession that may no longer energise them, what did they achieve and what was a distinguishing character that either clients or their superiors valued? What are the key things they have done which other people in the same field have not done? These are a family of questions that go to the heart of what makes for a good career thinking process: through answering them, the individual is able to accentuate the positive about themselves, rather than spending too much energy in focusing on the negative.

This requires a lot of thinking, which may not be easy to do alone. It will help to get a mentor or thinking partner to tease out the answers, or at least someone to whom one  can verbalise their observations to. For many people, the answer to what they can do in life lies deeply in their understanding of self, rather than in focusing on what they are doing as a job or what they have studied. That can only be a proxy of their capabilities, but not a true definition of the person.

Once one has a true understanding of self, including using the qualifications or experience they have, then one is able to see the possibilities in life for a person with such strengths. It requires that we have a wider view of the world, and not one predefined according to very narrow technical prescriptions. And then what we need to do is generate various options, that are directly linked to the person we have come to understand. We are effectively starting from a new slate, but paradoxically we are using an existing understanding based on qualifications and experience.

When we are in this space, we are no longer prisoners of our past, suffering from the demon of self- hatred.  We are also not immobilised by the twin demon of fear that makes us to be worried about the future. We get in a mode of generating options based on an understanding of who we are, at that moment, which is about the present. We are neither guilty of the past no fearful of the future. It is in exercising what we seems the best of the options we have generated that we create the future that is not constrained by guilt or fear. We move from being unhappy to being masters of our destiny, utilising the best of what the past offers, to a future that we have created. This future may involve studying further, finding the right employer or starting a new initiative.

This is the basic framework I guide others to use when thinking about life-changing career decisions. It is possible, and I used it when I had to make similar decisions. I have made three major career changes throughout the years, and when I look back, the basis for my relative success has included an understanding of my character and capabilities, drawing the best from my previous experience, having a wide view of the world, and being fearless about the future.

If you are sitting with a career dilemma or being worried whether this change is possible, I encourage focusing first on self as a basis of generating options. It is easier than you think.

Mentorship as a Two-Way Gift

This coming Friday, 18 July 2014, the world will celebrate Nelson Mandela Day, which recognises the selfless service that this great icon gave to humanity in general and the South African people in particular. I have been personally honoured by a group at work who have invited me to be a guest speaker at a school in order to motivate young people. This has set me thinking on how complementary this activity will be to something that has been immeasurable in my career development, which is that of mentorship. I want to talk about this and reflect on its benefits, both for the recipient as well as the giver. In the spirit of making every day a Nelson Mandela Day, I know this is one thing that I give to others on a daily basis.

When I began my career in management, I noticed that, whilst I was driven by business results, I was motivated more by seeing the transformation of people around me, through their growth in terms of levels of knowledge, responsibility, and positions. In time, I came to realise that I had adopted a management style that was later refined by a good coach under the theme “Leader as Coach”. I came to realise the importance of giving an opportunity to others to grow, and also allowing them to be immersed in a very deep process of learning. These also gave me the opportunity to do other things and thus grow, proving the truism of the paradox that says “To move on, plant roots”. I also came to see how limited it was to focus only on those one had direct supervisory responsibility, and I started on a journey where I increasingly mentored people who did not work with me directly. Simply put, the benefits have been immeasurable.

The first benefit for me was learning how to engender trust, and also build it. Because in the spaces you operate when you mentor, you get into deep and rewarding conversations that can only have real meaning if they are based on trust. In a sense, because you build a reputation for helping others who allow themselves to be vulnerable in front of you, your reputation and credibility increases faster than you could do it by telling others yourself. Your mentees become some of your most important career ambassadors, and help build a reputation for you that will benefit you beyond your mentorship relationship.

Secondly, these mentorship conversations also provide a safe space for the mentor to receive feedback that they would not ordinarily get. Through a space that is not about judgement, it is a real joy to take this feedback from people who deeply care about you because you have developed such a strong relationship with them, and thus they are as focused on your success as a mentor as you are focused on theirs as mentees. It is an incredibly unique experience.

Thirdly, from the issues that you discuss with the one you mentor, you also learn so much about how different people approach problems. Some of the challenges they face may be similar to ones you face, but you may not have given yourself the opportunity to think about them. These discussions can have the unintended consequence of letting you confront challenges that you may not have been ready to deal with.

Fourthly, through them both the mentor and mentee realise the value of patience. Since the journey of mentoring someone to achieve a goal is long, taking at least six months, typically a year, it requires that there be patience in observing how the process impacts, and leads the mentee towards the goal that has been identified. I used to think that this process can be completed and results realised quickly. Through years of practice, I came to see that it takes a long time, essentially because the formulation of the problem, challenges and issues is not as simple as the mentee thinks they are when the discussions begin. The issues get reformulated and the nature of the problem changes with deeper enquiry, thinking and dialogue.

Lastly, and not least important, the ultimate benefit is to see how as a mentor you feel your impact on someone’s career. Personally, I do count the number of careers I have helped save every year, more than the ones I have helped advance. And I am always amazed at how simple the tools are to get to do this and the fact that I am never the one who actually solves the problem. I just approach these engagements with a focus on deeper enquiry, care for the individual and allowance for them to reflect and question a number of assumptions they have. And they tend to have all the answers.

This process proves true these words from the touching poetic essay by Michael Josephson entitled “What Will Matter”, which has lines as follows:

What will matter is not what you bought but what you built,

not what you got but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched,

empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

 For me, I send the gift of mentorship, through which I receive so much in return.

Making every day a Nelson Mandela Day.

A Lesson in Career Regeneration

How many of us have gone through a phase where we feel as if our career has reached a dead end? When you feel that your career has either gone through a slump, or you have experienced a career-threatening setback. In these moments, you would not be alone in thinking that the best thing to do is to find another job, and forget everything you have done. Like many, I always wonder if ever there is a career after the fall. Time and time again we hear of entrepreneurs who set up business, see them fail, and they lift themselves again. How often do we hear of those who regenerate their careers this way?

This week I was jolted to remember someone who experienced a spectacular fall, and in fact is seen as having the worst record on the most important job he had reached. This was triggered by conversations with a friend who is experiencing career uplift after a big disappointment, and he is going through one of the best professional experiences of his life. We compared his current experiences to what happened to former US President Jimmy Carter. I thought to tell his story will encourage many who think a disappointment, even a big one, is a permanent blemish.

Jimmy Carter became President of the United States in 1977. The US was still reeling from the oil shock of 1973, and had just been through the tumultuous events that led to the disgraceful exit of Richard Nixon from the White House. Whilst Jimmy Carter was not a well-known name, he ran a good campaign and many were hopeful that he would lift a demoralised nation after his election. As he came to power, the US was battling inflation, low growth and high unemployment. He achieved some success with the Camp David Accords that led to a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. With an act that in hindsight many now appreciate, he established two Cabinet level departments, Energy and Education, which have proved to be strategic for the US in the current period, more than 30 years after he left office. However, he is remembered as the one who was President when, after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, US citizens were held hostage at the American Embassy in Tehran for 444 days. He suffered one of the heaviest defeats of a sitting President in the 1980 elections, and when he left office, nothing was expected of him in public life. Literally and figuratively, he was regarded as a spent force.

Jimmy Carter, however, felt that his mission for humanity was not done. He refused to see the disappointments, or even failures, of his term of office as being the most defining of his character. He realised that the job of US President gave him a particular experience and world-view, and through it he had established networks that went beyond the key issues that defined his Presidency. His work on Middle East peace whilst he was US President had given him a certain level of recognition globally. Paradoxically, he had to become a non-President to realise the value of having been a President, and thus become one of the most successful ex-Presidents in history. And this is how he regenerated his career.

In 1982, together with his wife Rosalynn, he set up the Carter Centre. The Carter Centre is a non-profit organisation which seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health. Some of its notable achievements include having been an observer of 81 elections in 33 countries since 1989, and mediating various conflicts globally based on it being a trusted broker for peace, in countries as diverse as North Korea, Colombia, Ecuador and Sudan. This conflict mediation role was building on the experience President Carter had gained in negotiating the Camp David Accords. In 2002, he became the first US President, in or out of office, to visit Cuba since the 1959 revolution. President Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his contribution to global peace, and is unique in being the only US President or ex-President to receive the award for actions after he left office. During this time, he also has found time to write 21 books. It is testimony to someone who built on his personality and experience to create a new career that has made him more appreciated than when he occupied high office. The four years as US President pale into insignificance to the more than 30 years of success since he left office.

I have used Jimmy Carter’s example as a way to illustrate that we need to look at life and careers through a different time and contextual prism than we tend to. Any experience we gain, combined with our character, creates a platform for the next generation of work that we will do. Whilst we may experience failure and disappointment, and also some may seek to derail our progress, we have this foundation to use to build for the next career experience (click here on the previous article I wrote about how to deal with those who can seek to derail your progress).

How many of us, when faced with these difficult career moments in the organisations we work for, we think they are the final arbiters of what happens to our lives? I hope many of us can learn from people such as Jimmy Carter than one’s current office or job can provide an experience and value network that can be a springboard for future success. He never let the failures and disappointments of office to prevent him from pursuing his life’s passion, and has thus achieved success, and regained the respect he might have lost when he left office. It is a very easy example to follow.

Perspective on Talent and Leadership Responsibility – Part 1

In the previous articles I have spent a lot of time talking about what they can do for their own growth and success. The limitation with this focus, whilst good enabling the individual to develop self, is that it may ignore the role of the leadership. The reason I focus on that aspect here is to share what I think is one of the most critical leadership, not management, responsibilities: developing talent. It will also enable us to think questions to ask in order to see if an organisation has the culture and leaders with an affinity for this aspect.

One of the major flaws with the creation of layers of management in organisations is that a lot of managers start to believe that they “own” the people who are in the units or divisions. Through this thinking, they see themselves as having the ultimate responsibility for these people’s careers and growth. Negatively, they also think, when they may not work well with someone, they have the right to stunt their growth. In an era where organisations rely so much on the talent of individuals, I see these behaviours as some that have such a negative impact on the life of an organisation and its ability to compete. In many organisations’ architecture, this problem gets super-reinforced by the general reliance of HR Talent-management specialists on the feedback of the line manager. This thinking is so flawed also because an organisation thinks it promotes people into being managers on the basis of their ability to do so.  Although many organisations profess to use  360⁰ feedback, often it is infused with such levels of subjectivity as to be no worth the paper it is written on. What most organisations tend to suffers from is no different from what they tend to with their own customers, which is not being able to analyse and connect the multiplicity of data that they may have about their customer. This often results in a customer being framed in such a way that the organisations’ solutions never address the core issues the customer faces.

To illustrate the challenge and responsibility, I use football, which is a matter very close to my heart. Most successful football clubs will have a coach or manager with the ultimate responsibility of selecting the team, and designing tactical and strategic approaches for games and tournaments as relevant. This manager will have assistants, who, because of their specific skills and experience, will play a particular role to enable the manager to arrive at the best strategic and tactical decisions. This manager will also rely on a system of talent scouts that the club will have, to identify talent that may be coming from the club’s development structures, or to analyse potential players from other teams that could add value to the club’s objectives. It never is the case that they will rely on only one person to be able to that, and they also put in place the infrastructure that will enable them to have this continuous flow of talent. Whilst the manager would have been appointed by such a club for his / her competence and ability, the said club would not simply place reliance on this one person to deliver talent in such a competitive environment. If they get this wrong, it may years later come back to bite them with such talent being used by competing clubs against them.

To illustrate this, I will use a recent case that involves a manager, who is renowned for his talent identification and nurturing skills, Arsene Wenger of Arsenal Football Club.  In 2003, he had the opportunity to sign the midfielder Yaya Toure together with his brother Kolo, who was already at the club. Due to administrative delays with his work permit, Arsenal was not able to convince him to wait and he went on to play for other clubs before joining Manchester City. Ten years from the time Wenger nearly signed him, Yaya participated in a game that led to one of Arsenal’s heaviest defeats ever. Wenger has admitted that missing out on signing Yaya was one of his biggest regrets in football. And the competition has now used Yaya against Arsenal, denying them the opportunity of being title contenders ten years after a fateful administrative delay.

The example used is unfortunate, as Wenger is one manager whose heart is generally in the right place on this issue, and he was not entirely responsible for it. But I think it illustrates more than anything that organisations have to think beyond the narrow view of the manager, and become very jealous about their people. It is not unusual that managers will participate in a deliberate process of destroying someone’s career if they feel that person is a threat or potentially may overtake them in the organisation that they work for. It is funny how people can frame their thinking and decision on the basis of the narrow world they see, and never have a broader view which enables them to give up talent that they do not have a use for.

It is here that the responsibility of leaders becomes more critical. And they will only be effective by being able to do a combination of the following things: 1) Being in touch with the most junior person in their areas of responsibility; 2) Having a cynical view when they receive feedback that one of their employees’ ‘wants too much”, “is ambitious”, “does not behave like others”; 3) Related to the above, seek to understand whether these employees may not need to be placed in different environments and given a different set of challenges. They must ask themselves what is wrong with an employee that wants to do more for his / her employer, if that leads to better returns for the shareholders; 4) Think about how they would feel with a particular employee being on the opposite side. How would it affect their competitive position and would they have an Wenger-type regret years later; 5) Reflect on the managers’ own ability to deal with talent, and maybe focus solutions on the manager being better at this, as many other employees will work with this manager in future; 6) Focus on the organisational culture, and whether it enables these hungry employees to have a voice without being judged; 7) Continuously assert the organisation’s “ownership’ of every employee, and that the manager only has a “custodial” responsibility whilst those employees are working for them.

After all, if people are some of the best assets for organisations, they cannot afford to leave focus on them only to managers who may be unable to enhance talent. The leadership responsibility is to go beyond the management layer and continuously find the diamonds that will make the organisation shine in future. Those organisations who do this well are set for a successful and sustainable future.

No One Should Have the Power to Derail Your Progress

A new year is already in full swing and many of us are looking at how we will realise our goals. We know there will be obstacles along the way. Sometimes these may just be challenges in the environment. But, as you find so often in corporate life, these obstacles may be created by those who dislike your individuality, are jealous of your progress, or even threatened by it. We live in a world where some define their existence only by the narrow spaces they occupy, whether it is positions of authority, or some kind of managerial responsibility. The history of organisations is writ large with individuals who take it upon themselves to destroy or limit the progress of talented and promising individuals.

This past month I have had to confront this when dealing with two individuals who came to have career conversations. One is quite senior in his organisation, and has the kind of experience, qualifications and character that you would expect to be highly valued. The other is an upcoming manager who has made investments in her own development, whilst being a model and performing employee. I found it interesting that these individuals, who do not know each other, and are on different career paths, had on the same week called to discuss similar problems.

They both found colleagues and managers who were actively seeking to destroy their credibility. Both were prepared to quit their jobs as they were finding the environment so demoralising. They were hurt and angry. At the same time I noticed in both of them a great yearning for a solution in their current environment; an opportunity to disprove those they saw as derailing their progress by succeeding against the odds that were being stacked against them; and by not depending on the benevolence of those who, whilst having been placed in a position where they could assist them, were actively seeking to destroy their careers. Both of them were posing a similar challenge: how do you deal with a situation like this?

The first thing I resolved to do was to disprove the notion that all was lost. Yes the challenges seemed complex, but I thought that both had the solution, they just did not know they did. And the framework I used in helping them find a way to deal with this is a simple six-step process that I have found useful through experience.

The first step is self-reflection. It is always important to ask whether one has done everything possible to prevent the situation being what it is. Paradoxically, when we own up to any mistake or fault, it tends to disarm others and minimises conflict. It was this process of self-reflection that also made both of them realise the resolve they had to deal with the matters before them. At this point, the individuals were also able to deal with the demons of fear and self-hatred. Honest self-reflection is the first step I use in these processes.

The second step is the importance of understanding the opposition. This is important for two reasons: the first is based on the classic saying that, in order to be understood, you must first seek to understand. Maybe by understanding the motivation, fear and interests of those who were seeking to derail their progress, they could use this to their advantage, and make the opposition less threatened by them. Idealistic, yes, but it provides an avenue for a solution. The second, to ensure that, if ever they have to confront them, they should know the kind of people they are dealing with, as well as their network. And I emphasised this to them, that a lot of people make mistakes by underestimating those they may be in conflict or disagreement with. And that often happens because we never sought to understand them in the first place.

The third step is to ensure they have a sense of their own value. This value would be as seen by the organisation they work for, and not necessarily the individuals who were creating problems for them. How many times have we seen a company’s management act in interests that were not the same as those of its shareholders? Thus, I told them, there was a possibility that the actions of these individuals would not necessarily be seen, by a different arbiter, to be in the interest of their organisations. Who in the organisations would be concerned by what was happening to them, and would provide support that was unexpected but would be of assistance? Through this process, they could identify potential allies as well as weaken the position of their opposition.

The fourth step was to tap into a trusted and value network. I emphasised that they should only see me as the first of that network, and that tapping onto it with focused conversations would enable them to build allies, as they were dealing with seemingly connected individuals in their organisations. They would also get the benefit of different perspectives and wise counsel before they move into action, where real conflict would arise.

The fifth step they would go to is confrontation. This is less about fighting than bringing up the issues to what they have determined is the relevant forum or individual. This is to ensure that the individuals who are causing the problem for them are now forced to deal with the reality of being questioned by a different authority. In this instance, there will be defensiveness, and some vindictiveness. But I emphasised that they should remember that their ultimate goal was to get the situation to be better than the one they found themselves in. When they reached this stage, they would have lost all sense of fear.

The last, and no less important, was that they should seek to own the solution. This did not mean that the solution was theirs alone. It is only that, through the preceding steps, they would have ensured that the organisation feels an obligation for a solution that is credible to them as the concerned parties. In the conversation, I was focused on the steps in the process rather than the tools. The tools could be a complaint, a discussion or a facilitated session. Whatever it would be, it would need to be seen to be acceptable to them. And the important thing is that by the time they reached the solution stage, through the previous steps, they would have had the benefit of a wider perspective to the problem.

Even after they did this, it is possible that the individuals could still decide that the current environment would not be better for them. The only difference from quitting without trying to do anything would be that they would have allowed individuals to destroy their careers, and not confront the organisation in which those individuals are also employed. In a subtle way, they would have reasserted an organisation’s principles over the actions of a few individuals who may abuse power. And through this, they would have ensured that no individual would have thought they had power over them. They would have overcome the fear and anger with which they started, and become masters of their destiny.

I kept repeating to each of them, separately, that they should not allow any individual to think they had the power to destroy them, no matter what position and authority they had. And they both have come to believe this to be the case.

I am sure they will find a solution that is good for their careers and lives.