3-10-10 Shoulda Told Me #8

Something about a gray and rainy day encourages a couple of things….. Reading and introspection. Yep, I did a fair amount of reading yesterday. I also ended up doing a fair amount of introspection yesterday as well. And that has resulted in the need to take another trip down the “someone shoulda told me” bunny trail.

One thing that I pondered yesterday? The whole idea that whatever you think you will be doing 30 years from now -- you will probably be wrong. Honestly, that is probably easier for my Generation X or Y readers to grasp than it is for the Baby Boomers.

Why? Consider how things have changed. I’m told that my granddad (who would have been 105 this year) started to work for the local refinery about 1 week after it opened. And he worked there for 40 or so years, until he retired, basically doing the same thing every day. I’m sure that he probably worked a couple of other jobs when he was a very young man or boy. But, in his time, you planned to go to work for one company and stay there until retirement.

That view has carried forward somewhat to us baby boomers. I’m a good example of both the previous generation and the idea that 30 years out, jobs and careers change. On the one hand, I spent most of my career at one company/industry. But on the other hand, 30 years ago I never dreamed that I would be doing anything but a finance-related job. Thirty years ago, I was just finishing up a finance degree and planning a career in a finance-related field. Subsequently I held jobs in manufacturing, e-business, program management, and sales….. Well, none of that was in any career plan I had considered. The only constants during those years were that I worked for the same company and that I always knew that I wanted to be an executive.

And for the Generation X/Y group? The dot.com boom and subsequent bust demonstrated their agility in moving from job to job and industry to industry. And that agility is something that we all could use in today’s dismal job market.

So what about today’s new and/or aspiring executive? If you are just starting out, the odds are pretty good that what you are doing today won’t be what you will be doing in 30 years. The implication for the executive is that you need to be versatile. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my willingness (and burning desire) to take on new jobs and functions gave me a versatility that served me well. Having the basic skills and traits of a successful executive allowed me to move into areas for which I had no background or basic training. Go back and look at how you rank on the executive skills and traits (12-30-09 Morphing to a Model). My research shows that you need them all to be successful. Where are you lacking and what are you doing to improve your versatility?

Cheers!