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WITI PERSONAL GROWTH
Don't Just Go Halfway in Your Career Reinvention
Many people come to a place of knowing it is time to reinvent their lives or careers when they hear themselves say these fateful words, “I just can’t do this anymore.” Regardless of how they arrive at this place (e.g., boredom that has built up over many years, a company merger or acquisition that shifts the management structure in undesirable ways, a new boss who is uninspiring or worse dispiriting) they are ready to walk away and “reinvent.” And the greater the boredom or displeasure that precipitates the drive to break free, the stronger is the desire to “do something completely different” and to “be someone completely different.” Yet no matter how strong the motivation to initiate change, unless you are skilled and experienced in the process of reinvention, there is a good chance that you will only see and address half of the available opportunity before you – and miss your chance to create the career path or job of your dreams. Here’s why. “What Do I Want To Do?” Is the Obvious Question For most people who want to reinvent their careers the first question they ask themselves is, “So now what do I want to do?” And they go about finding the answer in multiple ways. Often they will simply start reading job descriptions of various posted job openings and ask themselves, “Would this be a good fit for me?” As a second step they may compare multiple job descriptions, asking themselves, “Is job ‘A’ a better match for me then job ‘B’”? And eventually they may come to the realization that trying to evaluate a given job description, or compare two or more job descriptions, is extremely difficult without first developing an objective set of criteria based on their own personal profile of likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses talents and abilities, temperament and needs - and so they head in that direction. Since this third approach does tend to work pretty well, those who are persistent enough will eventually be able to identify WHAT they want to do. The problem is that even when you know WHAT you want to do (the “content” of your dream job – e.g., teach, coach, program computers, restore classic cars) you are still missing half the picture – you have not yet identified HOW you want to do what you want to do. You have not yet addressed the question of the “structure” of how you want to work. That is the second critical piece of the puzzle and it often gets overlooked. “How Do I Want to Work?” Is Not an Obvious Question People think of work as something they do that is committed and focused and different from that more frivolous and fluid state they refer to as ‘goofing off’. As a result, when reinventing the work portion of their lives they frequently don’t think outside-the-box in terms of how to structure their work – their thinking is constrained by the nature of the work structures they are familiar with. So, for example, if they say to themselves, “I want to work full-time” they typically think of working five days a week, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. When they think of working ‘part-time’, they often still think of working five days a week - just less hours per day. But in reality, there are endless options for how you can structure your work. In your reinvention it is important to realize that you have the chance to redefine not only WHAT you do, but also the STRUCTURE OF HOW YOU WORK - including when, and how often, and with whom you do it. Some Key “Work Structure” Questions: Here are just a few of the “work structure” issues that are open for reinvention: 1. Who Do You Want To Work With Or Be Around?
Males or females or both? Individuals or groups? What values do you want them to have in common with you? 2. When Do You Want To Work? Which includes the following sub-questions: a. How many hours do you want to work?
How many days per week? How many weeks per month? How many months per year? b. What time of day do you want to work? Ask yourself, when are you at your best (most productive, most creative, etc.) and how does that impact when you want to be focused on ‘work’? Are you an early morning, or mid-morning, or afternoon, or late-night person? c. How flexible do you want your schedule to be? Remember that your work schedule does not necessarily have to be consistent. It can vary from day-to-day, or week-to-week or month-to-month. When thinking about how much flexibility you desire, consider the other parts of your life outside of work that you want to have time for. Do you want to be free to travel when your kids are out of school in the summer? Do you want to be able to get out of the snow in your home town during the winter months? Do you need to have flexibility each day to allow you to care for elderly parents? Reinvention means taking the opportunity to rethink the relationship between ‘work time’ and ‘life time’ and how you want the two to interplay. 3. Where Do You Want To Work? Do you want to go some place other than your home to do your work? If so, what do you want the attributes of that place to be? A company office? A local coffee house with a WiFi connection? Rented office space? The basement or backyard of your house? Since ‘work’ typically does require some sort of concentration or focus simply ask yourself, “What kind of structure do I need around me to help me focus?” The Importance of 'Work Structure' Questions in Reinvention The above are just three of the key ‘work structure’ categories of questions you want to think about during your reinvention, because they can have major implications for how you proceed with your work/job redesign. The answers to the above questions will impact everything from whether you want to go to work for another company, start your own business, or be a consultant, and if you do choose to work for another company, what kind of people and values, company structure and environment you want to be on the look out for. The Bottom Line When reinventing your job or career it is important to open your mind to all of the possibilities you are able to consider – not just for WHAT you want to do but also for the STRUCTURE of how you want to do it. Create your own personal criteria in both of these areas and then use them when evaluating opportunities that come your way. This will give you the greatest possible chance of finding just the right solution for yourself – one that will fit not only with who you are but also with how you want to work.
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