In Monday’s Blog we wrote about business inflection points. But each of you reading this will also experience inflection points in your own career.
To paraphrase and personalize the definition we provided on Monday: an inflection point occurs when the old performance and career direction gives way to the new allowing you to ascend to new heights. Inflection points are about recognizing, letting go and changing so that you can hit new heights in your career. And just like in business, you can miss them, ignore them or embrace them.
We have often stated that success can be the biggest risk a business faces. Why? – because success leads you to believe that if you keep on doing what you’ve been doing success will continue. Not so. And it is especially not so in your career. Jobs change – some disappear, some change dramatically, and new ones arise out of technological advances. Complacency in business leads to bankruptcy, as it can in your career.
Post recession, unemployment is still high. While it is getting better in some industries, it is still leaving many people struggling to find a job. Yet at the same time, there are jobs that employers can’t fill and it is impacting (negatively) their growth. Examples include certain health care professionals, and science and technology-related jobs.
So, what are you doing about identifying and addressing your personal career inflections points? We recommend three key actions for you:
- Understand what constitutes success now in your current job / profession
- Continue to learn and develop skills to advance in your job (or to keep it) or build complementary skill sets to expand your prospective role opportunities
- Understand what jobs will be in demand in the future
Does this mean that you may have to change careers? Maybe – at least changing roles is a real possibility. Does this mean you need to go back to school? Perhaps, at the very least engage in informal methods of advancing your knowledge and skills sets (workshops, targeted reading). We often hear: but you just don’t understand, I don’t have the time. Well, unfortunately, the option is to end up with too much time. Managing and navigating the inflection points – both business and personal – takes leadership. By this we mean pro-active assessment and appropriate actions to result in what you want (or need) to accomplish. It is no different personally. And to lead your own life you need to take an active role vs. a passive one – too many people acquiesce in respect to growing themselves!
In a recent whitepaper on Accelerating Performance from the Center for Creative Leadership, “Learning Agility—or a growth mindset” is identified as one of the key 5 leadership skills you and your organization can’t do without. (by John Ryan 8/10). Simply stated, those with a growth mindset and lifelong learning approach will far exceed those with “fixed or static mindsets”. And one thing we do know for sure, change is eminent and perpetual. So, what are you doing to successfully navigate it?
Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider sharing it!
