Constant change is the new status quo and uncertainty the only certainty in business. Want to find ongoing success in your field, consistently stay ahead of the curve and/or find ways to skyrocket your way up the corporate ladder if you’re an entrepreneurial thinker operating inside a larger organization? To ensure ongoing growth and career progression, tomorrow’s leaders must become more forward-thinking, resilient and able to improvise.
But, as interviews with scores of leading business researchers, academics and senior leaders at global innovators such as Cisco, Merck and EMC reveal, this process is seldom instinctive. Rather, it requires professionals to anticipate continuous career disruption, and take calculated steps to acquire “elastic skills” — widely applicable talents such as project management, critical/design thinking and communications skills — that can easily be remolded to fit any role or industry.
Most strikingly though, the process of gaining them often requires one to execute a series of seemingly counterintuitive career moves at the expense of immediate opportunities for financial gain or advancement.
Cracking the code
To understand the new model for career success, I interviewed over 125 serial and self-made successes, including a mix of intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs and leadership training professionals, to see how they fueled ongoing career growth both in themselves and others. Feedback indicates that the new formula for career success is simple:
- Stay ahead of shifts in your industry by constantly broadening your experience and perspective.
- Cultivate flexibility and resilience in your career.
- Be a generalist, and learn as much as you can. Learn how to learn.
- Assume that disruptions will occur, and prepare for them in advance.
- Equip yourself with the skills and resources you need to improvise.
- Be purposeful and forward-thinking about the choices you make.
- Use feedback gained from the results of your efforts to keep making more informed choices going forward.
As a simple example, one successful marketing executive guards against career upheaval by taking smart risks. To future-proof himself, he routinely reviews his professional strengths and weaknesses then takes on a progression of carefully chosen job roles that address any shortcomings, and provide education and experience that serve as launch pads to future opportunities. This exercise includes making PowerPoint presentations of his own skills and experiences to determine where proficiency is lacking. He then specifically seeks out more challenging roles and responsibilities that allow him to fill in the gaps, exercise new professional abilities and…