© 2002 by Ethan A. Winning. All Rights Reserved.
The bad news is that we can all look forward to being unemployed sometime in our lives. More than once, in fact. Organizational needs are changing and have changed so fast that restructuring has become the norm rather than the exception - whether we're in or out of recession. Usually this means that belts are tightened and jobs, particularly those in middle management, are eliminated.
The good news is that being "separated" (another euphemism for all other euphemisms) is no longer anything to be ashamed of. It happens to entire departments, after all, and sometimes to entire companies or organizations. Today's hottest technician or manager may well be handed a separation package - or just a notice - tomorrow. Nobody's job is safe.
The further good news is that losing one's job gives you and opportunity (a mandate, actually) to assess strengths, reevaluate priorities, and grow personally and professionally. The organization may actually have been limiting your growth by forcing you into its mold.
All these news bulletin do indeed reflect a new(er) way of thinking. Back in pre-recession times, whenever those were, employees were loyal to their companies and vice-versa, although certainly not as in the 1980's and decades past that. Good managers "brought their people along" and longevity with the same company was a plus, rewarded by the organization and respected by those outside it. No more. Employee loyalty to and company and the corporate reciprocity is out the door.
Today, competition is so intense that even a good manager may have to let competent employees go and hire others with different skills - skills learned, as often as not, while working for competing businesses. Even if they wanted to, organizations cannot promise their employees lifetime careers (not even in Japan). The world is much too uncertain, as the last ten years and two recessions have proved.
Surprising as this may seem, some employees have just begun to figure this out, realizing that their career loyalties should first be to skill enhancement and development, and to their employers when the work provides transferable accomplishments (what Milan Moravec called "dual career pathing"). They must take charge of their own careers and develop them in such a way as to be attractive to a wider range of employers. Self-reliant employees today are seeking work that enables them to grow professionally, and that fits in with their values and life choice. They have heard that human resources representatives and placement people say in disparaging tones, "You stayed with that company too long. We're looking for someone with more variety of experience." Their loyalty turned out to be their vulnerability.
Assuming that everything will get "back to normal" once this slump is over is simply wishful thinking by both the employed and unemployed. Economic recovery will not bring a return to the familiar, and certainly not to the 90's. Global and domestic power shifts will place new demands on employees and decision makers. Product cycles, technological innovation, and other changes now take place in a radically reduced time scale. It is virtually impossible to keep up with new forms of competition. Comments such as "I can get this done for you in Mexico at half the price" are commonplace.
The executive with legal pad and secretary to retype notes is of a bygone era, one that most of you know nothing about. But while these executives have had to learn computer skills, the good news is that software has become easier to use. Even today, well into the computer revolution, there are executives who know little of the basics, and now that has become a do or die proposition.
Changing corporate and public sector customer and constituent needs will require continual reevaluation of priorities and employee skill mixes. Employees, particularly those who have just been laid off -- or whose separation is imminent -- need to do a similar reevaluation. This reevaluation begins with a change in attitude. Layoff does not mean failure. It may simply mean that your qualifications no longer fit that particular organization's personality. Some years ago outplacement counselors reported that the majority of those who cross their thresholds have been let go for "good" reasons: that is, the very qualifications that made them look good to one employer may not fit another's changing requirements.
For example, suppose a person is described as "intelligent." Certainly that person should be desirable, no? But a particular company or bureaucracy may think that he or she is "too smart" to do what the job requires while a different company may find the person not quite intelligent enough. Intelligence, in other words, is defined by organizational (and sometimes, interviewer) needs or perceived needs.
Another example: an "entrepreneurial type" might be just what one organization thinks it needs, while another organization might want someone who is "manageable." Qualities such as "flexibility" and "risk-taking" may be one organization's meat and another's poison. Technical skills, as with personal qualities, are also valued differently by different organizations.
It's all a matter of finding the right match. And, it's important to remember that an organization's personality changes in response to competitive pressures. "Smart" people, for example, may be "in" one year and "out" the next.
What can you do to keep developing professionally in this period of corporate and organizational flux? Several things:
- Through affiliation with professional associations, researching competition, suppliers and customers, find out what new skills are going to be needed as organizations are buffeted by gales of change. Success begets failure; what worked in the past may not work in the future. You can influence what you need to learn, and then actually learn by doing the unfamiliar.
- Seize responsibility for updating your current skills, developing new, transferable ones, and finding positions that expect the unfamiliar from you. (If you don't understand the need that most organizations feel for software literacy, become software literate.) Don't expect any employer to "give" you the opportunities and don't be disappointed if your manager is not skillful in helping you progress. Also, don't damage your career by doing a job simply for the "good" of the organization. Be as loyal to the organization as you are to yourself.
- Through your professional networks, research organizational personalities and meet with those you feel will be a good match with your new accomplishments. For and expand your career alternatives through networking. Remember, however, that some of your contacts will be competing for the same career opportunities that you are. Learning new skills is not enough: you must also be able to apply them in a number of areas.
- Remember, in turbulent times, earning a living is a career in itself. For self-employed people, it always has been; now it is a requirement for organizational employees as well because no job is forever. No longer will people be making a "career" of one particular position in one company. The only thing which you can partially control through networking and personal on-the-job skill-enhancement is how long it takes you to find the next position.
- Don't just sit there; do something with what you've learned. Don't get sidetracked. If your organization has dealt your ego a blow by letting you go, don't try to get even. Get with it and don't procrastinate.
We'll routinely change jobs (or have them changed for us) in this brave new world, a world which places a premium on initiative, creativity, and mastery of technology. The successful will be those who refuse to be daunted by the uncertainty of "transition" and who look for new opportunities. If leadership means taking people where they would no go by themselves, then at least lead your own career.