Career Agility & Skills for Your Future

This week, I presented at Henley Business School's World of Work conference, sharing my thoughts on the changing shape of careers, why we all need to develop career agility and where we should be focusing our personal development efforts to have a sustainably successful career.

Hopefully, this is of value to people outside of just that event, so I've summarised the key messages from the presentation below with thinks to useful research.

The Shape of Things to Come

There are many forces changing the shape of our careers. Jacob Morgan cites these as technology developments, changing workplace demographics, globalisation and mobility in his book The Future of Work. Generational changes in the workplace are seeing people are moving from company to company more frequently. Research by Workopolis found that Generation X spends over 20 percent longer in each job they hold than Gen Y does, with Gen Y changing jobs 22 per cent more often over a 12 year period than Gen X. Given the well used stat that Millennials will represent 75% of the workforce by 2025, this will soon become the norm in the workplace. Flash forward to the children of today and futurist Rohit Talwar believes we can expect them to have over 40 different jobs and 10 different career pivots in their careers.

Why Should We Care?

So, careers are changing. Why do we need to do anthing about it?

'Squiggly Careers' are full of opportunity if you know what motivates and drives you, what you are great and can translate that into valuable impact for your employer. In a world of work where the currency is changing from hours to output, your ability to communicate and deliver impact as you stay in roles for shorter and shorter periods of time becomes key.

Your value is impact, not hours worked.

However, if you don't understand what you're great at and how to covert that into impact, a Squiggly Career can feel daunting and like it's in control of you. Instead of the architect, you're the victim, leading to workplace stress and disengagement.

Employee disengagement represents a significant cost for business. A 2012 study by Gallup identified that organisations with higher levels of engagement were 21% more productive and 22% more profitable.

The changing shape of careers represents an opportunity for organisations to emplower their employees to take ownership of their careers and there are 4 key areas of career development to pay attention to.

Growth Mindset is key for a Squiggly Career. The concept was popularised by Carol Dweck in her 2006 book 'Mindset: The New Psychology of Success'. Watching her TED talk 'The Power of Believing That You Can Improve' will be 11 minutes of your life well spent. Defining yourself and your success by your expertise will limit you in your career. Research conducted in 2015 identified 'the earned dogmatism effect' where experiments proved that self-perceptions of expertise increase closed-minded cognition. Accepting yourself as 'work-in-progress' will be key to managing a sustainably successful career. Given the impact of AI on their role, managers are of particular note here and my MBA research identified an awareness and skills gap that needs to be addressed. Fixed mindset managers should take note and organisations should be looking to close this gap through education and training programmes.

All this movement from company to company means we can't expect our organisations to invest in our training for the long-term. It also means we can't expect our jobs to be the sole source of our development. Once we have identified our strengths, we need to think more broadly about how we develop them in different contexts. Your job is just one part of that development. Side projects can play an important role. Over 25% of people in the UK have been identified as 'side hustlers'. For me personally, running Amazing If as a side project for the last 5 years has been immensely valuable for my development and profile.

Henley Business School has produced a great report on the economics and organisational considerations of side projects. Their research identified that 60% of employees would be happier at work if they are able to pursue their side projects and passions. My side project was embraced by both Virgin and Microsoft during my employment with them and as a result I was even more committed to them and positive about them as an employer.

I've written about the practicalities of running a side project in Marketing Week and discussed it on the Squiggly Careers podcast.

All this 'squiggly-ness' though does need to be balanced with some stability in what you stand for in order to have a red thread through all the career moves you'll be making. Think about Virgin. Virgin is able to operate in many different industries and yet it keeps the brand consistent everywhere it plays. That takes insight, a clarity of what you're about and internal brand guardians. You need to take this approach for youself.

First, think about what you stand for - here is an article I've written to help you. Then, audit everywhere you show up. On your intranet, your bio, your LinkedIn profile etc.... is what your saying and how you're coming across consistent with the impact you want to make? If you can't look at it objectively, find a someone you trust to give you crtical feedback on the impression you're creating and make adjustments where necessary. Finally, think about how you can amplify your brand. Can you write a LinkedIn thought piece like this one on your subject of interest? Could you share other people's thoughts that align with what you believe in? The more you are associated with the things you are passionate about, the more likely you'll be able to align your career to those activities.

A Squiggly Career will bring you into contact with many more people. How you turn those contacts into valuable connections depends on you creating network reciprocity and this starts with you being clear about what you have to give to your network, unselfishly contributing that value to others and then articulating what you specifically want to gain.

At Amazing If, we call networking 'people helping people', because its been transformative to how Sarah Ellis and I have built our network. Adam Grant talks about this is his book 'Give and Take'. He identifies 3 roles; the Givers, the Takers and the Matchers. In this short video, he talks about the work he is doing with organisations to reduce the numbers of 'Takers' in the workforce. It's food for thought for managers and HR professionals.

Listen to this podcast 'How to build your network' for more ideas and practical tips on identifying what you have to give and stimulating your network.

I hope this helps you to think about your development priorities.

From October 2018, I'll be moving on to the next stage of my Squiggly Career, blending my work on Amazing If, where we help individuals and organisations develop the skills to succeed in a Squiggly Career, with leading Hoxby Collective's Futureproofing service and accelerating the adoption of flexible working through The New Work.

If you think that Amazing If can help you or your organisation improve career development practices and processes, get in touch. We'd love to be part of your thinking.

Helen