Healthy Job And Career Transitions
David Shindler
Writer. Mainly. Coach. Often. Volunteer. Sometimes. Learning to Leap. Always.
When William Shakepeare wrote about 'the seven ages', it was a bit different from today's multi-dimensional, post-industrial era. Demographic changes and scientific progress stretch his characterisations well beyond their limits.
The Bard jumps from
the whining school-boy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school
to the lover and the soldier.
What would he have written today about the young person on the cusp of leaving education and entering the world of work? And all of us in a VUCA world (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity)?
We are moving into the era of the 100-year life. That means many personal and professional transitions. The demographic bulge of higher numbers of over 60-year olds is getting bigger and will outnumber younger generations. The death of the linear career has been trumpeted. Multiple careers are forecast for people entering the world of work. I'm in my 50s and expect further careers.
Employee disengagement is rife. There is a worldwide search for meaning through work, a greater blurring of the lines between earning and the other elements of how we spend our lives. Tectonic plates are shifting from the remnants of the 20th Century Industrial Age through the Knowledge and Digital Ages to where we are now, at the early stages of the Social Age. Sir Stephen Hawking predicts Artificial Intelligence will threaten professional activities, like automation has done in previous eras.
I predict an increasing focus on different work patterns and employment relationships, more flexibility, more home working, more use of technology, more contracting and freelancing. It's already happening.
Coaching and Mentoring Can Help
Coaching and mentoring (including reverse mentoring) have a significant role to play in healthy job and career transitions. They support people to cope with disruption and ignite personal eruption, where you grab hold of the future before the future grabs hold of you. The 2015 Sherpa Survey of Executive Coaching reports that nearly 1 in 4 of clients want help on making a transition and to do it as painlessly as possible.
According to research, different mental abilities peak at different ages from 18 to 70 plus.
You reach your optimum age for different sporting skills at different ages... so it is with basic mental abilities, such as different aspects of short-term memory, vocabulary and emotional processing. British Psychological Society Digest
It's an incentive to keep developing through lifelong and lifewide learning. Potential does not disappear with age. I believe how someone engages with learning is a clue to their character and maturity, irrespective of age.
However, real experiences do give us the raw material to learn how to make a transition. That's why the lack of work experience for today's generation means the transition to work may be harder than when I was their age. We need to give young people the critical thinking tools, mental models and frameworks to work things out for themselves. Learning how to learn needs revisiting (especially in the Social Age and a VUCA world) and is the best gift we can offer young people today.
Building the blocks for healthy transition
We come into this world with a unique nature (our core self). Our inborn tendencies develop as we experience the world and our characters and brains, as neuroscience is enlightening us, get shaped by the environment (our contextual self). We're all unique so we develop at different times and speeds.
We play up to or ignore aspects of our core self depending on our self-awareness or the choices we make (our developed self). Although our core may prefer to see the world in a particular way, we learn how to view things from other perspectives.
A healthy transition means making the most of your various selves - understanding your personality, being adaptable and flexible to different situations, and continuously developing the behaviours, mindsets, skills and knowledge needed for change.
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein.
Or, as my father used to say, today is the yesterday of tomorrow - things soon change! Knowing what you really want and what motivates you are the fuel for moving forward and letting go of the past. The present may feel uncomfortable but transition is part of the natural process of renewal that brings its own rewards.
What is your personal experience of job and career transitions? How healthy have they been? What challenges did you face? What helped you to break through?
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David (@David_Shindler) is an independent coach, blogger and speaker, associate with several consultancies, founder of The Employability Hub (free resources for students and graduates), author of Learning to Leap: a guide to being more employable, Digital Bad Hair Days and co-author with Mark Babbitt of 21 Century Internships. His commitment and energy is in promoting lifelong personal and professional development and in tackling youth unemployment. He works with young people and professionals in education and business.
To read more of his work - visit the Learning to Leap blog.
And check out his other published articles on LinkedIn:
Solutions For Closing The Gap From Classroom To Career
The Multiplier Opportunity In The Generation Game
Culture: The Quantified Self And The Qualified Self
Purposeful Leadership To Create The Life Of Meaning
The Uber Effect: Opportunities For Job Seekers And Employers
Hierarchies are tumbling as Social soars
The Emergence of the Holistic Student
New Graduates: Following Is A Rehearsal For Leading
How Redefining Success Helps You Succeed
Why Developing Yourself Is A Matter Of Life And Death
Generation Now: The Imperative Of Intercultural Skills
#If I Were 22: Choose Insight Before Hindsight
How To Align Talent, Careers and Performance
Writer. Mainly. Coach. Often. Volunteer. Sometimes. Learning to Leap. Always.
9 年Thanks Jenny Mullinder! The key is to keep testing and learning about ourselves. Act your way into a new way of thinking (discover) rather than think your way into a new way of acting.
Connecting people, spreading positive wellbeing and joy, and helping solve problems
9 年This is a very apt article for me! I think having the courage to move forward when faced with a transition is incredibly important, and not always there for young people. We'v been told a lot of things about how the 'grown up world' works which aren't really true, assumed a lot which is just plain wrong, and whilst finding our feet can feel like we must follow in the footsteps of those with more experience and knowledge. The truth is that sometimes you need to forge your own course to be true to yourself. Ignoring your core self I feel just results in deterioration of your outer selves over time. Of course I'm stil finding my feet, and like you said lifelong learning and growing is important. I'm sharing this article to spread the message :) Also I never would have thought you were in your 50s!
Writer. Mainly. Coach. Often. Volunteer. Sometimes. Learning to Leap. Always.
9 年Agree Karen Lomas, and I'd add it helps to be intentional and courageous to thrive.
Professional Member of the UK Career Development Institute (CDI) Independent Professional Career Guidance Coach (Holder of current UK DBS Enhanced Certificate)
9 年Hi David I don't think I've heard the of our times being VUCA and I was quite tickled by the notion of "personal eruption"! Certainly for me career transitions have been challenging and in answer to your question, resilience and perseverance are crucial for survival. One of my mottos is; "Feel the fear and do it anyway".
Sharing the running of our 6-cottage holiday business.
9 年Career interruptions - from redundancy, falling out with employers, job boredom to pregnancies - each time allowed a new phase. Unwelcome pitfalls, apart from my lovely children, were a spur to transitions that brought better work and new skills. It can be hard to leave a safe but unfulfilling job so I needed a nudge!