How Many Old Career Paths Are About To Tank?

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”―?Paulo Coelho,?The Alchemist

How Many Old Career Paths Are About To Tank?

Yes career paths are about to tank for many reasons. This is LinkedIn after all isn't it? This is where the discussion belongs. We should be talking about careers and not gently walking through a field of flowers pretending things will workout for everyone. I haven't seen it however perhaps LinkedIn a Microsoft subsidiary will have an Ai course available for free! In business and careers there are two types of outcomes. Those who progress and those who are regrettably left behind. The latter is very much avoidable. Read this week's comments. How many career paths are about to tank? That depends a lot on how important your work is in a very near future workplace.

Rules to your next Promotion/Job

You get nowhere without a plan

When I started, people tried to tell me that I had to wait my turn or that I need more time in position. I am a contrarian, and I don't play by the rules set out by an old guard riddled with their own biases. I had one peer a few years ago pull me aside enroute to a meeting and told me that it was their turn to get promoted and that I should pull out of the race. I laughed. Took my hand out to shake their hand and said, the race was on. This is my first time I have shared this with anyone, in the end I was promoted. I basically moved up every 2-3 years durng my career, with added responsibility and title changes. Who knows where I would be if I had listened to the old guard and followed their advice. Many unfortunately do.

There are rules and you need a plan to staying effectively employed and having a fast-track career. However, I warn the reader this isn't for the faint at heart. Nor for opportunists who have a bigger ego than skills. It takes a lot of courage and the willingness to risk failure to win.

First, allow me to share this. If you have not had an upward promotion every 2-3 years, moved laterally in that same timeframe to another role within the same company, or moved to another company in the last 3-4 years, your career may have stalled. Unless, of course, you are happy with where you are. Which is really okay. However, that is only the case for some.

The problem with a stalled or stalling career is that with each year that passes, your ability to get closer to the ideal role and earn that bigger paycheck begins to diminish very quickly. Within a decade of no movement, the chances of a promotion or being hired elsewhere shrink faster. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news bu that is life. You can overcome the obstacles if...

Here are the rules:

Rule?#1?No one owns your future. You do, and no one really has your back. It all depends on you. What I always told my kids was that no one will care about your career as much as you do. Rule?#2?Dial up your ambition. Please don't wear it on your sleeve but let the world know you are not planning to sit life out. Rule?#3?Park the ego and bravado. Walk tall, be smart, project confidence and don't bullshit. Humility matters! Rule?#4?Look for assignments and projects that will challenge you, they will help you get noticed, and earn accolades. But earn it from hardwork. Rule?#5?Don't rush to please, and don't make mistakes in haste to get something done. Gaining a reputation for being sloppy is not the right way to start. Rule?#6?Target the next job you want. What's it all about? What are the skills that got the person currently in the role promoted? And what are the future skills required that you need to personally develop in yourself? Rule?#7?Never pretend to be a know it all. Always ask intelligent questions that are thought-provoking and open the foundation to new ideas. Don't be one who wants to show up the boss for not being as smart as you. Rule?#8?Reading it in a book doesn't make you prepared. Learning to do a new task or skill through professional development it will go a lot further. I will say it here, Ai, Robotics and Sustainability are the trends to be mindful of. Rule?#9?Kill your political and social biases before they end your career. The people making the hiring decisions want to avoid radicals with opinions. They want future leaders. And on top of that, change your beliefs around your biases. All of that is for the bar scene rather than around fellow employees. Rule?#10?If you are well organized and timely with your work, you will always succeed. That also means being to work on time and leaving a little late if you have to just to be ready for the next day. For get work from home be visible. Rule?#11?Lead by example and learn what the right example is. Just because it's right for you doesn't mean the culture agrees or that you can change it. Rule?#12?Pick the right fights, not the ones bruise your pride or because you believe you are right or that your ideas are being discarded. Think about the organization's future, and that will take care of yours. Rule?#13?Never lie! If you have screwed up, make sure people are aware of it before it becomes a problem and have a solution with a realistic timeline to deliver the improvements. Rule?#14?Never talk about your boss or the company in an ill manner anywhere at any time or to anyone within the organization or with a supplier. I have seen idiots torpedo their careers because they thought the person they were speaking to could be trusted. Rule?#15?Deliver results! Day in and day out. Look for opportunities (Not Shortcuts) to improve the performance of the organization. Rule?#16?Read your job description and the foundations around your performance review, know how to ensure you will score high. It is about performance, and keep track of what you have done. Rule?#17?If direct reports or peers don't like or trust you, it's your leadership that sucks. There is nothing wrong with them. I have seen many insecure leaders fire good people claiming that they weren't loyal. Nonsense, employees of the company don't have to be loyal to you. If you need loyalty, you have an authoritarian leadership style. And that's a problem! Rule?#18?Bring people along for the journey. Reward them, praise them to upper management. With real accomplishments, I might add. I have seen executives make up stuff about employees because they don't know them. Rule?#19?Be a team player. That means working with others on the same level. Don't try to take the lead. Offer intelligent insights. Engage others not your ego. Rule?#20?Plan your next move in detail. Learn the current job and the jobs one and two levels ahead of you. Take course if needed. When the opportunity arises, let it be known that you are interested. If you are passed on, start looking elsewhere. Actually, you should be doing that all the time. Rule?#21?Last one! If you have decided to leave corporate life and go it alone remember, you are the brand. The reason business comes to you or doesn't is because of the choices you have made in how you interact. Market yourself professionally, and your services need to be the same. Manage your reputation.

Look I know this is not aligned with what human resources will tell you. However I remind you they work for the company not as an advisor for you. They cannot open doors and they cannot take your side.

Did you hear that?

It's the sound of change coming to the retail sector again. Retailers will need to rewrite their playbooks. In fact, they should never close them. When you look at Bed Bath & Beyond they were easy targets to be destroyed by Investor Activists. Nordstrom has even been targeted. But that's not all its the economy, technology and consumer their shifts in behaviors are already making a great deal of noise. Success has many options but there is no option like innovation and a higher level of customer experience. Certainly Ai is a big fish and there is a lot of speculation but it will enhance the customer's experience in many ways. And it will push retailers that can't afford to play out of the competitive arena. How do you overcome it? Focus on what you do best and market the hell out of it. Ground your strategies on the fundamentals of physical retailing and of course e-commerce for those who think they are still two different spirit animals. However, what e-commerce can't do is deliver a human relationship (not yet at least) and it will be up to you and ensure that your stores are delivering just that.

Personal Log: A Paradigm Shift Is Coming

This week I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker for Women In Food Industry Management - WFIM . As a very data driven individual I follow trends, the following two paradigm shifts are ever pressing on my mind because quite simply they are going to change our world in a very, very big way.

Now I shared one of them at the WFIM Virtual Sustainability Summit and I will share it again here. In 2022 one in seven cars sold globally was electric. That is 60% higher than the year prior. A significant jump in marketshare. By 2025, in just a couple of years, it is forecasted that one third of all cars sold globally will be EVs. Why is that important? Because aside from the obvious savings on gas and lower emissions, consumers will become far more cognizant of the world around them and the risks to the environment. And yes especially to their health. As I shared in the opening speech of summit, the Old Guard is worried, their industries are fighting change. Therefore, the march to greater sustainability will become both a career and business shift for many. And based on what I saw from some of the new businesses being developed, like Circulose for example a business in the circular economy, H&M is already using them. I was very impressed by what they are doing. Being sustainable is coming to every industry and consumers are going to push for more of it as they adopt to more EVs. Count on it!

The second, I hate to sound like scratched 45 record (hopefully everyone knows what that is), if you are not getting well versed in Ai you need to as soon as possible. Take a low cost course from Coursera just as a primer and go from there. Artificial Intelligence is likley to jump a little further than we think. I suggest you watch the CBS 60 Minutes interview with Google executives. It seems one Ai unit taught itself Bengali, no one programmed it to do so it did so on its own! In addition they also layout how jobs will be impacted. This is a must see clip...take notes. Watch the 60 Minutes Interview

These are two very important paridigm shifts that will impact society, work, and industries. I believe that the best in class retailers are already moving faster. And I have no doubt that sustainability and Ai will find a partnership somewhere along the way. Is it tomorrow? No but in the next 5-10 years we will see unprecedented changes and we all owe to ourselves to be ready.

Thank you for reading this week's issue of the Business Brief.

Four Keynote Presentations By George Minakakis

#retailing #strategy #ceo #technology #innovation #sustainabilty #environment #future #Ai #Robotics #futurism #marketing