What do I want to do when I grow up

The next part of my career exploration focuses more on what I want to do in the future. 

I’ve gone through a variety of career planning exercises in the past:

• I’ve done the Obituary Exercise
• I’ve created my own Big Hairy Audacious Goals
• I’ve tried to picture what my Ikigai is

Honestly, I hate this process. It is really difficult for me to connect a meaningful goal with a practical roadmap. 

For example, when I pictured my Big Hairy Audacious Goals – I captured things like: driving material improvement with employee experience; being college professor; owning an orchard; running a small business modeled after Delancey Street. 

If you can figure out how to connect those goals with the work I am currently doing, please private message me because I am struggling. Since I cannot picture a path, my commitment to develop towards to those goals has been shallow.

Here’s the problem – knowing where you want to go is critical in terms of your ability to get there. Over the last year, I have become increasingly anxious that I am not doing enough meaningful work. I need to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

At heart, I think the objective of career planning is to consider what you want to work on and how will you contribute. I’m going to try with the world watching.

What Do I Want to Work On?

I want to work on making the world better. I have shied away from that explanation because it sounds arrogant and my shame gremlins tell me it shouldn’t be a goal I strive for (you don’t want to get too big for your britches). Truthfully, that has been my goal for as long as I remember. When I was 10, my neighbor’s parents asked what do you want to do when you grow up; I said cure HIV. 

Ok – I want to make the world better, but the real question is how.

In many ways we live in an interesting time; every industry is in the process of digitally transforming their employee and customer experiences, there is a renaissance in human based management approaches, and artificial intelligence is unlocking unheard of automation opportunities. Working in technology I am getting a privilege of having a front row seat. As we work through this transition, I am hopeful we’ll put love thy neighbor at the center to help make the world a better place. I think we can measure our progress towards solving important problems by watching key metrics:

Employee Engagement – Engagement has improved by 10 basis points over the last 20 years (Historic Drop Employee Engagement Follows Record Rise). At the same time, top organizations have employee engagement scores of over 70% nearly 5 times the global average. I think there is an opportunity to accelerate impact as organizations adopt SaaS tools for core back office functions like HR and Finance.

Economic Mobility – Relative mobility is declining; we are creating a world where some people are systemically being left behind (2020: Measuring Economic Mobility). I think privilege (family support, education support, technical support, and income support) contribute to the decline of mobility. 

Accessibility – Related to economic mobility, there are gaps where communities are being left behind. For example, poverty is higher in rural areas (6 Charts that illustrate the divide between rural and urban America). Likewise, there’s a material pay gap for Women, African-Americans, and Latino’s (Wikipedia). Further, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is double that of people without. Again, I think privilege has a lot to do with the differences.

Sustainability - The scientific consensus is clear. The world confronts an urgent carbon problem. The carbon in our atmosphere has created a blanket of gas that traps heat and is changing the world’s climate. Already, the planet’s temperature has risen by 1 degree centigrade. If we do not curb emissions, and temperatures continue to climb, science tells us that the results will be catastrophic (Microsoft’s commitment to sustainability).

Life Expectancy – In the United States, life expectancy has stagnated (United States Life Tables 2017). The major causes of death in 2020 were heart disease, cancer, and COVID-19. Excluding COVID-19, I think improvements in heart disease and cancer survivability will come through medical breakthrough and behavioral change. 

Happiness – I almost deleted this measure because it is nebulous. In fact recently, we don’t know how to measure happiness because the way we experience it is not universal (Turns Out We Don’t Know How To Measure Happiness). At the same time, we do know anxiety is increasing (Anxiety Disorder Statistics 2020 – US and World Wide). In the end, I kept it because I believe in a future where more people feel happy and fulfilled.

This list isn’t a catch-all of all the problems in the world worth solving. It is a list of problems that I’m interested in because I think solving them will lead to a better world. I expect if someone else is going through this exercise; they would come up with a completely different and valid list. I think the important thing is defining how you are going to tackle the problems that are important to you.

How Can I Contribute?

By working with others, I believe that I can contribute towards mitigating some of the challenges we face. I think there are a lot of options:

• I can work within the manufacturing industry to improve accessibility, employee engagement, and sustainability by helping organizations digitally transform their employee experience.
• I can work within the healthcare industry to improve patient management through the adoption of patient relationship management systems that contribute data towards research systems to deliver better patient outcomes.
• I can work within the education industry to create an environment where teachers who are trying to flip the classroom will be supported by a diverse ecosystem.
• I can teach and research employee engagement.
• I can participate in social outreach programs look to provide the support that I take as a given in my life.
• I can work as a customer success leader helping technology organizations understand what steps are required to help their customers transform faster and how to implement them.
• I can try to start a small business where I can try to make opportunity accessible through employees following models like the one established by Delancey Street.

What Are My Next Steps?

This process has been really rewarding for me. I think starting around abstract around problems I’m passionate about it and getting concrete around how can contribute to resolving them helped provide clarity around how I can do work I find rewarding. I can picture opportunities that I think are really viable for me. 

Immediately, I’m going to have a conversation with my mentoring circle on the self-discovery journey I’ve gone through and get some advice on how to move forward. At a high level, I think it looks like:

• Evaluating which of these opportunities are most likely to drive personal fulfilment.
• Identify what I need to learn and figure out a plan to learn it.
• Participate in a work-out-loud circle to identify 20% projects that can help me demonstrate required skills.
• Take action to realize an opportunity to contribute to solving a problem I care about.

Thank you for listening!