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THERE SEEMS TO BE A HUGE DISCONNECT between how older people define “career” versus younger people.
This was well articulated by the author of 50 Ways to Get a Job, Dev Aujila. In a recent interview, he spoke of stability based jobs versus skill based jobs. He was speaking to job seekers, but business leaders have a lot to learn from this.
My parents grew up with the model that success looks like having one employer and one career for your entire working life. That model was already breaking down in the 1970s, and now it’s rarely effective.
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BEES ARE INCREDIBLE LITTLE CREATURES. And, as we’re finding out, vital to our entire food chain.
But they don’t actually produce food themselves, except honey. That’s not what makes them important.
Their role is crucial because they enable plants to do what they do best. They’re the catalyst, in a way, for why our food chain works.
RECENTLY I HAD A CHANCE to speak on a panel about nurturing international and cross-cultural relationships. This is a wonderfully rich topic, because it can get to the core of who we are as humans.
Here’s the deal: I think I’m normal, but everyone else is various shades of weird.
We’re all like that.
THORNS ARE A REAL PAIN to deal with. In your business, perhaps your “thorns” are:
- Customers that are demanding, unappreciative, and don’t pay on time
- Employees who don’t get along well
- Regulations
- Mistakes
- Life
This is what makes leadership so difficult. When things are going well, great! But there always seems to be a few aspects which are painful.
PLANNING IS FANTASTIC, but it has one big problem:
Reality gets in the way.
You go to all this work to create the fully robust plan, to get everyone on board, even to test various scenarios. It’s wonderful! But the plan was put in a binder on the shelf, never to be opened again.
Why is that?
AS OWNER OR LEADER, YOU are one of the key assets of the business. Your employees are wonderful, I understand, but without leadership it will all fall apart.
Yet it seems we’re the last one to get taken care of.
I admire leaders who recognize what it takes to sustain their own focus, energy, and inspiration. Without doing that, you can’t pass it off to your people.
PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS STRIVING for improvement. And visionaries paint an attractive picture of the future.
Leaders are the ones who can make the connection between the two.
The challenge is to pick a vision which is attractive, believable, and attainable. But you may have discovered that each of these is squishy, with lots of room for challenges.
WE FOCUS AN AWFUL LOT on product features. We’re faster, more powerful, more fully featured than the competition.
Honestly, a lot of customers are getting burned out on that.
They’re recognizing that “good enough” is plenty sufficient for most things in life. There are a few things that each person deeply cares about, but other things … it’s OK to not have the best.
HOW OBVIOUS is your company’s mission?
Is it so compelling that customers can tell you what it is, in their own words?
Is it so clear that your employees are thinking about it in some way every day?
WE’VE ALL CREATED lots of marketing messages. Our products will solve this problem. We’ll make your life better. We’ll treat you great.
Those are fine. Even powerful and compelling.
But how does this benefit your employees?
