Nicholas Bate

Seven Career Mindsets For A Turbulent World: Shift 7

The back-story? That's here.

Shift 7: From individual to brand

1. For our grandparents: behave and be rewarded.
   
2. For our parents: excel and be rewarded.
   
3. For us: you are simply a resource. You must develop your own brand. You run your own business now.

In the New World of Work which is very, very different to that of our grandparents and increasingly remote from that of our parents we run our own business now.  We understand that:

1. We are as good as our efforts.
2. There are no guarantees.
3. Soft skills will always be needed and valued.
4. There will be increasing numbers of commodity jobs. These will either be out-sourced or very low paid.
5. There will always be a need for those for offer excellent value. And they will be well-paid.
6. Few careers nor organisations can get it consistently right over prolonged periods. Be willing to re-invent.
7. Think, read and act as a New Renaissance Man.
8. Carry a note-book. Think, plan and build a sustainable career.
9. Hang out with like-minded people. Not those who complain that their company is rubbish nor that the government should do more.
10. Start today. Now, in fact.

Seven Career Mindset Shifts For A Turbulent World. Day 7, Shift 6

The back story? That's here.

•  Shift 6: From one-off education to on-going investment
  

1. For our grandparents: one education, one career.
   
2. For our parents: on-going courses should be enough.
   
3. For us: the emergence of the return of 'Renaissance Man'. Flexible, broad band-width and able to re-invent.

Once upon a time: a black-smith for Life. Or a bank-manager. Or a nurse. No longer. Who knows what's going to come up next? Who knows how our career might be wiped out with a chip, by a cheaper nation or the whim of society? What's to be done? Renaissance Man is back: don't get stuck down one alley-way. Don't get caught down a silo. Stay flexible, stay broad and look for opportunities.

1. Go stare at some work by Leonardo da Vinci. If you are in London, UK the National Gallery has a lovely work; you can't miss it.
2. Read How To Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci by Michael Gelb
3. Visit Vinci, not at all far from the beautiful Florence/Firenze.
4. Get re-acquainted with 'The Renaissance'
5. Read outside your core area.
6. If you are a knowledge worker, go on a course which gives you a physical skill e.g. carpentry.
7. Seriously consider starting a part-time business totally outside your main area. You are an accountant? Something in the field of gardening.
8. Take time out to allow ideas to knit and cross-fertilise different parts of your brain.
9. Absolutely, definitely bring your language skills up to speed.
10. Start.

Seven Career Mindset Shifts For A Turbulent World, Day 6-Shift 5

The back-story? That's here.

• Shift 5: From 'corporate umbrella' to 'long-term hire'
  

1. For our grandparents: the paternal employer. Training, security and pension.
   
2. For our parents: the disappearance of the 'job for life'. But the pension and opportunities still exist.
   
3. For us: we are simply-at best-on a long-term hire. We need our own plans and importantly our own funding for the future.

Let's be clear. For most of us, the best mindset is: we run our own business and we have a long-term contract with our current employer. That's it. No more and no less security than that. Employers simply cannot afford it any more. We are expensive: we want laptops and holidays and pensions and training and air-conditioning and....bonuses....and salaries.

Thus:

1. Don't be a commodity who can be 'chipped' nor outsourced. Be remarkable i.e. worth remarking upon. Receptionist or CEO. Be remarkable.
2. Build your brand. That's what people say about you when you are not present.
3. Create your own training budget. Pay for your own training.
4. Always have a business book on the go. Learn, learn, learn.
5. Set up a learning team: three people, 1h per month dedicated to this stuff. Share ideas, coach and cajole.
6. Create your own back-up/support plan for retirement funds.
7. Constantly ask: what value am I offering? What's my RoI?
8. Review your CV every month. Just 10 minutes. Am I employable?
9. Act as you wish to be perceived.
10. Start.

Seven Career Mindsets For A Turbulent World: Day 5, Shift 4: The Detail

The back-story? That's here.

• Shift 4: From satisfaction from job and pleasure security, to pleasure from the journey.
  

1. For our grandparents: the stability and pleasure of 'work is work and play is play'.
   
2. For our parents: the appearance of work/life balance issues but 'hang on for the early pension and retirement'.
   
3. For us: the realisation of no guarantees: enjoying the journey becomes more critical then ever.

Once upon a time, good citizens worked hard, played hard and were rewarded.  Then something called 'work/life balance' appeared on the scene as technology, globalisation and the consequent increased competitiveness in every sector called upon us to work longer hours. And then we discovered we couldn't even depend on those fantastic promises of ever-lasting leisure and a comfortable pension.

More than ever it becomes critical to enjoy the journey. More than ever we must own our long-term security plan. More than ever we must consider our increasing longevity.

1. The new retirement strategy becomes: maintain health plus the ability to earn into one's later years.
2. Maintain health=M-E-D-S or meditation (take time out), exercise (simple CV), diet (food for health, not just fuel) and good quality sleep.
3. Earn into one's later years=identify a skill you can offer which you enjoy which cannot be removed by a chip, call centre or cheaper location elsewhere on the planet.
4. Choose your career for the intrinsic enjoyment it gives you coupled with earning (and potential earning) capability not just for its 'approval' ratings.
5. In the New World of Work look for careers which are highly dependent upon soft skills such as leading or creative thinking or...These are harder to 'chip'.
6. You effectively run your own business. So what's your training budget? Your retirement fund? Your succession plan?
7. Work IN your business. But also work ON it.
8. Work ON your skills, work ON your creativity, work ON your stamina. Never let a day go by without investing in your business, your brand and the value you offer.
9. Create a plan.
10. Start today.

Seven Career Mindset Shifts For A Turbulent World: Day 4: Shift 3-The Detail

The back-story? That's here.

•  Shift 3: From added communication channels to selection and discrimination.

1. For our grandparents: the excitement and usefulness of a land-line.
2. For our parents: the excitement and usefulness of the cell phone and e-mail.
3. For us: the awful dawning of data over-load and the need to discriminate on input channels.

In the world of our grandparents, thinking time was built in. Waiting for a train. At your desk. Even driving your car. Certainly in the evening. In that world, kids got bored and very good for them it was; it forced them to kick-start that imagination which would help them in adult Life.

In The New World of Work there are so many potential intrusions on our time, it is tougher and tougher to be at our best and deliver of our best: it is harder and harder to be in our peak state of concentration, thinking, focus and creativity. But the key is to notice that word 'potential': we don't have to allow so many forms of communication to us that we have no time to communicate with ourselves. Gardeners who work with an iPod in their ears are not 'at one' with the garden, executives who only see the world through the screen of a Blackberry run the real risk of losing perspective in every sense and children who have only experienced games via a console have missed out on the essential inter-personal skills of being in a gang and bartering for leadership. It is fortunate that John and Paul did not have to waste any time discussing which great new iApps they had discovered and down-loaded.

Consider:

1. Consider unplugging more: just switch it all off. Chill, read, cook and converse.
2. Get off the grid more. Back into nature. Camp, climb, canoe and create.
3. Batch process e-mail. Deal with it then leave it for an hour or so.
4. Re-set expectations with bosses and clients about response times.
5. Re-configure the way you work to reduce the number of channels you need to check, manage and even contribute to.
6. Get out of your head more often: chop wood, carry water, smell the roses.
7. Notice how easily we become addicted to the distraction. However fascinating our work, our eye and our mind is trained by evolution to flicker somewhere else.
8. Create a work area which is low on distraction. At work, go hide in a meeting room on another floor. At home, explain to the kids your new approach.
9. Get proactive again. You're in control. Not the interrupts.
10. The greatest asset you have to offer throughout your career is the quality of your thinking. Protect it like gold bullion.

7 Career Mindset Shifts For A Turbulent World: Day 3: Shift 2-The Detail

The back-story? That's here.

Shift 1: from planned single career to flexible multiple career. That's here.

• Shift 2: From CV, experience and qualifications to attitude and added-value.

1. For our grandparents: qualifications lead to guaranteed increased reward. Experience (even simply time elapsed) is in itself rewarded.
2. For our parents: the appearance of an over-qualified society. Experience is the differentiator.
3. For us: an over-qualified society, much with good experience. The appearance of the requirement to distinguish through rapid, added-value with enormous flexibility.

The CV has less and less value. They're all the same. All perfectly crafted. Cool portrait photos, carefully lit. Everybody is a passionate leader, speaks several languages including Spanish and Mandarin and has got a distinction in their Social Media dissertation.

Read this: Guardian: "70 Applicants for Every Job"

The degree has become a commodity. The MBA, too.

You've got to pull ahead in different ways:

1. What people say about you when you are not present is 100 times more powerful that a 'word-smithed' CV. When somebody rings up one of your references, what do they say? Are they careful and cagey? Do they say something non-committal? Or do they talk genuinely about what a perfect fit you would be? Start building your brand now. Walk the talk.
2. Get good at the pro-active 'can-do' covering letter. Assume most of the CVs will be ideal for the job. Just dull. Use the covering letter to show how you are different. And simple enthusiasm can be the characteristic which gets you to an interview.
3. Be proactive. Target the organisations and departments for whom you want to work. Be polite. Be professional. But be persistent. Budgets, head-count and people change. Don't miss an opportunity for not making that follow-up call.
4. While you are job hunting, go a on a simple, practical (well-regarded) sales course so you know how to sell. Transfer the ideas so you can sell yourself and overcome objections such as 'you have insufficient experience'*
5. *In terms of time elapsed, certainly. However in terms of the particular jobs and projects I have worked upon......
6. Switch your thinking from how can I get a job or the job to how can I get experience? That's often the real  blocker.
7. This is not an excuse to work for free or some dubious internship, but it's often easier to do a fantastic piece of work consistently on a trial and/or free basis and then asked to be paid for it than to get a paid job.
8. Take your network of contacts very seriously. Work hard to help others. You'll get the return just when you need it.
9. None of the above will be easy. You will have to try longer, harder, smarter, more enthusiastically with more resolve than anyone else. But you can do it.
10. Start now. Get a plan. Yep-you got it. Coffee later.

7 Career Mindset Shifts For a Turbulent World: Day 2: Shift 1-The Detail

Missed the back-story? That's here. And now Mindset Shift 1 in more detail.

• Shift 1: From planned single career to flexible multi-career.

1. For our grandparents: 1 career for Life.
2. For our parents: at least one career shift, common.
3. For us: the need for a multi-career path to cope with the comings and goings and importantly disappearance of job opportunities, whole sectors and the acceleration of technology.

Here's the great news: you're going to live longer than anyone ever thought possible, the barriers to your choosing (a) new career(s) are lower than ever and the pace of change gives blossoming opportunities every minute of every day. However. However. However. You've got to 'switch on' to the opportunity before it becomes a threat: there are no guarantees, there is no orderliness and your careers teacher, bank manager and the guy down the bar just don't get it. It's Frontier Land again. Whatever you are good at now whether it's being a dental hygienist, an English teacher, an MBA professor or brain surgeon; things are changing in your field and people are costly, very costly. Yep, stake your claim. But just as then, it is now: it's down to you. Here's your strategy:

1. Manage your own career. Talk to as many people as you can. Read as much as you are able. But never, ever assume your CEO is at all concerned about your career. If they are, that is a fantastic bonus. Take 100% ownership for your salary, your development and most importantly your passion for what you do.
2. Every month when you get your pay-cheque, ask the question: what will I be doing in 12 months time and how am I preparing for that? Are you sure?
3. Get on every damn course you can. Pay for some yourself. Discover what you love. Work on knowledge, skills and attitude. The latter is essential: stay open-minded to possibilities.
4. Read intensively about your field. What's happening? Where is it going? Who's just surviving?  Who's thriving? Who's dying?
5. Immerse yourself and become great at soft skills such as leadership. These cannot be replaced by a chip.
6. Decide to become astonishingly good at what you do. You will not then be out-sourced. Get within the top 10% of your field with 24 months. Then the top 1% within the next 36 months. 
7. Start building your profile and brand. Your brand = what people say about you when you are not in the room.
8. Start a blog. Write a book. Neither needs to be published (That is not really the point, in fact. Do you run a marathon to win?) but you must get clear on what you are about and get good at articulating your thinking. Both will force that.
9. Keep on top of technology (Michael Sampson will help) but don't be seduced by it. Your greatest asset is still your ability to think clearly. Notice what Michael has done on the publishing and personal brand fronts, BTW. Awesome.
10. Don't talk about this any more: create a plan. Stick it on the fridge. Share it with those who are important to you. No, no coffee: write that plan. Then coffee.

tbc.

7 Career Mindset Shifts For A Turbulent World: Day 1: The Overview

• Shift 1: From planned single career to flexible multi-career.

1. For our grandparents: 1 career for Life.
2. For our parents: at least one career shift, common.
3. For us: the need for a multi-career path to cope with the comings and goings and importantly disappearance of job opportunities, whole sectors and the acceleration of technology.
   

• Shift 2: From CV, experience and qualifications to attitude and added-value.

1. For our grandparents: qualifications lead to guaranteed increased reward. Experience (even simply time elapsed) is in itself rewarded.
2. For our parents: the appearance of an over-qualified society. Experience is the differentiator.
3. For us: an over-qualified society, much with good experience. The appearance of the requirement to distinguish through rapid, added-value with enormous flexibility.
   

•  Shift 3: From added communication channels to selection and discrimination.

1. For our grandparents: the excitement and usefulness of a land-line.
2. For our parents: the excitement and usefulness of the cell phone and e-mail.
3. For us: the awful dawning of data over-load and the need to discriminate on input channels.

• Shift 4: From satisfaction from job and pleasure security, to pleasure from the journey.
  

1. For our grandparents: the stability and pleasure of 'work is work and play is play'.
   
2. For our parents: the appearance of work/life balance issues but 'hang on for the early pension and retirement'.
   
3. For us: the realisation of no guarantees: enjoying the journey becomes more critical then ever.
   

• Shift 5: From 'corporate umbrella' to 'long-term hire'
  

1. For our grandparents: the paternal employer. Training, security and pension.
   
2. For our parents: the disappearance of the 'job for life'. But the pension and opportunities still exist.
   
3. For us: we are simply-at best-on a long-term hire. We need our own plans and importantly our own funding for the future.

•  Shift 6: From one-off education to on-going investment
  

1. For our grandparents: one education, one career.
   
2. For our parents: on-going courses should be enough.
   
3. For us: the emergence of the return of 'Renaissance Man'. Flexible, broad band-width and able to re-invent.
   

• Shift 7: From individual to brand
  

1. For our grandparents: behave and be rewarded.
   
2. For our parents: excel and be rewarded.
   
3. For us: you are simply a resource. You must develop your own brand. You run your own business now.
   

tbc.