“How many of you have a career?”
It’s one of my favorite questions to ask a group of employees. In the days of in person training, you could see hands slowly raise here and there, glancing furtively at their co-workers. Even in the virtual world, you’ll see them hesitantly look at the cams of everyone else. They don’t seem to realize that just by the act of working, they’ve chosen a career.
A career is a job with time-based context, having both a sense of history and direction. Good careers have depth, meaning, and purpose. There’s a compelling future there built from growth and development. A successful career personifies not just the way you make your living, but also who you really are.
I watched an HBO Special once that featured comedian Chris Rock. “With a career,” he said, “there is never enough time. With a job, there is always too much time.” How true. And how unfortunate for those stuck in what they consider jobs. There are some poignant ramifications there for anyone that employs or manages others.
Ho hum jobs and tasks usually make up the majority of the work an organization needs done. It’s not glamorous and doesn’t appear to have any obvious rewards for an employee aside from keeping their job and getting a paycheck. It may involve repetition, menial labor, and can even be dirty and grimy. I think it’s possible, however, to elevate almost any conversation about job to one focused on career, if we gain a more accurate understanding of the two perspectives and learn to connect with the human spirit of the people doing the work.
Take Hector, our window washer. It’s hard to believe in this day and age that a man in his sixties could work six to seven days a week, eight to ten hours a day cleaning windows, but he does. Rain or shine, summer or winter, Hector climbs up and down ladders all day long. It’s hard, physical work. It’s also more than a little dangerous. And yet the thing about Hector is that he is always smiling. He loves to talk to his customers and get to know their stories. He provides services to many families in our neighborhood for more than two decades and knows all about their ups and downs, successes and failures. And we’re just one of many communities that value Hector’s skills.
Hector has an interesting business model. He doesn’t advertise. He doesn’t even ask for referrals. He simply gets them. It’s hard not to tell others about his excellent work, positive outlook, and fair prices. He returns year after year to the same houses and has a waiting list several weeks in advance.
I talked with Hector about his feelings toward the future and he admits that he’ll have to one day quit. He’s not looking forward to it, however. He loves his customers and likes staying busy. He takes great pride in each and every window he cleans and knows that his quality of work will be all but impossible to replicate. Hector’s job is to wash windows. His career is to treat his customers to a fresh perspective on the outside world.
“A job is not a career. I think I started out with a job. It turned into a career and changed my life.” - Barbara Walters
My father had more than a 30-year career in the automotive industry. For the first twenty or so, it was a pretty awesome experience. His work as a business manager with General Motors defined him, fulfilled him, and gave him sustenance well beyond the market-competitive pay and benefits provided. In the last seven to ten years, however, it became a job. A shift in leadership and corporate culture left him in an endurance contest with only one overriding objective – retirement. I’m extremely grateful that my father realized his dream of fully funding his pension plan. I’m even more grateful that the series of jobs he endured paved the way for him to focus on his ultimate career objective – to read every important book ever written.
He’s worked full time on this quixotic quest steadily for more than twenty years now. Happily for him, he still has a few publications to go.
“Whether we call it a job or a career, work is more than just something we do. It is a part of who we are.” - Anita Hill
In one key respect, I’ve never aspired to be like my father. I don’t yearn for retirement. Just as importantly, as I watched him go through those final years of torture, I made a vow that I’d never remain in a position that depleted my soul. So when my nine year career at Exxon began to display characteristics of a job, I made a break. I did it again four years later and then twice more before settling into a situation where I have experienced almost unlimited opportunity for growth.
Don’t get me wrong. The last thing in the world I’m suggesting is that you should follow my personal path – leave a comfortable executive level position and start your own company. Rather, my suggestion is that you find your own. If that involves starting your own business, so be it. For most, however, it means making sure that the work you do in the job you currently hold somehow fits in context of a larger life plan. If you’re in a future audience where I ask my favorite question, I want you to be able to raise your hand quickly and high.
How do you make sure that your career doesn’t dead end in a job? Here are a few actions you can take:
1) Do a Happiness Check. Are you happy? Growing? Becoming? Or are you just treading water as you focus on paying the rent? Is someone who works for you doing the same? If the answer is affirmative to either of the last two questions, it’s time to make a change.
2) Get a Career Coach. If your organization practices Catalytic Coaching, you’re one big step ahead of the game. The process places your direct manager in the critical role of coach and all you have to do is complete the forms and follow the steps. If your organization doesn’t employ a career-focused counseling system, or if you can’t safely confide in your reporting manager, consider hiring an executive coach. I’m attached to a pretty large network of career coaches, so please let me know if you’d like a personal referral.
3) Begin with the End in Mind. Force yourself to look in the mirror, think deeply and answer truthfully some fundamental destination questions, like: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Let’s be adult about this, however. If you want to be an astronaut, you’ll probably have to start with engineering school and relocate to Florida.
4) Find Your Special Purpose. Search for work that is centered on the intersection between your unique talents and activities that inspire you. Marcus Buckingham’s Stand Out Assessment and the Gallup Organization’s Clifton Strengthsfinder Index are two excellent tools that might aid you in this target tailoring quest.
5) Strategize. If your current job is no longer contributing to the meaningful advancement of your career, construct a plan to get you moving again. Take half-steps, if necessary. If you’re currently an accountant for a manufacturing company and your dream is to be the PR Manager for a professional baseball team, consider moving to PR in your current company or taking a job in accounting for the ball club. After you’ve proven yourself in the new area or organization, you can take step number two.
6) Execute! Get to work and make it so. Remember that any job that fails to move you forward on your ultimate career path is just a form of procrastination.
Garold (Gary) Markle is the creator of Catalytic Coaching and author of Catalytic Coaching: The End of the Performance Review. He brings real world experience from 17 years in HR leadership in major corporations coupled with 20 years of teaching small and mid-sized organizations how to cultivate their leadership and ditch their detrimental performance reviews for a proven Coaching process.
Book Gary to speak to your audience about speeding your pace of significant change.
Connect with him on LinkedIn - Check out his videos on YouTube - Sign up for newsletters or Request information - Follow on Facebook
