wouldn’t have hired you. You’ve read the tea leaves about job and career changes, and you know how frequently they happen. The head-office people figure you’re probably good for five years. Then you’ll either bolt . . . or could be they’ll stretch you out on the chopping block during the next downsizing “harvest.”
Almost all of your other entering “classmates” in this year’s crop of new hires will be playing exactly the same hop-to-happiness game.
The truth is somewhat different. Organizations have to be agile enough to change, but they also crave continuity. While they expect a huge portion of the organization to turn over rapidly, headquarters also yearns for those stable human pillars who anchor cultural values.
So, imagine that you think “company career” is for you rather than dancing from job to job. What if you become an “I’m-sticking-around” contrarian? You may need to “announce” your intentions with an unusual accent:
• “If you need someone to babysit new recruits and help orient them to the company, I’m available.”
• “You say you can’t do my annual review on time? I can wait. I know I can count on you to be fair.”
• “What can I do to make your job easier? Boss, what parts of your job description would be easy for you to delegate to me?”
• “Are there confrontational aspects of your job that you would just as soon someone else handle for you?”
• “I know you have a do-or-die presentation tomorrow. I’m great at speech bubbles and custom animations. How can I PowerPoint you to—in Star Trek terms—‘go where no one has gone before’ ?”
Some might write off this overly helpful attitude as being too subservient at best. But hold the phone:
• Will you likely be wrenching your family through a transfer every five years?
• Do you have a passion for the stable life or prefer that of today’s career nomad?
• If you stick around, are your odds better for making the decisions about who sticks around in the inevitable next personnel cut . . . or for being one of the decisions?
Mackay’s Moral: Most people are willing to meet each other
halfway; trouble is, most people are pretty poor judges of
distance.
Chapter 17
Is This the Time
to Get That MBA?
When business is booming, managers complain they can’t free up good people to train them. When business is bust, the cupboard is bare to finance training. Ideally, the best time to train is the off-season. And a downturn can be a perfect window to either get your MBA or at least start work on one.
Debate is hot about the value of an MBA. Up until 2008, an MBA was viewed—wrongly, to be sure—as an overnight meal ticket to gourmet dining in a hotshot Wall Street firm. It may be years before that play gets a revival, if it ever does.
You’re much smarter to regard the MBA as advanced survival training in a very competitive employment world. Take time to do hard research:
• Identify managers and professionals in positions you aspire to be in within the next ten years. Do they have an MBA in addition to their other college degrees?
• What parts of the MBA degree are most vital to their success? Is it the finance, the marketing, the strategic planning? Knowing the focus of your MBA needs may help you pick where you should study. (All MBA programs are not alike.) You also might decide you don’t really need an MBA as much as some selected business courses.
• During wartime, armies have long used officer candidate schools for two- or three-month crash courses. Similarly, many business schools offer advanced management programs to give managers a mini-MBA. Will this meet your needs? At age thirty-five, I attended Stanford’s Advanced Management program. It lasted ten weeks with one hundred attendees representing twenty countries. To this day, it was the best business decision I ever made in my career.
• Can you negotiate funding for an advanced management program or even all or
Almost all of your other entering “classmates” in this year’s crop of new hires will be playing exactly the same hop-to-happiness game.
The truth is somewhat different. Organizations have to be agile enough to change, but they also crave continuity. While they expect a huge portion of the organization to turn over rapidly, headquarters also yearns for those stable human pillars who anchor cultural values.
So, imagine that you think “company career” is for you rather than dancing from job to job. What if you become an “I’m-sticking-around” contrarian? You may need to “announce” your intentions with an unusual accent:
• “If you need someone to babysit new recruits and help orient them to the company, I’m available.”
• “You say you can’t do my annual review on time? I can wait. I know I can count on you to be fair.”
• “What can I do to make your job easier? Boss, what parts of your job description would be easy for you to delegate to me?”
• “Are there confrontational aspects of your job that you would just as soon someone else handle for you?”
• “I know you have a do-or-die presentation tomorrow. I’m great at speech bubbles and custom animations. How can I PowerPoint you to—in Star Trek terms—‘go where no one has gone before’ ?”
Some might write off this overly helpful attitude as being too subservient at best. But hold the phone:
• Will you likely be wrenching your family through a transfer every five years?
• Do you have a passion for the stable life or prefer that of today’s career nomad?
• If you stick around, are your odds better for making the decisions about who sticks around in the inevitable next personnel cut . . . or for being one of the decisions?
Mackay’s Moral: Most people are willing to meet each other
halfway; trouble is, most people are pretty poor judges of
distance.
Chapter 17
Is This the Time
to Get That MBA?
When business is booming, managers complain they can’t free up good people to train them. When business is bust, the cupboard is bare to finance training. Ideally, the best time to train is the off-season. And a downturn can be a perfect window to either get your MBA or at least start work on one.
Debate is hot about the value of an MBA. Up until 2008, an MBA was viewed—wrongly, to be sure—as an overnight meal ticket to gourmet dining in a hotshot Wall Street firm. It may be years before that play gets a revival, if it ever does.
You’re much smarter to regard the MBA as advanced survival training in a very competitive employment world. Take time to do hard research:
• Identify managers and professionals in positions you aspire to be in within the next ten years. Do they have an MBA in addition to their other college degrees?
• What parts of the MBA degree are most vital to their success? Is it the finance, the marketing, the strategic planning? Knowing the focus of your MBA needs may help you pick where you should study. (All MBA programs are not alike.) You also might decide you don’t really need an MBA as much as some selected business courses.
• During wartime, armies have long used officer candidate schools for two- or three-month crash courses. Similarly, many business schools offer advanced management programs to give managers a mini-MBA. Will this meet your needs? At age thirty-five, I attended Stanford’s Advanced Management program. It lasted ten weeks with one hundred attendees representing twenty countries. To this day, it was the best business decision I ever made in my career.
• Can you negotiate funding for an advanced management program or even all or
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