“New beginnings – professional, personal, or come what may – are always uncomfortable, but being open to them is the only way to grow.” – Marissa Mayer
In an interesting blog post where she describes her transition from Google to Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, the current CEO of Yahoo, describes the issues she faced in taking a key career decision. Her choice was to made in a personally challenging context as she was 6 months pregnant and that meant foregoing the long maternity leave she had been planning.
Big choices in our lives generally don’t happen when we are quiet expecting them – and they tend to happen in moments where we really would like to avoid them (and look significantly like additional worries!).
That’s possibly why most people don’t take those opportunities that come to them in those hectic times. Why most people don’t re-plan.
According to Marissa Mayer, “ In the end, we are all capable of so much more than we think.”
Whatever happens in your life right now, if it’s the right opportunity and the good decision… Go for it. And don’t look back.
In this blog we have often mentioned ‘Resistance’ or how our primitive brain tries to impede us to create or do anything remotely outside our comfort zone (the concept originates in the excellent “War of Art” book). It routinely tricks us into a number of behaviors designed to impede us from trying new things, like for example procrastination. We also know that Resistance is the Symptom That You Are on the Right Track.
Beyond simple Resistance that impedes us from giving our best self, some people, those that are often labelled compulsive artists, probably become so used to defy Resistance that some become addicted. And because they are addicted to meeting and overcoming Resistance, they can’t stop defying it, day-in and day-out.
This symptom can be observed in other areas that require to overcome a significant natural fear for performing the core of the activity: for example, sky-divers and all sorts of extreme sportspeople; actors; public speakers… Some of them (and probably all of those who become professional at it) definitely become so hooked to that sensation of Resistance, of stage fright, that they can’t live without it for long. They need their periodic dose of Resistance. They need to feel that thrill running in their nerves.
Once you become accustomed at identifying Resistance and adept at overcoming it; once you become familiar with Resistance to the point of being able to tame it sometimes, watch yourself. It is possible that you might even become addicted to it without being able to stop stretching yourself.
In all cases, make sure you have the right safety net around you so that you keep it safe, and enjoy every minute of playing with your ‘Resistance’ – and change yourself and the world!
Following on the Safety Net Conundrum, now at the individual level, how well are you really using the safety net you actually have? This safety net includes family and friends, social security and all other social protection institutions, your professional network, etc.
In my coaching assignments I often find that people:
underestimate the extent of their current safety nets and of the protection is gives them;
underestimate the extent of (measured) risk they could take based on this actual protection;
effectively often focus on trying to keep or increase the protection level they benefit from rather than using that protection to try new things.
Why are so few trying to fly above their safety net?
Yes, most of us could try something really outside of our comfort zone and in the worst case still land safely in our extended safety net, with little or no consequences. So why are so few trying it?
With or without safety net, jumping in the unknown triggers all sorts of fear reactions. It takes a conscious effort to use the safety net as a reason to try it. The question: “What is the worst that can happen?” is extremely powerful in that sense.
Inventory the extent of your safety net. You will be surprised by its extent. You will realize that you can try new things outside your comfort zone. At the moment where your “lizard brain” will kick-in with all sorts of excuses, ask yourself: “What is the worst that can happen?“. Then, go and do it!
In the late Industrial Age, to be successful in our careers we were supposed to be specialists. How often did I hear career advice in the form of dismissing any effort at being rather a generalist (and generally, deploring that I did not want to specialize in a well-recognized discipline).
Are you a Jack of All Trades?
Being specialized was great for the organization because the bureaucracy could fit you in a pre-determined box, could figure out what you should or could become, figure out what to pay you and in general, identify you as a particular commodity type. The Corporation hated types that could not be classified properly.
In the Collaborative Age, being excessively specialized is becoming a burden. We are not speaking here of being a Jack of All Trades; what we support rather is that the Knowledge Enhancing Exchaning Networker (K.E.E.N.) of the Collaborative Age needs to be a generalist with a few areas of particular excellence.
Excessive specialization precludes agility. Specialization is based on deep knowledge of something which necessarily stems from the past; it might help understand similar features in the future but certainly not significant, disruptive changes that would come from somewhere else. The specialists of the cathodic screen – a highly complicated device – have been wiped out by flat screens in a merciless manner.
Today you need to understand enough of the world to be agile enough. That is being a generalist. being well-travelled is a great way to understand the limits of personal assumptions. Of course, you also need to be world class at certain skills – and they might not be those skills that had been painfully codified by the Industrial Corporation. It might be creativity, leadership, networking, a gift for understanding computer code…
In start-ups everybody needs to do a bit of everything – which is also why deep specialists won’t fit in. Start-ups are about creating a new way of doing certain things – not repeating the old ways even slightly better. They don’t need specialists to thrive. They need generalists.
Even the Harvard Business Review makes the case for General Managers in this post “Bring back the General Manager“, lamenting that departmentalization of corporations since the early 1980’s has fostered specialist careers and that organizations are missing generalist General Managers!
Successful people of the Collaborative Age will be generalists with certain highly developed gifts. Don’t become a too narrow specialist. Open your eyes to the world and get ready to contribute through multiple channels.
Traditional universities are now coming into play. The MIT had its courses available online for a while, but now it is a real rush towards the ever growing market of university degrees online.
Recently, the MIT and Harvard announced the creation of edX, a platform for online studying and learning (visit the edX site here and read the edX press release here). This platform has an exciting ambitious growth plan, offering classes online for free for millions (but probably paying degrees!).
This excellent post by OnlineUniversities.com, “8 nations leading the way in online education” summarizes the situation and what are the most advanced countries in the field of online education: USA, India, China, South Korea, Malaysia, UK, Australia, South Africa. Many of these countries are geographically very large or serve as a hub for a large region, offering education opportunities for many.
Online education cannot probably replace face-to-face education in all disciplines but it can in many scientific ones. It is an incredible occasion for people to grow themselves for free. It is an incredible occasion to grow the knowledge base of humankind into the remotest corners of the planet.
Those countries and those universities that will miss this revolution will trail behind and eventually disappear into oblivion. When online universities will do more than just broadcasting, when they will unleash the power of collaboration, they will dwarf Industrial Age universities. This will happen soon.
When will you start taking the classes you always dreamed of taking online, for free?
While searching for images on internet I stumbled upon that one:
So, do you have a work or a job?
This of course caught my attention by the implied, controversial meaning (and because it looks cool to have a work as it is implied!).
So what’s the difference between a work and a job? After some thoughts I’ll try a definition.
At the first level of course, what makes the difference between a work and a job is the level of passion and of personal implication.
A job is some activity in a large organization that implies that you’re being told what to do and that you limit your implication to a given framework of obligations (including in particular, specific times and situations).
A work is a dedication to a purpose, to create a body of work in the sense that it has for an artist. It can’t be stopped by external rules such as limited times for work or for rest; its implication are broader than just an organization. It creates dedication through passion.
So, do you have a work or a job? Think about it for a while. If you have just a job, it might be time to change!
During a talk given on 6 March, 80 members of the Singapore project management community discovered my new concept of Project Soft Power™!
Project Soft Power and the Fourth Revolution
It is basically a cross over from the Fourth Revolution and Emotional Intelligence applied to Project Management. Do you recognize the slide at the back?
This talk sponsored by the Singapore Chapter of the Project Management Institute was very well received. And more over we all had fun through the exercises that were designed to have the participants discover more about themselves! See here the summary report on SPMI website. Click here to access the Project Soft Power slides on slideshare.
The Project Soft Power book is now in the last stages of production for a publication in May of this year. Or, you can also ask us for a keynote speech. In any case, stay tuned!
Project Soft Power presentation in action - having fun!
It is very simple: after opening an account for free, I put in a one-page description / specification of the job. After 72h I had already 15 to 20 proposals from contractors. Each of them had a link to their previous work so that I could see whether I liked the style; they also proposed a price. Contractors were from everywhere: Europe, USA, South America etc…
After a few days I finally made my choice for a contractor located in Argentina. After two weeks of collaborative work online (the graphic designer sending rough sketches, me commenting), I finally got what I needed, 5 characters to illustrate my book.
Project Soft Power characters
Elance.com secures the payment and delivery process and gives a lot of information on the contractor’s ratings on previous jobs, the comments of the previous clients etc, which is really helpful in selecting the contractor you need. Actually it appears there are many companies from emerging countries that seem to derive much of their income from platforms like Elance.com.
You are following this blog, so I know you understand what the Fourth Revolution is. Still even I can’t stop to be amazed at what we can do today with a computer and an internet access. Do you realize, I hired in less than one week a contractor who worked for me from the other side of the planet, in Buenos Aires, Argentina and it was like he was working close-by!
As I just arrived in Singapore I don’t have the network of local contractors yet. It is at a point where I won’t even look for a graphic designer or a translator locally! I’ll just go online and hire on the global market!
No profession is really protected anymore from the Fourth Revolution. Borders don’t really matter much.
And consider your own market, your opportunity field: it is worldwide, wherever you live. Did you realize it? When will you leverage on it?
PS: Wonder what these characters mean? I will share with you in a future post the five roles of Project Soft Power!
Or, how two engineers, against all odds, against Apple itself, have worked hidden for a number of months in Apple’s offices, unpaid, to create a great product.
Autonomy: they did what they wanted to do, deciding by themselves what they would do and how
Mastery: this project allowed them to show how good they were in programming
Purpose: they wanted to create a product so great people computers could not ship without it
Why did they succeed? They were supported by the informal organization; they had a tribe of supporters; their enthusiasm and sense of purpose did communicate to others.
While this was all developed against the will of Apple’s managers, they were clever enough to see the interest when the product finally came out. That would certainly not happen in many organizations!
When I continue to see large organizations that think that they can retain and motivate people just by giving them money (or, the expectation of getting more money sometime in the future), I just see a total misunderstanding of the world they are living in.
The K.E.E.N. is not any more motivated by carrot and stick. She is motivated by challenge, a deep sense of purpose and her community. When will the standards of organization leadership change to accommodate this new reality?
Building on failure is another skill of the K.E.E.N. This interview of Seth Godin is a real eye-opener on the power of failure, and in general, the skills of the K.E.E.N.
Seth gives also deep insights on the new world that is awaiting us: remember – the concept of climbing the career ladder is bust !
Should multiple identities be allowed for a single individual on the internet?
The debate rages. Facebook and Google+ try to force everyone to show a single identity. Still, since the beginning of internet, geeks often like to have different identities for different purposes. A good reference is this blog post about the views of a typical geek, Chris Poole.
Showing different identities in parallel is extremely difficult in the real physical world. The few exceptions like a husband having several wives in different places, unbeknownst to the others, are strange enough to be good topics for Hollywood.
who will you be today on internet?
On the internet, however, it is quite easy to have several identities in parallel. And even if Facebook and Google+ try to force us into a single, lifetime identity, it is relatively easy to circumvent those controls – sharing networks is only more difficult, and having multiple identities is not practical for everybody.
Still, we all have multiple identities already. We don’t send on our corporate emails the same messages to the same people than from our personal email. We don’t network with the same people and discuss the same topics on Facebook and on LinkedIn.
This debate is thus futile. Yes, we have, and we all manage different identities. They are more or less consistent. But they are different. And the number of identities we will have will grow, and become more deeply different.
As the Fourth Revolution book argues, while the population on Earth might reach a plateau, the number of identities on internet will continue to grow tremendously. And this will create more value for everybody.
Don’t freak out. Maintain and develop your different identities on the internet!
In an interesting blog post where she describes her transition from Google to Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, the current CEO of Yahoo, describes the issues she faced in taking a key career decision. Her choice was to made in a personally challenging context as she was 6 months pregnant and that meant foregoing the long maternity leave she had been planning.
