Laura Hilliger and Allison Matlack
When we were children and people asked us what we wanted to be when we got older, we tended to choose professions with fancy uniforms. We wanted to be a firefighter or a police officer or an astronaut. In our teens, career aptitude tests produced broad, unspecific results telling us to work in healthcare or education. These insights also happened at a time before digital technologies fundamentally changed our world.
Today, those archetypal career goals are changing—and rapidly. As The Economist reports, we live in an era when roughly half of jobs are vulnerable to automation, and "14% of jobs across 32 countries are highly vulnerable, defined as having at least a 70% chance of automation." Furthermore, "32% were slightly less imperiled, with a probability between 50% and 70%." As the magazine reports, "at current employment rates, that puts 210 million jobs at risk."1
Advances in automation and machine learning mean that technologies can perform certain manual functions and tasks much more efficiently than humans can. As these and other new technologies begin freeing up some of the time we've historically spent on rote, manual work, many (if not most) of our careers are veering toward "knowledge work."
The knowledge industry is the invisible corpus that lies behind the financial industry, the technology industry, the healthcare industry, and every other industry that designs, builds, and manages our social world. It develops at pace with the technologies we invent. And it's much less prone to obsolescence. Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot perform knowledge work, for example, because AI lacks a fundamental human ability to be imaginative and creative.
Building organizations that can effectively utilize the creativity at the heart of knowledge work means following new blueprints. Organizations designed to foster efficient manual work take a shape familiar to all of us: logical, hierarchical, and structured around clearly delineated career pathways. Finding your way in them—evolving your abilities, locating new possibilities for challenge and advancement, and continuing to make yourself relevant to them—is fairly easy to do. Just follow the organizational chart, practice the prescribed skills, and take advantage of the training courses neatly curated by the HR department.
In the 21st century, your ability to be truly innovative means AI can't easily replace you. But it also means you'll be working in an organization designed around new principles: agility, flexibility, and ambiguity. Organizations built on these principles don't look like the organizations built decades ago. They're more adaptable, more fluid, more transparent—that is, more open. And jobs in the knowledge economy aren't always predefined (if they're defined at all). So how can you take responsibility for your career in environments so full of ambiguity?
How can you assume ownership of your career in an open organization?
The best place to start is by becoming familiar with your own goals, aspirations, and learning style. Then you're more likely to find the support you need because you'll know what kind of mentorship to seek out.
New organizational models—especially those built on open principles—are becoming common across industries for a variety of reasons. One is that knowledge is something that develops through input, and an open organization provides fertile ground for copious input. Your mentors and experiences in the workplace, from networking (including the late night drink with a colleague!) to failed projects, successful initiatives, email threads, or confusing meetings—all of these experiences provide your brain with useful input. Your brain forms (and distorts) memories from this input and you learn. Open organizations keep that input flowing.
Another reason career paths are much more flexible and fluid in open organizations is because the organizational structures themselves tend to be more flexible and fluid. Nowadays, you need to carve your own path through a networked organization, not just "move up" some predefined corporate ladder. This is where that input becomes even more useful.
Reflecting upon what and how you learn in your working life is a fundamental part of succeeding in an open organization. In order to "own" your career, you have to "own" yourself—that is, understand the inputs you're receiving and recognizing ways those inputs can be combined and reordered to create new knowledge. New knowledge is the currency of the knowledge economy.
So how do you think?
Are you someone who needs to have a complete picture of a situation or process in order to perform a task, or are you the kind of person who can focus purely on a specific area and still get the job done? Knowing how your brain works is fundamental to career goal setting and planning. And it helps you identify the gaps in your organization that you are uniquely suited to fill.
The more we reflect, the more clearly we can see how we'll each need to work as we set off on our individual career paths. Continuing our example from above: If you're a person who cannot operate without full context, your ambitions might be best set on leadership types of roles. But if you perform better with laser-like focus, you might be better setting career goals in functional applications. The important thing to remember is that each of us defines our own measure of success—but those measures only become apparent when we've done the work of understanding our learning styles.
This type of reflection will prevent you from making the same mistake twice, which means that as you advance in your career, you'll develop a reputation for constant improvement. Constant improvement of your skills and active learning about yourself are integral to success. Even with regard to functional applications, there's always a new framework or trend to explore. In short, those who stop bettering themselves get left behind no matter where they are on the corporate ladder.
What do you want to learn? Creating a balance between understanding yourself and learning specific skills and competencies that support your overarching career goals will help you lay out a path that makes you happy. And your happiness in any organization should be your top priority.
The good news is that you're a continual work in progress. You have permission to keep exploring different options through the various phases in your career. The bad news is that it's not always easy to figure out how to find a lucrative career path that makes you happy, especially when career paths in open organizations aren't always well defined. Sometimes we have to chart new territory together in the constantly changing knowledge industry.
It's simple to say you should "own your career"—to use your unique set of skills, experiences, and knowledge to solve complex problems that excite you. But it's not always so simple to do for a number of reasons:
- What if you're just starting out and are so exhausted from trying to answer the question of what you want to be when you grow up (assuming that astronaut thing didn't work out) that you don't haveany energy left for this kind of of self-reflection?
- What if you aren't sure what you want to learn more about?
- What if you have no idea what career possibilities are available to you, even in your own company?
- What if your dream job hasn't even been invented yet?
You're in luck if you find yourself with a supportive manager who invests time in helping you navigate your professional and personal development. But all is not lost if you're on your own. Maybe you're an entrepreneur or freelancer working for yourself, or maybe your manager's strengths are in areas other than people development (like strategy). You'll just need to rely more heavily on your network: your mentors, coaches, and advocates—the people you look up to who can be compassionate mirrors to help you identify where you need to focus your development efforts. You'll be surprised at the kind of insights your colleagues and peers will have! Don't be afraid to ask people what they think.
Here's one easy, step-by-step method for starting the conversation:
- Arrange a video conference with a few people you respect and trust.
- Let them know you want to have a candid conversation about your strengths and areas of opportunity as part of your work on your personal development plan.
- Introduce everyone and give each person a few minutes to talk about their work (maybe you'll find similarities and connections between these folks).
- Introduce the concept of "Yes, and . . . "2
- Ask each person the simple question, "What do you think my strengths are?" (and take notes).
- Thank everyone for their time!
There are several variations of this suggestion, depending on your preferred communication style and comfort having these types of conversations. For example, if you're more comfortable talking with others one-on-one, schedule several individual meetings rather than one group session. Or do it in written form; you can ask outright in an email, or do it anonymously via surveys.
This strategy might feel uncomfortable, but your trusted colleagues will happily point out what you're good at, and you might learn something you didn't realize. You can also ask questions like "What's one thing that would make me more efficient at my job?" and "What are my blind spots?" And then be open to the answers you receive.
And managers: Don't be afraid to take risks (calculated ones!) to allow your team members to experiment with different roles that bring them joy. The creative people—the inventors—need freedom and support so they can explore the ways they can be of most value to your organization, which requires trust from all parties involved. The most important things you can do are to clearly articulate your vision so your team knows which direction to go and then purposefully create a culture of feedback and continuous improvement so your team feels safe being vulnerable with you and each other. After all, it's difficult to grow without being vulnerable.
Here are some different techniques you can use to create a culture of feedback and continuous improvement:
Schedule a weekly team meeting and include standing agenda items that allow for retrospectives. What did we do well last week? What was frustrating last week? What you want to learn this week?
Have candid one-on-one meetings with your team members. Tell them how their work makes you feel. Showing vulnerability will help others be vulnerable.
Have your team use "stoplight feedback" when presenting ideas or plans. Ask a team member to introduce an idea, then write "red," "yellow," "green," and "blue" on a whiteboard or in a collaborative document. These colors mean the following:
- Red: "I disagree with this piece of the idea/plan because . . ."
- Yellow: "I have concerns because…"
- Green: "I love this because . . . "
- Blue: "This is missing!"
Next, facilitate a discussion to gather feedback. As team members share, have them categorize the type of feedback by writing it under one of the colors. For example: "I'm not sure about how stakeholders will react to that logo placement." Write that under yellow. "The integration won't work that way because…" Put that under red. Or, "The DIY manual you sent is great for onboarding too!" That goes under green.
Develop a fail-forward mentality and help your team have one too. View mistakes as learning opportunities—because that's exactly what they are. Making a mistake on your team should be acceptable, as long as everyone learns from it.
View mistakes as a collective phenomenon. Individuals don't set out to make mistakes; mistakes just happen. You can dissect a mistake and try to find a root cause and learn about different perspectives. Use a "why" strategy to discover them ("Why did the Titanic sink? Because it hit an iceberg." "Why did it hit an iceberg? Because it was going too fast at night." "Why was it going too fast at night? Because the timeline to get to New York was too short.").
Take time to recognize accomplishments, even the ones that seem small in comparison to all the work that's left to be done.
Learn constantly. Encourage your peers and your team to do the same. There are several ways to make learning engaging:
- Start a book club on your team and read an appropriate text, then discuss it in a monthly or quarterly meeting. Fridays can be good for book club meetings.
- Ask people about their personal learning and hobbies and check in on them ("So did you get your dry-suit diving certification yet?").
- Invite external speakers to do Q&A sessions about their work with your team.
- Ask another department to run a workshop for your team.
- And ask your team for more ideas!
As you try some of these strategies with your team, don't be afraid to have open conversations about professional and personal skill development. And remember that the most valuable work comes from people who are happy and in roles that allow them the flexibility and freedom to do what they love to do.
As automation becomes more prevalent and knowledge work more ubiquitous, we have more opportunity than ever to marry our passion and imagination in addressing problems of global scale. We can choose what we want to learn and what we want to work on. And most incredibly, we can change our minds at any time and still have impact in the world.
What's most important is that we take the time to reflect on what success and happiness mean to us personally, so we can confidently step into ambiguous problem spaces knowing we'll be okay. People aren't machines. They're complex beings with an immense aptitude for development and change. Creating an environment where that kind of change is supported and celebrated is critical for open leaders hoping to support knowledge workers and empower them to own their careers.