Take the pressure off
By Jim Bright | smh.com.au | 11 October
Forever wanting more...it's not bad to be happy with what you have.
Is advancement all it's cracked up to be? Jim Bright doesn't think so.
Life is punctuated. It is not a continuous flow. It demands pauses. The wise recognise when to pause whereas the foolish carry on regardless, not seeing the warning signs until it is too late.
Treading water can be better for your career than relentless pursuit. Why the seemingly unquestioning need for "advancement"?
Are we driven by the neurotic concern that time is precious, time is money, time is there to be filled with CV-enhancing moments?
This unquestioning approach to advancement is implicit in much of the way we think about managing people at work. In Britain and the US, the term "career advancement" is popular among policy types.
The term "career development" is popular universally. The emphasis is all about "becoming" and nobody ever seems to settle for merely "being".
But what if we decide we don't want to develop or even advance? Is it wrong if we don't want to?
Do we have to approach careers like an Australian tourist approaches a European holiday – cram in as much as possible and don't spend more than five minutes in one spot?
Try telling your boss at the next performance review that you propose to do the same as last year, or that you are planning to do a lot less.
I guarantee that when they get their checklists out, there will be no verbs on there like "pootle", "potter"and "meander".
You are never allowed to step back, or even to take a breather. A friend of mine was the best salesman the bank had.
He brought in more than $2 million a year in commission. Then he got cancer.
He took time out and recovered, sort of. Nobody "recovers" from cancer, they are only altered in many different ways. For my friend, work had new meaning.
He was happy to return and happy to pull in $2 million every year for the bank. But they decided to reorganise things and decided to increase his target to $3 million.
He said no. Wasn't $2 million enough? It was more than double the next-best employee's return. In the end, my friend walked out of his job.
The bank's uncritical commitment to advancement at all times and in every sphere of life and the sheer relentlessness of their employee development programs left no room to move.
My friend wanted to pursue other things in his life, to look after his health, to enjoy his family and his other interests as well as putting in a solid contribution at work.
This reasoning was then interpreted as slowing down, losing commitment and edge and worst of all, the dreaded "lack of engagement".
There are many reasons why people may not want to continuously improve, to develop, to advance. Life events such as illness, loss and depression may preclude advancement whether it is desired or not.
For some, burnout may result from constantly striving to be better or faster. Creativity can suffer.
Timing a career is a neglected consideration in a world that only has time for the fast track. Is there not also a time to reflect, to consolidate, to reconnect and make connections, to recharge and to be?
Managerialism is to blame for a lot of this. What happens when new managers have finished sharpening all the pencils on their desks?
They tend to go out and manage or, more accurately, to interfere. The pleasure of a job well done is often replaced by guilt that the job conceivably could be done a whole lot better.
This idea that work cannot be done for it's own pleasure but rather is done for advancement is not new.
Sadly, the idea of settling down to the humble but happy life is not generally encountered in modern performance management systems, even if it is the life you like.
There is nothing wrong with treading water – many people have saved their lives by doing it. Maybe treading water might save your career, or even elongate it in a good way.
The breather checklist
Answer yes or no to these statements:
■I want my boss's job.
■Getting ahead is very important to me.
■I am happy to devote all my energies to my career.
■I put work ahead of other priorities in my life.
■I prefer work over most of my other activities.
■I feel full of energy most of the time.
■My mind rarely wanders when I am at work.
■Work provides me with all the major rewards in life.
■It is important to me not to let colleagues get ahead of me.
■I look forward to going to work nearly all of the time.
All “yes” — driven, ambitious. Mostly “yes” — engaged and generally content. Mostly “no” — consider a sabbatical or options to slow down. All “no” — consider whether you are in the right job.
Are you tired of "continuous improvement"? Tell us at mycareer.com.au/vote.
First published by Smh.com.au on October 11 2009
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