Part I of III: Thinking About A Mid-Career Change?

Note: This series is part of a collaboration with Rowan Manahan at Fortify Your Oasis. Rowan wants to help people who are on the hunt for a job. But what if you already have one yett feel that it isn't quite the match you hoped it would be?

A significant part of my organization development consulting practice finds me coaching and counseling mid-career professionals who feel that way.

So Rowan said, "Go for it!"

Here goes:

That Queezy Career Feeling

You've been educated as an engineer, an accountant, a researcher, an HR specialist.

Suddenly--or naggingly--over time, you feel dissatisfied.

Is it my job, my department, the company? Is it me?

The answer: It could be any one, a  combination, or all of the above.

When you're facing a career conundrum, here are considerations to structure your thinking. Please don't brush them off, grab a daisy, and yell, "I'm going to follow my passion. I don't need to think!"

I want you to follow your passion. Thoughtfully. So you can be successful (whatever that means to you).

The Mid-Career Challenge

1. You want to discover your very best career options and:

• Maximize your hopes, dreams, and goals

• Minimize your stress and chance of burnout

• Identify and maximize realistic expectations

2. If you want to identify other career goals within your current organization, you need to:

• Identify and maximize your talents, strengths, and aptitudes

• Get clear on where--and at what level--you really want to be in the organization

The Wrong Way To Begin Thinking About Yourself

People approach me and say, "I'm educated to be a financial analyst. What else can a financial analyst do?"

Wrong.

It's amazing how we form our identity based upon our educational background or professional title. If we allow these to define our being--which is easy to do--we no longer see ourselves as gifted individuals and we run out of options.

The Organization's  Influence

Career aspirations and even self-image are conditioned by current and previous  employers.

• Think about this: organizations are concerned about productivity. In the grand scheme of things, your career advancement is for the company's benefit, not necessarily your own. I'm not saying that's evil. I am saying it's realistic to recognize it. The messages you get are not necessarily about you. They are about what you've produced based on the organization's desires at a given moment. And those probably aren't the same as what you were originally hired for.

• Worth to the organization is often determined by three factors: how well you get the job done in a timely, orderly, and quality way.

• The training programs you and I attend are designed to teach skills related to the organization's needs. And that's the way it should be. However: as you progress in your career, you may find out that they  aren't compatible with who you really are.

So here you are mid-career:

• You may be seeing yourself as the sum total of a degree, a title, and work experience. The result is confusion about career aspirations and possibilities.

• Your organization has set--and changed--job standards over time. The result is confusion and reduced confidence about your real talent, aptitude, and all the ways you are smart.

• Your hope needs to be encouraged, sparked, and given a foundation for the future.

Join me for Part II when we begin to Resolve the Confusion and Focus on the Right Things.

Do weigh in with a comment on your own experiences and tips. The conversation is designed to help make someone's mid-career challenge a bit easier!

Comments

[Jim Stroup]

Steve,

This sort of thinking - about how to conduct a mid-career review - can be used to help us understand how we truly are contributing - many of us would be stunned to learn where our real value is coming from, and what this means to how we should direct our careers, whether in the same job or another.

Such a review should be self-administered periodically. And questions like those you suggest should be asked of our reporting seniors during formal reviews.

I look forward to the rest of this series!

[Steve Roesler]

Thanks for the encouragement on this one, Jim.

The idea is to be helpful in a meaningful way, but within the reasonable context of "blog space."

I'm curious to see where this goes myself :-)

[Ellen Weber]

Great question (and discussion) Steve in a time where shifts in careers are more common that staying power at times. I find myself wondering if there cannot be even more fluidity - where we do not have to leave one area to begin to experience another. It may be just a metter of how we divide up our time and talents. What do you think?

[Steve Roesler]

Now there's a fascinating area to explore, Ellen.

For many, the notion of "a" career is an either/or proposition. Looking at it from a broader point of view would, theoretically, lead to even more permutations and combinations.

As I'm writing this, I'm wondering if that isn't what many of us have done who have developed consulting practices. Especially ones that allow for a broad range of experiences with different kinds of clients, programs, writing, speaking, and the like.

From an organizational point of view, it's certainly possible to use people in different ways to maximize their various talents. That's why I continue to talk about life as a series of projects, not a career. I think it's easier for companies to use talent wisely when viewing chunks of work as projects. It's a lot more difficult when they feel compelled to build an org chart based on titles and job descriptions that fit a well-worn template.

That's what I think.

But now you've got me thinking even more.

I hope someone picks up on this and adds their take...

[Joan Schramm]

Steve --

One of the most challenging things I face with clients is their narrow view of their own worth. You hit it perfectly by describing the "I'm an accountant" mindset. One of the first steps I encourage people to make is to focus on what aspects of themselves, their work and their leisure are most important to them -- what they are (a) good at, (b) enjoy, and (c) both of the above (since we're not always "good" at things we enjoy doing). From there, we can look at what they can do by concentrating on the things they enjoy. Maybe that's possible in their current job, maybe it isn't, but at least we have a starting place.

Looking forward to part 2.

[Steve Roesler]

Hi, Joan,

Did you ever think when you started coaching that one of your real tasks (and value) would be to help people see the totality of their inherent worth?!

I'm with you on that one big-time.

I really like your approach to mentally taking them out of their work mentality and into their *life.* Your willingness and ability to help people rise above how they see their situation is what effective coaching is all about.

Do you ever think that some folks get stuck because they don't put enjoyment and work in the same mental frame?!

Keep coaching, thanks so much for continuing the conversation, and now I have to finish Part Deux!

[brianna]

Hello this is brianna visiting first time to this site and need to join this for continue these discussions.I really like all the contents present on this site.

--------------

brianna

career hunting uk

[Josh]

There are so many people that are educated in one field, but end up in the complete opposite. Literature majors become CEOs, and Finance Ph.D's become homeless.