According to the political writers, pundits, pollsters, and candidates, this is a time for change. Some describe change in ways that engage our hearts and imaginations. Some describe change in terms that are pragmatic and time bound.
When you call and email questions about jobs and your career, you want to talk about change. Some of your concerns focus on the future, some are about practical necessities, and some are fundamental to your systems of belief. You want to change jobs from the one you have to the one that’s a better match to what you aspire, do best, or value most. You may not be able to describe or define what change looks like (“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, I just know it’s got to be better than what I’m doing…”) but you do know this: 1. You are no longer satisfied with where you work or 2. Where you work is no longer satisfied with you. Something has to change.
When employers ask for team-building workshops, they want to focus on change. They’re changing the ways they do business; changing the expectations they have of employees; changing because everyone else is changing and to stand still is to fall behind. What does change look like? What are those expectations? They don’t say. What they do say, is what currently exists has to change, for the company to survive and thrive.
When companies hire and promote, they want those employees to enhance the company’s ability to assess markets, drive competitive advantage and seize opportunity. They want them to articulate vision, design strategy, consolidate power, and embolden teams to drive through to success.
Bottom line, they want to hire, train, and promote employees who can think strategically, design innovatively, and anticipate competitively. They want employees who are primed for change; who are and have demonstrated themselves to be intellectually and emotionally flexible, responsive, able to learn, go and grow in whatever direction necessary to both lead and respond to rapidly changing markets and economies.
If you’re looking for a job, this changing market demands that you change with it. That doesn’t mean you have to give up your foundational values or pragmatic responses or imaginative impulses. It does mean that you become increasingly mindful that openness and flexibility are more than buzz words reserved for interviews and performance reviews. Openness and flexibility can make the difference between getting hired or passed over; advancing or getting placed on the ‘do not retain’ list.
Openness: Your co-workers are as likely to live across the world as they are across town. You may speak to them daily and never see them. They may define time differently than you; they may not share your preference for action or your sense of urgency. They may prefer to go more slowly, to develop relationships, consider options, and process possibilities, over time instead of just in time.
Open your thinking to different ways of seeing problems before you begin to solve them. Shift from the limiting perspective of your comfort zone to the possibility that others see the world and its challenges differently from you. Open your thinking so that you listen and understand before you prescribe. Accept that the outcome you want or the problem you see can be different from what others experience or want to address. Open your thinking so that you understand that people of other cultures may be more rule regarding or open-ended, more deferential or authoritative, more direct or indirect in communicating ideas, than you. Recognize that insistence creates resistance and when that happens, nothing changes.
