I’ve been reading Plugged In: The Generation Y Guide to Thriving at Work by Tamara Erickson. I have a feeling quite a few posts will come from it, but I’d like to start with a point she makes that I’ve always believed: follow your passions.
Like no other generation before us, we’ve been encouraged from the beginning that we can “do anything.” To me, this includes following our passions in the workplace rather than simply bringing home a paycheck.
Erickson includes a quiz everyone should take: Do you love your job? (If you don’t currently have one, think about the one you plan to pursue in answering the following questions.)
- Are you excited and enthusiastic about your job?
- Do you ever lose yourself—forget about time and place—because you’re so wrapped up in the work you truly enjoy?
- Do you happily focus on your work, versus waiting eagerly for the next e-mail or IM to arrive and break the boredom?
- Do you voluntarily invest extra effort or produce significantly more than your work requires?
- Is what you’re doing so inherently interesting that you think about it after hours—for example, in the car or on the way home?
- Do you routinely search for ways to improve things at work or volunteer for more difficult assignments?
- Is your enthusiasm contagious—does your passion for work encourage others to join in?
- Are you proud to identify with your work?
So where do you begin? How do you know if you’re heading down the right path—or not?
Erickson and her colleagues identified six “archetypes of work-related passions and preferred relationships with work.”
- Expressive legacy: Work is about creating something of lasting value. Career examples: architecture, construction, professional services, and a wide variety of the arts.
- Secure progress: Work is about predictable upward mobility—a secure path to success. Career examples: education, healthcare, government, manufacturing, and transportation.
- Individual expertise and team victory: Work is an opportunity to contribute, to be a valuable part of a winning team. The particular industry is not important to these individuals.
- Risk with reward: Work is an opportunity for challenge, change, learning, and maybe, wealth. Career examples: information technology, investment banking, and professional services.
- Flexible support: Work is a livelihood but not currently a priority. Career examples: financial services and leisure/hospitality.
- Limited obligations: Work’s value is largely its near-term economic gain. Career examples: retail, wholesale, and transportation.
She gives a detailed assessment to help you identify which archetype best represents you, and then interprets the characteristics of each in more depth.
So where will your passions intersect with your workplace preferences? Erickson describes the seven that are changing the most:
- Corporations are evolving into next-generation enterprises.
- Entrepreneurial start-ups are facing better odds.
- Professional services are rethinking the one-size fits all career model.
- Education is challenging itself to match twenty-first century needs.
- Social entrepreneurship and nonprofits are doing good and doing well.
- The trades and other so-called middle-skill jobs are not going away.
- Government services are offering unprecedented opportunity.
Again, I could probably write a blog post about each, but I highly recommend you read the book for more details!
Next Erickson encourages you (us) to think about how to align your pursuits with practicality.
- Time: What other priorities do you have for your life? How much time would you like to devote to work?
- Rhythm: How much spontaneity or predictability do you need to accomplish the other priorities in your life?
- Economic reality: How much money do you need at this stage of your life? What standard of living will be comfortable to you?
- Challenge: How new and how difficult do you want your future work to be?
- Responsibility: How willing are you to take on roles, including managerial tasks, that directly affect others? Are you comfortable having others depend on you? Are you willing to have people look to you for leadership or direction?
To help you create your own personal “career curve,” Erickson breaks down several common (you guessed it) archetypes based on these questions you’ve just answered about yourself.
- Intellectual: You like to work in intense bursts, with flexibility and challenge.
- Customer-facing: You enjoy interacting with others in roles that are relatively straightforward, well defined, and service oriented.
- Behind the scenes: You love work that is predictable, clearly scheduled, and could be done on a part-time basis.
- Interdependent: You enjoy being in the center of a complex team of people and are willing to assume intense roles.
- Change agent: You like to take on significant challenges and have relatively low needs for additional income.
- Entrepreneur: You are willing to invest significant amounts of time, and perhaps money, to tackle big challenges.
Everything discussed to this point has been about career direction. What about the actual job? Erickson, clearly a fan of lists, encourages you to consider four things:
- The location where you will live
- The company you will be associated with—its practices, policies, and reputation
- The colleagues you will work with day-to-day, particularly your boss
- The actual assignment(s) you will be performing
In a future post, I will go into further detail about Erickson’s tips for finding the “perfect” job.
In the meantime, what has this post help you discover about yourself and your career passions?
