Continuing on my last post, which focused mainly on skills and monetizing them, this post contains another secret of career success that many people don’t think of: the era of high-paying jobs where people tell you what to do is over.
I’m inspired to write this post heavily by Seth Godin’s Linchpin. In this book, Godin explains that today’s economy is dependent on ideas and original contributions. If you aren’t contributing original concepts, then you are an easily replaceable piece of the puzzle, a gear in the machinery of your company that can be switched off for another gear rather quickly.
And isn’t this true of today’s job market? Isn’t there truly this dividing line between the jobs that are great and high paying, and those that are dead-ends and mostly repetitive?
I actually have a theory about this entire concept. Over and over today, you hear about the lack of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Those jobs were shipped overseas in the 70s and 80s because the realization was that overseas workers are more cost efficient and you could save tons of money by manufacturing elsewhere. As time went on, the sons and daughters of the manufacturing workers of those decades did their time in college and came out doing new tasks on computers and other technological innovations. Programming, bookkeeping, etc. These jobs became the new “factory” workers – doing repetitive IT tasks. After all, whats the difference between today’s IT administrator and yesterdays factory manager anyway?
Then, enter the internet: suddenly the outsourcing of these jobs is easy because communications is so efficient. Why hire a programmer for $120,000 here when you can hire one in India for $30,000 – and know that the person there may have an even better work ethic?
So what is my point? Over time, we have consistently found ways to outsource and ship overseas the repetitive tasks, the jobs in which people are simply delegated work. The jobs that have stayed are ones where creativity and original thinking is required. This means that today’s employees can’t get away with half of what yesterday’s employees could. You have to take your work home with you, and you have to make it part of your life in order to be successful.
And that, there, is the secret to high paying jobs: they are almost always going to be granted to those that contribute original ideas that matter to their organization. So what if you feel you aren’t achieving career success or climbing the ladder as you think you should? Maybe you should ask yourself some questions:
Q: Am I being given repetitive tasks and/or have I been doing the same things for more than a year?
Q: If the above is true, can I contribute new thinking to make the process more efficient?
Q: Are people around me getting promoted faster and/or more often?
Q: Do people come to me to ask about my thoughts and ideas or am I the last to know when things are happening?
Q: How easily can I be replaced with someone else?
If you can work through those questions, then you can definitely get a grasp on where you are now and arrange for a plan to make it better. How about an example?
Lets say you are an editor. You work a stock photo company and your job is to edit photos and enter them into the product database. There are 5 guys doing this just like you. Ever day, same thing, day in and day out… You notice that this is repetitive, you are getting nowhere quickly and you can’t get out of your parents’ basement. Now is the time to step up! You see, chances are, at your organization, no one knows the image ingestion system better than you do. I’d be willing to bet, if you had to, you could report 5 things that would make your job easier, quicker and save the company money. If so, then get to it, and start being heard. This is an emotional and intellectual contribution.
Or maybe, you are a business analyst. You spend all day analyzing Excel spreadsheets. Its tedious and boring. Can you think of just a few methods to make this operation more efficient or more reliable? If so, start working with your boss and management to get these changes implemented.
The possibilities go on and on, and the point here is two-fold: first, you will be building a reputation as someone who thinks about the big picture and not just someone who is myopic about their job and career standing. The people who are interested in contributing are those who are remembered at promotion time. Secondly, your new reputation will make you fall lower on the list of “expendable” people at your organization.
In conclusion, if you feel your career is stuck, or you just can’t get to the next level of earning, management, or whatever you are looking to accomplish, consider what you are contributing and take that contribution to the next level. Because the big bucks aren’t reserved for people who just do what they are told. At least, not anymore.
