A Time For Real Change?

This is the second in our series of blogs during the current world-health crisis that focus upon some of the impact and opportunities that might well arise from this period of significant challenge throughout the world. See here for the first in this series of blogs.  

The turmoil and uncertainty arising from the current health crisis is causing many individuals to re-evaluate their career direction and options. There are three primary reasons for this: 

▶️ For the first time in ages, talented and successful individuals who are working from home and/or self-isolating are finding themselves with more time on their hands than normal to reflect upon and think about where they are headed in life in general, but often specifically what they are doing day in day out to earn a living and achieve career self-fulfilment. 

▶️ Sadly (and for too many) the health crisis has turned into a stark economic crisis for their employers, resulting in immediate displacement, the early termination of contracts or redundancy. Even where such actions may not yet have happened, many are seeing the writing on the wall that when the physical crisis is over, the ongoing economic crisis may well compel their employers to restructure and down-size. A once relatively stable job, might now be at risk when the immediate physical crisis has subsided.  

▶️ The massively turbulent circumstances of this world event may on its own have simply caused you to see some things in a quite different light, from a new perspective and with a new dawning that it is time soon to make some fundamental changes about what you do, how you do it and where you do it. With the harsh and sometimes tragic realities of our current predicament all of us will be asking very deep questions about what is really important for ourselves, our families and our careers moving forward. 

On this last point, a fundamental change in career direction should, of course, not be undertaken lightly. It has important consequences both for you and those closest to you. However if right now you are experiencing that nagging feeling that as a result of the current hiatus you should be taking the opportunity to make a significant change in your career when things improve, then please find below twelve important statements that you probably should be considering to verify if it is time to make a fundamental change in your career. 

To help your overall evaluation, we would suggest you apply a score of 1 to 5 in reacting to each of these statements where 5 = strongly agree and 1 = strongly disagree:  

1. I really love my job in all it’s main elements as it provides me with significant challenge and fulfilment for the majority of the time

2. I have an excellent relationship with my current boss who provides me with lots of support, recognition and coaching

3. I am well rewarded for what I do by comparison with other individuals both within my organisation and doing comparable jobs in other organisations

4. I can see a very positive career pathway ahead of me in my current organisation that is realistically likely to provide career growth and benefit for me in the short to medium-term

5. I am able to use all of my significant personal and professional capabilities to the full in delivering results for my organisation  

6. My current job provides me with lots of variety and new experiences that help me develop my skills and capabilities

7. I feel entirely comfortable and at one with the culture, behaviours and values of my current organisation  

8. I feel positively and regularly stretched and challenged in my role so that I can perform at my optimum level

9. My job allows me to maintain a reasonable work life balance so I can dedicate quality time to other important areas of my life 

10. In my role, I am frequently learning new skills, and adding significant new experiences that are enhancing my CV and marketability 

11. I feel proud to be an important and valued employee of my current organisation

12. The individuals I work with most closely as peers or other colleagues are talented professionals who enjoy their work and try to avoid petty politics  

Having allocated a 1 to 5 score to each of the above statements as described above, you should then add up the scores for each statement into a grand total. 

As a rough indicative guide to interpreting your scores we would suggest: 

• If your score is 24 or below then ... you are probably unfulfilled, in the wrong job and in the wrong organisation; you should definitely be looking to make a career change in the very short term. 

• If your score is more than 24 but 36 or less then ... there are significant elements of your current role that are causing you difficulty and lack of fulfilment and you probably should be thinking seriously about planning to move on to something more aligned to your aspirations as soon as is practical. 

• If your score is more than 36 but 48 or less then ... your current role in many of its aspects is working for you but you may want to focus in on the specific areas where you are less than fully happy and check if you can live with these or if they are so important to you that they merit you starting to look around for a new role. 

• If your score is above 48 then ... it looks like things are working really well for you in your current role and there is probably no urgent need to contemplate other options ... however you might periodically want to recheck your responses to be sure that things around you haven’t changed.

Of course the above is designed as a relatively simple indicator; there may well be other factors that might be important to you that we have not included. Also some statements might be more important to you than others in deciding if it is time to move on or not. 

At Brosna Career Consulting we work with many talented individuals across the world to help them think hard about their career choices and, when they are ready, to coach them to prepare, plan and execute their next significant career transition. If you would like to know more about what we do, please email tim@brosna-consulting.com to arrange an introductory call.

Tim Chapman

March 2020