Summary:

Chapter 12:  Your Career in the Information Age

The fundamental premise of the New Model Executive:  That the goals of the individual and that of the organization will work out to be one and the same (Whyte, 1956)

w Todays’ careers will be defined less by companies and more by professions.  They will be shaped less by hierarchies and more by markets.

w New signs of trouble:  These warning signs are more subtle, audible only to the person involved, not to the boss, not even to the colleagues.

• Are you learning?  “When there’s nothing anymore you can learn where you are, then it’s time to move on”.
• If your job were open, would you get it?
• Are you being milked?   Beware when the company has stopped investing on your career/professional growth.
• Do you know what you contribute?
• What would you do if your job disappeared tomorrow?
• Are you worried about your job?

In 1968, Warren Bennis of the University of Southern California, predicted three things are going to be new:

• Career path: more professional and technical workers, less supervisory work and bosses;   What matters is what you do, not whom you do it for.
• Businesses  have redrawn their boundaries.

– Focus on core processes and technologies;
– Outsource non-core works, form internal network and virtual corporations, participate in economic webs;
– Value of business is derived less from physical asset control but more from knowledge it develops and applies
• Project based work has been the norm for most businesses.

• Strategists – top level management people
• Resource providers – develop and supply talent, money and other resources
• Project Managers – buy or lease resources from resource providers; negotiate budget; assign people and put them to work.
• Talents – chemist, finance guys, salespeople, etc.

How the New Career Model affects Career Choices:

wA Career is a series of gigs, not a series of steps
w Project management is the furnace in which  successful careers are forged

• Projects create new value, by drawing information together--- formalizes, captures and leverages it (information) to produce higher-valued assets;
• Project managers are rapidly evolving to replace the niche once ruled by old middle managers
• Seniority would matter less than “What-have-been-done” for the company

• Project managers are often caught in matrix of cross-functional work
• Power flows from assets that create value.  These assets are:  expertise, reputation, honest salesmanship, entrepreneurship and negotiating ability

• Rule of thumb:  Choice between generalizing and specializing should be powerfully influenced by frank self-assessment.  Never narrow your options.  Choose path that will increase flexibility