Mitigating Risk

Unscripted Leadership Project 1.4

Risk and Career Path

Whenever the topic of change comes up, the issue of risk presents itself.

Risk had a different character fifty years ago when I graduated from college. The risk from boredom was greater than from career failure. However, by the time I finished college in 1975, that reality was changing. It was a time where the economy was in flux. There was not a plethora of careers at that time. We were at the tail-end of the great era of industrialization.

I first thought about risk during my last year of college. I had no career prospects. Back then, if you did not know what you wanted to do, grad school was your option. Even that step required some direction. Fortunately, the cost of living was low compared to today. Moving back home to live with Mom and Dad was never an option that I considered.

My father was a World War II veteran who returned home, entered college, graduated in 1949, and went to work for a company in our hometown until he retired in 1986. I could not imagine staying in one job with the same company forever.

When I graduated, there were blue collar jobs, sales and management positions, and professional careers. Some of my generation went to work in their family’s business. Where I lived in North Carolina, textile and furniture manufacturing jobs were moving overseas. This was a time before the arrival of the personal computer, the internet, and social media.

Entrepreneurism had not emerged as an engine driving local economies. There were some of us who could not figure out what we wanted to do with our lives. Advancement came through earning graduate degrees. You can still see that perception of value from older generations. Today, reality is much more complex and confused. You need to have a clearer career path earlier in life. High risk is built into everything we do because the stakes are so high. Failure or career experimentation are not good options.

Over the past generation, I watched as security and advancement came through changing jobs, moving laterally to another company for greater opportunity. There was a greater risk in losing ground career-wise by staying put than by changing jobs. As a result, a growing divide between worker and workplace grew. With it came a loss of institutional memory and personal investment in the long term success of the company.

In addition, I see the emergence of people in their 40’s making significant career transitions. I was one of those as I started my consulting business at the age 42. Twenty years before when finished college that option was not imaginable.

The risk is now more complex and more easily to identify. What is the relation between the risk of losing something or gaining something. It is not a simple equation. What is easier is how so many of us gain the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. We are far more focused on self-development. Risk from failure is still high yet no longer career ending. If you have ever been fired you know what I mean.

Risk management is a process of constantly being self critical. We have these questions running through our heads.

What might I lose?

My job? My financial situation? My reputation? My family? My home? My life?

Can I start over at my age?

The answer is …

Yes,

You can lose everything and

start over.

It feels like the stakes are higher than ever before. Maybe they are. We need to see the big picture and a long-term view.

We need to think less about status and credentials, and more about how I can make a difference that matters in every situation I enter.

As I write this, I am thinking about the fires in Los Angeles and the hurricane that swept through the Southern Appalachian region last fall. I am certain that most of those people who lost their homes never thought that in a matter of hours everything that they owned would be gone. It is a degree of risk unfathomable until it happens to you.

Yet, from this experience, the stories about recovery will become inspiration for people to change their lives, even if they have never experienced catastrophic loss.

There is a very important lesson for us learn that flips the whole notion of risk on its head.