THEODORE LEVITT ON MAKING YOUR CAREER YOUR BUSINESS
Use this to remind you that you should see your career as you would a business and act accordingly.
Theodore Levitt (1925–2006) was Professor of Economics at The Harvard Business School and played a key role in popularising the term ‘globalisation’. He suggested that:
Your career is literally your business.
Theodore Levitt
It would appear that some managers have taken his advice too literally and now spend more time enhancing and maintaining their resumé than in doing what’s best for the organisation.
In The Little Book of Big Management Questions, I suggested that there are three types of employees:
- The Workers are not concerned with promotion and advancement. Their true interests lie outside work, be that amateur dramatics, singing, football or whatever.
- The Warriors work hard and are ambitious. They are the future of every business and need to be nurtured.
- The Wanderers are only interested in advancing their own career. Every decision they make is based on ‘what’s best for me’. They are often keen on making changes, as it enhances their CV, but leave before the full (often disastrous) effects of any change made are known. They tend to their image as carefully as any wannabe pop star.
It’s the Warriors who need to get the balance right between working hard and presenting the right professional image if they want to avoid being labelled as Workers.
WHAT TO DO
- First impressions count (see Quotation 12), so how you look and present yourself is important:
- Comply with the dress code of your organisation. If it’s laid-back and relaxed smart-casual, don’t appear in a three-piece pinstripe.
- Ask a friend or partner whether you have any annoying habits and eradicate them. For example, do you: use the word ‘like’ six times, like, in every, like, sentence or chew your hair, like. OK is another word to avoid adding to every utterance you make. OK?
- Always appear self-confident but not arrogant – especially when you’re feeling terrified. Stand straight, smile and look people in the eye when you speak.
- Improve your communication skills. People make judgements about you based upon how you speak and write. Keep both your written and spoken English simple, clear and unambiguous and don’t join the morons who think that management speak is cool and clever. It isn’t! It’s dumb and embarrassing.
- We all have bad days, but aim to produce work at 80 per cent plus of your best as a minimum, day in, day out.
- Accountants, lawyers and doctors are expected to place their client’s interest above their own. As a professional manager, your client is the organisation, so act accordingly and make all your decisions in its best interests.
- Establish a reputation for honesty and integrity (see Quotation 13) and, once established, protect, enhance and safeguard it.
- Find a role model in your organisation and fashion your behaviour on theirs. Eventually, you will develop your own unique style and you’ll no longer need to ape anyone’s behaviour.
- Keep your professional knowledge up to date. Learn new skills that will increase your expert power (see Quotation 71). Even if you are not thinking about moving, attend at least one interview a year. This will keep you match fit for when you do want to move.
- Build up your network of business contacts using social media and personal contacts. Become active in professional and trade organisations and use opportunities at work, such as a presentations, to get noticed by senior managers/the board.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
- In whose interests do I act when I make decisions: my own, my department’s/staff’s or the organisation’s?
- Do I need a role model? If so, is there anyone I could use in the organisation?
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