Aubyn Hill
IN TODAY'S Jamaica there are still some people who have worked in the same company and following essentially the same careers for decades. Fifteen years ago there used to be many more of those long timers and ten years from now very few of those long-serving-in-one-company people will still exist in our economy. The dictum regrettable for many, I am sure, that "change is the only certainty", certainly applies to people and their careers. This is especially true in a really globalised economy that is stitched together by a most pervasive worldwide communications network.
DIFFICULTY OF ADJUSTING ONE'S SELF-IMAGE
To paraphrase Shakespeare, "some are born to career changes, some achieve career changes with relative ease, and some have career changes thrust upon them". It is fair to say, however, that many people find it difficult to make career changes - especially when they must make changes that take them to a new career - and, at first, a lower position than the one they had before the change had to be made. I have seen executives who have had their career disrupted for one reason or another and must make a definite change in order to continue to earn a living and support a family, or continue to build professional independence and a nest egg, go through trauma to accommodate some of the required changes that must accompany such a disruption.
They lament the big offices that they may have left and the support systems that a big organisation or a prominent government position may have afforded them. They force themselves into great personal distress when a new smaller company does not provide those same office accoutrements and support systems are of the do-it-yourself variety. Many people take too long mentally to digest the magnitude and permanence of a particular disruption and wallow in the memories of their past positions rather than get on with their new jobs and lives.
Those who must change their careers are much better off if they make the mental change and adopt their mindset to the fact that they are leaving one career behind and must let go and look to build a new one in different circumstances. The longer they hang on to the old position and lament its passing, the longer they remain in misery and discontent.
MAJORING IN THE MINORS
Too many people who must undertake a career change spend far too much time 'majoring in the minors'. For example, they compare their old spacious individual office with a new comfortable and well-appointed modern workstation that is situated in an open office atmosphere. They want to take the same paper, pens and paper clips from the old office to the new, not recognising that the ethos and office practices of the new smaller company are quite different to the one they left behind.
Those executives who must undergo a career change and tend to major in minors worry about the lunch room that they left behind with all its appliances and space versus the fact that now they may have to bring their own sandwich to the office because working through lunch, or taking a much shorter lunch break is the order of the new business that employs them. Many people seek to concentrate on all the little things around the job rather than give thanks that in spite of the disruption in their careers they are able to start anew again to prove themselves. The more they major in minors on the new job the higher is their risk of failure and the lower their chances of changing from the old mindset to a new one that would bring them success in a new career.
GO EAST, YOUNG LADY, GO EAST
Recently I read an article that Trinidad is looking for construction workers. For about two years I have been encouraging Jamaican entrepreneurs to get in the business of training construction workers such as steel benders, joiners, carpenters and masons. I talked about preparing our workers with a 'fit-for-export' stamp and recommended trainers and job seekers to look first to the CARICOM Single Market and Economy states. That is now becoming a reality and Jamaica should respond quickly by preparing and sending workers trained to the highest world standard.
At the weekend, I was very happy to meet a young lady at a restaurant who has a university degree and is looking to migrate to the Eastern Caribbean (that's in Trinidad, St. Lucia or Barbados) in order to seek employment and, possibly, to become an entrepreneur. I welcome these kinds of developments and such a young person will not have the mindset problems to change as some of the older employees who have worked in a particular career for a long time. I encourage this young lady to really 'major in the majors' the content of the job, the pay and benefits afforded by the employer, the commitment to hard work and excellence and the willingness to change when she has to.
Aubyn Hill is managing partner of Corporate Strategies Limited, a restructuring and financial advisory
firm. Respond to: writerhill@gmail.com.
