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What if you *are* what you want to be when you grow up?
Monday, April 4, 2011 at 3:37PM [Note: Corrected broken link to Seth Godin's blog 6-April-2011]
I was just reading a post on Seth's blog about resisting the urge to conform to other people's expectations for you.
He talks about a chef who resists the pressure to open other restaurants, get a TV show, and that sort of thing - in favor of sticking with one, popular restaurant location.
This reminds me of some of the conversations I've had with people during career planning sessions. How many times to we, as managers, try to push people to do more, get promoted, take on a lot more responsibility, etc? And how many times is that the right thing to do?
In many cases, it's probably the best thing for the person and the company, but it is worth asking if it's OK for that person to stay in their current role and only stretch within that role. For some people, staying put will be better than pushing them to the next level where they may not be well-suited for the job.
What do you think? Have you been promoted beyond where you should've been? Have you ever pushed an employee to do something more grand and regretted it?
I'd love to hear your perspectives.
Reader Comments (2)
I get pushed all the time - been an IT Architect for 18 years and I have no desire to go into management, or even into Enterprise Architecture where I'd have to play politics for the majority of my day. And that day would be a third to a half longer. No thanks. I'm willing to move companies if push comes to shove, and because I focus on what I'm good at, I generally have offers in the wings.
I think it very much depends on how one defines "success." For some people, you become successful if you're constantly climbing the ladder. For some it's climbing the ladder until you get where you want to go, and then getting off. For some, it's deciding not to even get on the bottom rung, and go off and find something else to do. I define success is knowing what you're good at and what you enjoy, and then doing that (and, hopefully, getting paid for it.) A gardener who enjoys gardening is, to me, more successful than a corporate lawyer at the top of his game who is miserable in his job.