Saturday, March 8, 2014

Why Career Plans Are Dangerous To Your Career--And What You Should Do Instead

You had heard the traditonal advice about how to plan your career even before you had one: Determine where you want to be in five (or 10 or 20) years and work backwards from there, figuring out what courses to take and/or what assignments you should fill in order to get the job that you covet.

The advice used to work well when the economy was stable; the rate of change was far slower, and competition was far more localized.

That, to state the obvious, is no longer the case.

If you don’t know what the world is going to look like five years from now, it doesn’t make sense to try to predict potential external factors in planning your career.

All you are doing is making guesses and you could end up looking pretty silly. (“Let’s see, it’s 2009 and I am associate marketing manager for the Eastern regional of a company that makes stand alone GPS devices The world is always going to be willing to carry or deal with an extra device like a GPS that plugs into the cigarette lighter of a car.  No car manufacturer is going to want to go to the trouble of offering ‘navigation’ as a feature and who could possible come up with an app that does what we do? My future is secure.)

“So,  I am going to plan on being a regional manager in two years and head of marketing for my company in five.  Yep, that’s my plan.”


In an environment of high uncertainty traditional career planning is both potentially a waste of time quite frankly, dangerous. A career plan can lead you into a false sense of confidence, where you fail to see opportunities as they arise and miss taking smart steps you otherwise hadn’t planned for. You can be so committed to the plan that you miss the opportunities around you.

You need an alternative. Let us suggest one.

Instead of trying to predict the perfect job and the best path to get there, begin with a direction in which you want to go (“I never want to manage people again.”) and complement that with a strategy to discover and create opportunities consistent with that desire.

In an uncertain world you can’t even come close to saying what a specific job might be, but you can say what’s valuable and important to you. Who are you? What matters to you? Is it working in a specific industry? Does it involve a lot of travel or none. The answers will point you in a definite direction.
Having considered that, what are your means at hand, your talents and skills, who you know, what you know? And how do you get started on concrete actions that are consistent with these desires? Some of those will take the form of looking for a job, but others might simultaneously entail starting something of your own. As you act, different opportunities will present themselves.
So, the process looks like this:
1. Determine your desire
2. Take a step toward it
3. Incorporate what you learn from taking that step
4. Take another step
5. Learn from that one
6. Repeat until you have a job, your own business, or have achieved your goal
It’s not career planning. It’s acting your way into a future you want.



 
 
 
Putri Dinar Setyani
17213004
1EA02

Conversation using 6 kinds of conjunction

W: "Good morning.... This is our menu and on the fisrt page are our special menu today, sir."
G: "All right. Should I order now or later? because i'm still waiting my wife"
W: "Anytime, sir. But, if you still waiting your wife. You can call me again"
G: "I want to ask to my wife. Yet, she still on the way, maybe she stuck in traffic jam. So, I think order right now is better, right?"
W: "I think so, sir. So, your wife no need to waiting for the food, sir."
G: "Yes, ofcourse. She in traffic jam since 30 minutes ago, For she was very hungry And I choose special menu today for two person"
W: "All right. Anything else, sir?"
G: "No, thanks"
W: "Okay, wait a minute sir for your food. Thank you"




Putri Dinar Setyani
17213004
1EA02