When you make the decision to start something new, first figure out the jobs you want to do. Then position yourself to play where no one else is playing.
Whitney Johnson – Writer
When should you self-disrupt? There’s no easy answer. However, it’s about your personal risk appetite. Do you think you need to change or self-disrupt? Is the pain of self-disrupting less than the pain of staying the way or where you are? Self-disruption is difficult. Most of us want to take the path of least resistance (risk averse) and not change.
Do you know your personal value proposition in today’s disruptive time? If you don’t, sooner than later you’ll have a (future of work) FOW wake up call. Your abilities, career direction, or work are not aligned with your employer’s business strategies or customer’s market requirements. You may have less authority, new boss, new position, marginal performance review, or even a job loss. You may be part of COVID downsizing. Your employer has a new work model. Your employer changed its business rules. Your employer may want to outsource. Your employer may see employees as an expense not an asset. Your employer may see contractors as expendable.
Story: Each paradigm shift is a stimulus to examine what you do right, what you could do better, what you could learn, and what you should do differently.
Your goal is to stare at the mirror and conduct an objective work/career/job analysis. Answer the following in your Working It Playbook. What are your work, job, and career assets and liabilities?
You want to enhance your assets and minimize your liabilities. It isn’t an easy process to assume new roles, establish new relationships, establish new directions, offer new ideas, be proactive, learn new behaviors, or work effectively. This requires time, effort, resources, and resiliency.
Work Lesson Earned: Mary Lynn Pulley in Losing Your Job – Reclaiming Your Soul called the ability to bounce back from adversity, ‘work resilience’. You have an inner life force to help you bounce back and carry on. You may reach the stage in your career when options are fewer, career choices are limited and you don’t know where to go or what to do.
This is time for reflection, for repositioning yourself if necessary and for learning resilience. You also can become resilient by developing and nourishing positive relationships.135
Address these important work questions in your Working It Playbook: Are you @ risk in VUCA time? What are your personal risks? Where do you want to go or do? How are you going to get there? Will the journey or the destination make you happy? What are the tradeoffs along the way? Are you willing to make some required sacrifices?