Unconventionality, Adaptability & Resilience Is Better

We’re in an economic environment where it’s better to have a history of adaptability, resilience, and unconventionality than it is to have longevity of service in one role, at one company or in one industry. My children, both in College now, plan on staying at one employer no more than 24 months. At 18 months, it will be time to expand their knowledge, skills and experience – by moving on.

I coach a number of entrepreneurs and they constantly second guess whether they should get a job instead – momentarily thinking that their careers will be better if they spent 8 or 10 years at one company. The skills developed solving the wide variety of problems and handling challenges presented in a start-up will ingrain initiative, communication skills, resourcefulness, that will far outweigh anyone in a typical job in the long-run.

Unconventional and Well Planned Adaptability

Claudio Fernandez-Araoz in the HBR Blog Network writes in the post “Why I Like People With Unconventional Résumés” that it is worrisome when longevity in a role and at a company prevails on a candidate’s résumé. He goes on to say that “disruptive moves […] show a candidate’s curiosity, insight, inspiration and determination, which in turn indicate a search for learning and challenge.” Alternatively, longevity in one industry, at one company and in one role, Claudio suggests indicates that a candidate is “not seeking growth and that they’re not fully prepared for a leadership transition.”

Disruptive diversity, it seems, indicates a well-planned career path that shows a lot about a candidates abilities and learning capacity for “several powerful emotional intelligence-based competencies [such as] flexibility, adaptability, empathy, organizational awareness and relationship management.” How often have you observed a deficit of these competencies?

Quit Early and Quite Often

Harvard Business School Professor Deepak Malhotra gave a speech that shocked the students and parents in the room to the graduating class of 2012. He emphasizes that happiness is a function of learning and finding experiences and roles through the opportunity that circumstance present in one’s life and the choices they make.

He tells the graduating class that a tragedy is the gap between the opportunity circumstances provide and the level achieved through choices made. Difficult circumstance some people encounter (like being born in a third world country) can limit outcome, but making poor choices when blessed with optimal circumstances is a true tragedy.

He points out that the way to limit the size and scope of this tragedy “is to quit.” He drives his point further, “quit early, quit often, and be the best quitter you know.”  He clarifies that you should not quit because you are lazy, quit because you are unhappy, and are motivated to quickly try something else to pursue happiness.

Deepak suggests that one should regularly ask if they are truly happy with what they are doing. And, if the answer is “no,” they should quit and do something else. Life is too short to do something you are not happy doing. Moving on and forward opens other doors that aren’t visibly open when you are standing still in one single role for too long.

My Experience

Every once in a while a CEO asks me if I would make my consulting engagement permanent. I’m asked for my résumé, and sometimes I comply. The CEO recognizes the value of a unique diverse background and experience I’ve had in multiple industries from medical devices and healthcare to energy, oil and gas and from predictive analytics and location-based services to building industry technology. In all these roles I had profound examples that created products and services and grew businesses by as much as 40+% in timeframes measured in months during my tenure in them. So I take the next step.

Invariably, I get a call from Human Resources, and it’s a completely different conversation. Instead of focusing on the results I achieved and the value I created in each of these diverse situations and roles, the focus is on why I’ve been a VP of marketing and strategy at 4 companies in the past 10 years as if this were a failure. I’ve even had a VP of HR suggest I was a job hopper.  I remind them that the results that we just discussed were not possible in one or two roles, and that my last 10 years’ path was intentional.

Like many starting out, I stayed at one company for 16 years, only to find that in high-tech, that was the failure – I had no diversity. I held my feet to the fire over the following decade to add diversity, learn new industries, adapt to new business models and connect and influence many different organizations and cultures.

Hiring and Screening Practices

It’s time to focus on the future value a candidate’s adaptability brings, I think. Deepak and Claudio show us where the world is going in terms of a socially relevant, and highly adaptive and resilient workforce that works in one role and at one company for 24 months or less. They hint at a workforce that elevates its collective capability, and individual competencies, by working in diverse industries, roles and many companies.

Perhaps we’re on our way to full-time freelance-based employee communities that are identified and accessed through LinkedIn? The future I think is going to be very different.

To get there, we need to stop thinking that diversity in role, industry, job function on a candidate’s résumé is a bad thing. We need to change our perception of candidates that “quit and quit often” in order to develop their own competency for “flexibility, adaptability, empathy, organizational awareness and relationship management.” After all, how can one develop these skills if standing still for too long?

To Ponder

Deepak’s lesson lines up with my point in this blog that the best – and happiest – candidates have broad experience from many positions that demonstrates Claudio’s point around adaptability and flexibility. I suggest that these kinds of people working at your company are not only happier, but also more productive, and there’s research to prove it. Have a look at the videos and findings published by the Center for High Performance.

As a leader, what are you doing to develop this in your individual career portfolio? What are you doing to call attention to it to disrupt the old traditional review of qualifications as you pursue career growth?

As a hiring manager, what are you doing to ensure that the screening approach that eliminates the imaginative, creative and innovative, doesn’t occur in your organization? How are you working to ensure your brand is not negatively affected by this approach in the ranks?

Leave a comment, and share your thoughts so others can learn from you!

Image Credit whoALSE on flickr, via Wikimedia Commons.