25 April 2012

"No Matter How Glorious Your Past, Do Not Let It Get In The Way Of Your Future"

A recent article i came across recently titled: "Wall Street Prepares For Sweeping Layoffs at Citibank, Goldman, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan" reminded me once more of the times we live in, a move away from the old saying, 'job for life'. Personally i do not believe there ever was a job for life, and even if that might have been the case in the past, that theory has certainly been diminished if not totally eliminated for ever. With bank bonuses being squeezed and according to many rightly so due to their complicit involvement in the global financial crisis, a large number of senior personnel including deal makers and corporate advisers from these illustrious and famous big companies find themselves on the brink of loosing their jobs.

Now i am not expecting you to show any pity, and to be honest not sure bankers or city high flyers want any pity, nonetheless, there is a lesson in this tale for all of us, in that as according to one of my favourite business authors, Charles Handy, author of Beyond Uncertainty, on the cover of his book, he wrote: "We must not let our past, however glorious, get in the way of our future", hence the title of this article. And so, as the world becomes even more interconnected, with greater competition for customers and business, the future is likely to see more leaner and meaner organisations, where small is the new big! Indeed, we see many examples of small medium size enterprises starting up and in no time reaching market capitalisation in the millions.

So, you and i need a stake in what we do, if you are working within an enterprise, then you certainly need to see yourself as an intrapreneur or at least think like one whereby your services maybe needed one day and suddenly without or very little notice it comes to an end.

I would certainly advise the 'sigmoid curve' analysis by Charles Handy, in that you need to begin planning your next move, career, business, training whatever it is you aspire to, so that as you approach or get to the top of the first sigmoid curve, you already have something lined up to support you. One thing i certainly come across a lot in my work with people looking for work and i have had the opportunity of working with a wide range of people from those earning less than £10,000 per annum to those earning well in excess of £100,000 per year is that very few people plan forward. The problem is as we all know no one can predict the future, my many years working within the financial markets industry taught me that, and so what happens when the redundancy letter arrives at your desk or worst you get a letter while away on holiday.

I heard sometime back that though many businesses in the UK plan 10 to 20 years ahead, if you take a country like Japan, businesses plan hundreds of years in advance, perhaps a bit extreme, but no wonder despite the slump in the 90s which it suffered after a long period of boom, it is still considered one of the biggest economies in the world.

So the question you must ask yourself is in what and where are you staking your bet for your future just in case the unthinkable happens.

Welcome your comments.

Femi Yusoof




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