Page 258 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

accomplishments almost always require taking the path less traveled; and the road to nowhere Career Module 257
is paved with fears of the unknown.

It’s OK to Change Jobs
Past generations often believed “you don’t leave a good job.” That advice no longer applies.
In today’s fast-changing job market, staying put often only means that you’re staying behind.
Employers no longer expect long-term loyalty. And to keep your skills fresh, your income
increasing, and your job tasks interesting, it will be increasingly likely that you’ll need to
change employers.

Opportunities, Preparation, and Luck = Success
Successful people are typically ambitious, intelligent, and hardworking. But they are also
lucky. It’s not by chance that many of the biggest technology success stories—Bill Gates
and Paul Allen at Microsoft, Steve Jobs at Apple, Scott McNealy at Sun Microsystems,
Eric Schmidt at Novell and Google—were born in a narrow three-year period between June
1953 and March 1956. They were smart. They were interested in computers and technology.
But they were also lucky. They reached their teens and early 20s in 1975—at the dawn of
the personal computer age. Those people with similar interests and talents but born in the
mid-1940s were likely to have joined a firm like IBM out of college and been enamored with
mainframe computers. Had they been born in the early 1960s, they would have missed getting
in on the ground floor of the revolution.
Success is a matter of matching up opportunities, preparation, and luck. It’s been sug-
gested that few of us get more than a couple of special opportunities in our lifetime. If you’re
lucky, you will recognize those opportunities, have made the proper preparations, and then
act on them.
You can’t control when you were born, where you were born, your parents’ finances, or
the like. Those are the luck factors. But what you can control is your preparation and willing-
ness to act when opportunity knocks.

Endnotes

1. Managing Your Career Module Journal, March 14–15, 2009, p. E. Super and D. T. Hall, “Career
based on J. H. Greenhaus, V. W6; “Capital One Survey High- Development: Exploration and
M. Godstalk, and G. A. Calla- lights What Today’s College Planning,” in M. R. Rosenzweig
rd
han, Career Management, 3 ed. Graduates Want from Employers,” and L.W. Porter (eds.), Annual Re-
(Cincinnati, OH: South-Western, www.businesswire.com (June 10, view of Psychology, vol. 29 (Palo
2000); K. A. Ericsson, “Deliber- 2008); M. Gladwell, Outliers: The Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 1978),
ate Practice and the Modifiability Story of Success (New York: Little, p. 334; and M. B. Arthur and D.
of Body and Mind,” International Brown, 2008); R. N. Boles, What M. Rousseau, The Boundaryless
Journal of Sports Psychology Color Is Your Parachute? 2009: A Career: A New Employment Prin-
(January–March 2007), pp. 4–34; Practical Manual for Job-Hunters ciple for a New Organizational
J. P. Newport, “Mastery, Just and Career-Changers (Berkeley, Era (New York: Oxford University
10,000 Hours Away,” Wall Street CA: Ten Speed Press, 2009); D. Press, 1996).