Being the parent of three wonderful young men, all of whom decided to pursue college dreams, required that I prepare myself to answer questions about college selections and careers. And, being a career HR practitioner and one whom, on occasion, people would seek out for advice, required that I have some sort of framework through which I would offer my thoughts.
I should also disclose that I come from an upstate New York, middle class family where my parents had six children in six years and my father could not afford a single day of unemployment. Not one. So, he made decisions that always resulted in the safest, if not most lucrative path to maintenance of weekly income. Meaning, my mental model and associated framework is, admittedly, conservative.
Here's what I told my sons:
"Sons, all companies do seven things.
- Design. They conjure up a product or service that they think may have a market.
- Market. They test to see if there is a market for what they've designed.
- Fund. They determine how much capital they have and how much profit they can earn.
- Make. They figure out a way to make what they've designed.
- Sell. They go-to-market with what they've designed.
- Deliver. They go-to-customer with what they've designed.
- Service. They go-back-to-customer to fix problems or improve what they've designed.
And, if they are smart, they leverage the "go-back-to-customer" opportunity in item 7 to gather input that will be used all the way back in step 1 to start the process again.
Why do I tell you this? Because as you are making decisions about colleges and careers, ask yourself into which of these seven categories will your choices land you. Since ALL COMPANIES do these seven things, if you acquire skills that make you relevant in ANY of the seven you'll ALWAYS be employable!"
So, what is the applicability of this advice? I've found three interesting applications.
- First, with my sons. One is studying to be a Chef, so I guess I can feel that he listened to his Dad as he'll fall into item 4, for sure, and perhaps others if he opens his own restaurant. The other two are studying International Relations. Application: Never use work advice on your kids!
- Second, with employees seeking out a little career advice. I can tell you with certainty that companies have an amazing willingness to create jobs that have nothing to do with any of the seven items. Internally focused, operations oriented, more in service of the senior leader running the area than in the interests of serving customers and making money. Honestly, I have had more than one nervous employee sitting in front of me as he realized that his work has no relation to any of the seven items. When companies need to cut headcount, where do you think they go first? When they are looking to reward talent, where do you think they go first? When they are looking to grow careers, where ... ? Application: If your job has nothing to do with any of the seven, find a job that does. If your skills don't allow you to get there, acquire new skills.
- Lastly, in designing organizations. When I was working for Cisco International and living in London, I was asked to participate in a body of work that would determine what level of capability Cisco would possess in the countries in which it was desiring to do business. For example, if Cisco wanted to do business in Nigeria, would it need people who live in Nigeria to design its product or service? What about to make, sell, deliver or service? Would Cisco need to build all those capabilities in country, or could it build them regionally, or globally? Application: We were actually able to leverage this framework, something I created to help my sons, to build models that determined the level of capability we'd need to do business in the multitude of countries that looked so attractive to us at the time. We called the work "Anatomy of a Country" and used it as our platform in seeking investment from the corporation.
Cool stuff!
Paul E. DuCharme. October 2012
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