Luck
Good luck is frequently named as the reason for a meteoric career rise. Its accountability is only partial. The recipient of good luck must recognize it for what it is, see the opportunity it provides, and have the talent and flexibility to respond to it and capitalize on it fully. Luck in career matters seldom resembles a lottery or even a horse race. Having made certain choices, a person cannot stand by passively awaiting the outcome. Almost invariably, there must be conscious recognition that an opportunity has presented itself, and some planned, deliberate action must be taken in order to receive its benefits. An example serves to illustrate the point.
For many years, Michael C. has had an extracurricular interest in helping those less fortunate than himself. He has been active in boys' clubs and Kiwanis and has worked many weekends and evenings tutoring high school dropouts who need school diplomas to get work. His strong drive to be of service displayed itself long before the current wave of public-interest was aroused and extensive programs were developed for this purpose. On the job, Mike is an accountant working in the cost area. His company recently announced a staff department that was to be devoted solely to improving the hiring, development, and advancement of members of minority groups. When Mike heard about the new organization unit, he expressed delight that at last this problem would receive the attention it deserves. For him, that was the end of the matter. To another man in Mike's situation, the announcement might appear to be good luck working on his side. He might have seized this opportunity to bring together his job training, his experience, and his personal interest to launch a new career for himself and help his firm at the same time. Perhaps Michael C. did not want this kind of career path for himself. On the other hand, he may not have recognized the possibilities offered by the new department.
Recognizing opportunity is one essential. Having the necessary talent to exploit it is a second. The history of scientific discovery is replete with examples of chance observation of physical phenomena that permitted knowledge barriers to be broken and contributed to scientific progress. But for every man who shouts "Eureka!" countless others fail both to see the phenomenon and to interpret its usefulness. Lawrence P., for example, is a salesman with the XYZ Company. He has a reasonable though not outstanding record of success in meeting his sales quota. For months, he has been calling on customer T. in an effort to increase his use of XYZ products. Nothing has worked. When Larry is taken off the account, his successor almost immediately gets a substantial increase in orders. Luck? Not entirely. The first time the new man visited the customer, he was asked to lour the plant. During his tour, he noted a number of inefficient practices that were costing money his products would help save. When he brought the facts to the attention of customer T., he made his sale.
While luck can therefore be a legitimate contributor to success, it is far from sufficient. Each person should do at least two things if he is to capitalize on good fortune and turn it to his career advantage. First, he must take time to observe what is going on around him and reflect on its meaning for him. Second, he must develop insight regarding his favorable personal qualities and experience and the many different ways in which they might be used. Both processes can probably be expedited by a competent professional, who may be a psychologist, a vocational counselor, a management consultant, or a personnel specialist.
Institutional Expansion
Each person must define success for himself if his career is to bring him the satisfaction he deserves from his work. Probably he must redefine it at several stages of his career, since aspirations usually change as one conquers or fails to conquer hurdles and begins to understand himself and his abilities a little better.
To many people, however, success means advancement in the organization hierarchy with corresponding increases in salary. It stands to reason that a rapidly expanding concern has many more opportunities to offer than one about at its peak facing stability for the foreseeable future. The man determined to advance quickly will do well, then, not only to prepare himself adequately but to choose his employer with some care, keeping in mind the state of the art in his field, the stage of growth of the product or service he offers, and the plans for enlarging staff to meet expected customer needs. The aerospace industry in the late 1950s and 1960s serves as an excellent example. Salaries rose rapidly for those associated with it, and individuals assumed management status long before their classmates who had gone into other fields. The computer business during the 1960s is another instance.
Such situations do not exist without problems. In the examples cited, otherwise capable young men were sometimes given supervisory duties without adequate training and before they were ready. They were thrown in over their heads and lived in a Cinderella atmosphere. A man reporting to such a person sometimes found his personal growth stymied because his boss was unable to give him the advice, support, and guidance he needed. Inadequately prepared supervisors sometimes form hasty judgments, so some men were arbitrarily and unjustly ruled out of consideration for openings they could in fact have filled well. In addition, linked to the possibility of a great boom is almost always the specter of failure, with layoffs and halted careers.
The individual who decides to capitalize on institutional expansion in order to enlarge the number of choices and opportunities open to him needs to be extraordinarily alert to dangerous work-cycle changes and untenable situations, which he must take the initiative to sidestep. At the same time, he must not be so impatient that he cannot hold on for a reasonable period under difficult conditions. In a fast-moving and dynamic setup, people, organization structure, and priorities are likely to shift rapidly. For this reason, flexibility and a capacity to learn quickly are critically important. Perhaps most necessary is that he keep himself from being over-promoted so that he cannot perform his new job adequately. Reputations are as easily lost as gained in rapidly expanding fields. Finally, the man who chooses a boom situation needs enough self-confidence to face a job search without unmanageable personal stress.
In sum, then, in a rapidly expanding firm, the rate of career advancement is high; so are the risks. One should seek the level of expansion that matches not only his desires but his abilities and personal traits as well.
