Edwin Mesko was the seventh and youngest child of Gertrude and Peter Mesko. He was born and grew up in a small western Pennsylvania mining town whose residents primarily worked in the region's coal mines. The town was deteriorating badly and had been since the end of World War II and decline in demand for coal. Peter Mesko had managed to work off and on, but it was a hard life.
Mesko distrusted both the mine owners and the union organizers so he tried to work nonunion mines. Peter was very cynical about business managers and union officials who wore ties and jackets while sitting around drinking coffee and exchanging money under the table (or so he suspected).
The pay and conditions have dramatically improved in recent years, but Peter was too old really to benefit and by then Ed had long since left home to join the Navy.
Although he had never seen an ocean-going ship, at age seventeen Ed left home to join the Navy as a seaman apprentice. A bit frightened to leave home, he nonetheless enjoyed his basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. He even found the discipline looser than at home. Ed liked his petty officer, but did receive some demerits for making derogatory remarks under his breath about the lieutenant in charge of his division.
Ed did surprisingly well on the mathematics aptitude test so he was assigned to a gunnery specialty as a fire control man (as in gunfire and rocket aiming, not fighting fires). He was eventually assigned to a warship where his job was to maintain and operate a radar system that controlled a bank of antiaircraft missiles. Ed took great pride in his ability to keep his equipment operating and he enjoyed the comradeship of his fellow seamen. Because of his hard work and competence, Ed's superiors generally left him alone, even overlooking his usually sloppy appearance and occasional excessive drinking while on liberty off the ship. At age twenty-seven, Ed found himself one of the youngest of senior enlisted personnel in the Navy.
Ed even received a letter of commendation from the ship's commanding officer for an act of extraordinary coolness and courage. While the ship was engaged in a highline transfer at sea exchanging personnel with another ship, an unexpected wave forced the two ships apart. Unfortunately, this pulled the line taut between the two ships while it was wrapped around a sailor's hand. The hand was almost entirely pulled off right in front of the officers on the bridge. One fainted and even the captain vomited in horror. While others were frozen in shock, Ed instantly climbed up to the screaming sailor and cut him loose.
Impressed with Mesko's technical skill and personal courage, the commanding officer directed the gunnery officer to approach Ed about attending Officer Candidate School where in three months he could earn his commission as an ensign. The gunnery officer, Lieutenant Henderson, was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and highly committed to his career as an officer. In talking to Ed, Henderson emphasized the honor that the commanding officer had done Ed in advancing the opportunity and praised the social prestige and potential power to command that goes with being a commissioned officer (along with more money, nicer uniforms, and more private living quarters). Henderson was surprised when Ed didn't immediately accept the offer, pleading that he wasn't sure and would have to think about it.
Maria Lopez
Maria Lopez has always admired her parents. Of course she argued with them from time to time, but she loved to be home to cook and sew, and to help with her younger brothers and sisters. To her parents, Maria was a model child. She did only average work in school, but never received a "D" or an "F" either. School social life was simply more important than studies to Maria. She was always at the center. Although she dated frequently, most of the boys seemed a bit immature to her.
Maria never planned to go to college. She had figured she would get married fairly soon, but at seventeen this seemed a ways off. So she began to look for a job as the summer after graduation wore on. Many of her friends left the neighborhood; some of the boys joined the Army and a few went to college. Maria missed the excitement of high school's crowded halls and lively conversations. Finally, in October she found a clerical job in the regional office of a large insurance company.
From the beginning, Maria fit right in. She did what she was told, was polite and willing. She thought the work was fine and she really enjoyed the beautiful new office. Even more, she liked the friends she made, the fun of chatting and planning bridal showers. Maria took an active role in running these affairs just as she had done in school.
Quite early in her employment, Maria had dropped a note into the office suggestion box. The clerical area was arranged in long straight rows and columns, all rather forbidding looking. Maria suggested that the setup be modified to several semicircles. This would facilitate communicating with the group leader located in the middle. She thought it would also create a sense of belonging. Management subsequently introduced the arrangement to almost everyone's approval.
As time passed Maria just never met anyone she wanted to marry, so she continued working. She perfected her computer skill and telephone style so much that she received several merit raises. She was even given a post as office claims agent, becoming the first woman in her firm to handle routine policyholder claims. She was flattered by the promotion, but the job did make it more difficult to keep up with her friends in the office. However, the younger women still sought her advice on job and personal matters. And Maria enjoyed talking with policyholders and auto repair shops-and they liked to deal with her.
Shortly after Maria's twenty-sixth birthday, her mother passed away. At first, Maria wanted to quit her job to take care of the family, but her father said it wasn't necessary and she had her own life to live.
A week after her mother's death, the regional vice president called Maria into his office, praised her and offered her a promotion to assistant officer manager in charge of hiring and training of all clerical employees. The position includes a private office, a secretary and a higher salary (that in fact she knew exceeded her father's). Maria is now very confused because she just can't see herself in the new position. She doesn't know what to do.
Cynthia Wyeth
Cynthia Wyeth joined the international division of the Gibraltar Bank after earning her MBA at Walton University. She was one of the first woman analysts at the bank and was a hard worker and fast learner. These attributes had characterized her from childhood when as an only child she had helped her father with the bookkeeping in his dental practice. They had spent many evenings discussing sports and investments rather than dental medicine, so Cynthia more naturally gravitated to business rather than health care. One of her proudest moments had come in college when her father gave her $5,000 to invest (but not spend) in any way she desired. She still has that initial capital, which has grown considerably.
Her MBA program was tough but not overwhelming, so Cynthia was very active in extracurricular activities at Walton serving as Vice President of the MBA Association, President of the Women at Walton club, and a member of the joint faculty-student curriculum committee. Cynthia was a very visible person and received several attractive job offers upon graduation.
Cynthia joined the Gibraltar Bank because it was a prestigious institution which she well knew because a former president had been her father's patient and friend. Cynthia had always called him "Uncle Ned." Mr. Frederick Adams was now retired but he was still a member of Gibraltar's board of directors. Cynthia's first position had been as junior and then senior analyst, which she found sometimes interesting, sometimes boring. She enjoyed the banking content but resented the repetitive telephone quotes, library research, and near-clerical work in serving the senior officers. She did, however, establish an enviable reputation for reliability and competence.
Four years ago she was asked to become administrative manager for the international department where she did a marvelous job improving clerical services, reducing secretarial turnover, and initiating formal training. She was named an assistant vice president. In time, however, Cynthia became a bit dissatisfied. Although her pay and title were not bad, she felt that she was not progressing in banking. Accordingly, she spoke to Sean Riley, the international department executive vice president, about a promotion to country manager. Months went by, however, and nothing happened.
Three weeks ago, Cynthia mentioned her frustration to Uncle Med while at her younger sister's wedding at the Union League Club. Two weeks later, Cynthia was offered the position as Gibraltar's employment manager. The position carries a vice presidency and a nice salary increase. When she talked about it to Sean Riley, he countered with an offer of country manager in charge of Central America. The area is the smallest in terms of business (and indeed has been declining in recent years), but the position carries full authority for loans and investments, substantial autonomy, and great opportunity to travel and deal with clients.
Cynthia is wondering which position to accept.
What is Bothering Edwin, Cynthia?
Most of you will find it odd that Edwin and Maria experienced such difficulty accepting the promotions offered for their good performance. You probably identify Cynthia with managerial ambition. Most people are closer to Ed and Maria than to Cynthia--at least to the extent that most people don't have careers at all. Rather they have a series of jobs. The difference is a matter of time perspective and planned direction.
Both Edwin and Maria seem to be looking backward, or at best at preserving the present, rather than to the future. Each seems to worry that they will lose too much of what they presently enjoy if they should accept the promotions offered. Attitudes and values they learned as children are limiting their choices for the future. Perhaps they are correct in not accepting the proffered promotions, but remaining in their present positions without examining their long-range ambitions would clearly be a mistake because it could lead to stagnation and bitterness.
Influenced by his father's skeptical views about management, Edwin fears that becoming a commissioned officer would compromise his integrity and be a sell-out. He worries that he would become like the (probably nonexistent) stuffed-shirt, parasitic mining officials of his childhood imagination. At present, he has a good deal. He takes great satisfaction in his technical competence and the Navy grants him enormous autonomy because his special skills are so prized. He is not held to normal military appearance and behavior standards that he would certainly be expected to manifest as an officer.
Maria Lopez also enjoys her present position, but seems to fear the consequences of accepting a promotion to assistant office manager, that somehow it would signify to the world that she is a "career woman" (and perhaps that she may never marry). This is an old-fashioned view to be sure, but one still held by many young women (and men) from traditional families. My mother-in-law was a young widow with two children at age thirty when she began what became a very successful administrative career in a printing company. Yet in thirty-five years she never thought of herself as a career woman and disliked others to see her as such. The illusion that she would give it up when she remarried was so strong. Similarly, Maria has taken each job as it came, holding a short-timer's attitude that she wouldn't be doing it very long. Yet, because of her conscientiousness, she always did a good job, not because she craved long-run promotions, but because she wanted to please others. A management position to her is synonymous with an aggressive exercise of power which she feels would be incompatible with her personality.
In making the promotion offers to Ed and Maria, the naval officer and insurance manager emphasized rewards important to the offerors: money, power, prestige. They probably never entertained the idea that these goodies wouldn't be similarly valued by their lucky subordinates.
Cynthia Wyeth is clearly a different kind of person. From childhood she has pursued excellence and opportunities to distinguish herself toward a career offering achievement, promotions, prestige and power. She has been frustrated by exclusion from such opportunity in the international division of Gibraltar Bank. Although she enjoyed her responsibilities as department administrative manager, she wanted to return to real banking activity-making loan decisions, facilitating international trade, and negotiating deals.
By her astute handling of a personal contact, Cynthia provoked an offer as vice president and employment manager for the bank. She now must choose between this and a belated counteroffer from the international department to assume responsibility for the Central American region. She must judge which position would provide the greater career opportunity she has been seeking.
Before describing how others feel about our young heroes, let us examine some central issues in personal maturation and career development. You will be more successful and satisfied if you take a career perspective toward your future-if you understand your own needs, strengths and weaknesses, and have a rough idea of the kinds of contributions you want to make and the rewards hoped for. These ideas are not to be engraved in stone, but are subject to modification with maturity and experience.
Views of Maturation: A recent Fortune poll of business executives about MBA programs and students produced a litany of complaints that students are: too self-centered, too narrow in their interests, unwilling to commit themselves, ignorant of business realities, and ill-mannered and impolite! As one chief executive put it:
They (MBA's) have excellent technical qualifications, but the majority are virtually uneducated in what goes on in the real business world. (I am) fed up with young MBA's who wander into 9 o'clock meetings at 9:15 or 9:30, or who take two days to return a phone call. (I remember) a newly hired MBA (I) took to a meeting with the head of Twentieth Century Fox in Beverly Hills. As the kid walked in, he peeled off his jacket and threw it on the couch. (I am adamant about) teaching students kindness, courtesy, punctuality, cleanliness, proper dress, as well as academic subjects such as ethics and communications.
Whether especially true or not for today's students, such complaints have historically been voiced by an older generation toward those younger. Most of us have often been told to "grow up!" The command usually came from someone who disapproved of our behavior. And indeed, most of us from time to time have disliked our own behavior and wished that we could be more mature. We all traverse our own individual rocky road to whatever maturation is. We can consider the process from several complementary perspectives.
Behaving Like an Adult: What most older people mean when they accuse young people of being immature is that they don't behave the way that the complaining generation expects. The executives surveyed by Fortune cited unreturned telephone calls, invitations never responded to, missing thank-you notes, gauche table manners, tardiness, and unreliable attendance--all criticisms familiar to most of us since kindergarten. Superficial as they may be, they are real and you will be handicapped if you have not learned basic courtesies by the time you start work.
Particularly disturbing to older managers is a junior's cavalier attitude about attendance. As Woody Allen is purported to have observed, "Eighty percent of life is just showing up." But reliably "showing up" at work after college means a dramatic shift in one's time perspective. Most of us experience difficulty in adapting to the changed time horizon that accompanies the transition from school to work. College accustomed us to almost immediate gratification and to short time spans-this semester, next academic year, and a few years to graduation. Time's passage is clearly signaled by status changes punctuated by frequent vacations (in addition to winter and summer vacations, my school now gives fall and spring "breaks" in order to relieve the pressure on students). A permanent job is different. The time horizon is much longer, fewer events mark time's passage and a full year must be endured before a short two-week vacation! Not surprisingly, some young employees attempt to perpetuate the school perspective by changing jobs frequently, calling in "sick" on Fridays and Mondays, and taking time off for unofficial (and unpaid) vacations. However understandable this behavior, older colleagues perceive it as immature.
Extension of Motivating Needs: From infancy to adulthood, we gradually extend the needs that motivate our behavior. Infants are dominated by physiological drives for safety and security. They are tyrannical and self-centered in their demands that these needs be satisfied, but they are helpless in doing anything for themselves. They must come to see the world as contributing to the satisfaction of their basic needs. When they do so, the world becomes less threatening and uncertain.
Then new needs emerge. Children discover the enjoyment of affiliation and love with their parents. Soon they acquire playmates and the joy of being included. As time passes, social needs for affiliation and esteem become more powerful. We tend to define ourselves in terms of others' response to us. The child wants to be like others, not out of step--as one might if you gave into your mother's demand that you wear rubbers over your shoes when no one else in the fourth grade does. Children and adolescents fear being different because they are so unsure of themselves. They are afraid that being different will mean exclusion, and exclusion will mean being nothing. In this period of life, most of us are quite "other-directed."
Other-directed people are dominated by their social needs. They act in anticipation of how others will react afterwards: "What will others think of me? Will I still be part of the 'in' crowd? Will I be liked more-or less? Will I have more or less prestige?" Sometime in our late teens, however, most of us begin to realize that we don't have to be just like others, but can have wants and standards that are different from our companions. Most people are a little threatened by this realization because identifying oneself is a lonely and difficult process. Yet growth demands that the challenge be met and we become "inner directed."
Inner-directed people are motivated by needs for autonomy, competence, and achievement. They act in anticipation of what they will think of themselves: "Will I have a sense of freedom? Will I feel competent and proficient? Will I experience the exultation of achievement and creativity? Will I think more of myself, even if the world doesn't agree?"
Whether or not we move with maturation from being other directed to inner directed depends mainly on our experience. Childhood frustration of needs for safety, security, affiliation, and prestige (and in tragic cases, even physiological necessities) might mean that the future behavior of such a youth would focus on these needs with much less motivation from needs for self-esteem, competence, and achievement.5 Thus, one might never have enough money to guarantee security or enough affection to satisfy a desire for love. Of course, even the most mature individuals never entirely give up their concerns about other people's responses to them. We are not either other directed or inner directed. We are all potentially both at various stages in life-but from time to time, depending on the situation such as losing a job, we may move back to an earlier other-directed stage.
Stages of Growth: Whether or not we are blessed with a fortuitous beginning, we all have our share of maturation challenges. These challenges present specific problems to be resolved at each growth stage. Whether handled well or poorly, however, life impels us on to the next problem as the stages unfold.
Infancy-trust versus mistrust: Depending on the reliability of adult responses (mainly parents), the small child locates himself or herself somewhere on a range from "the world is a hostile or random place in which I can place no trust" at one end to the other extreme of "total faith in the behavior of adults." Most of us, however, come down someplace in between.
Young childhood-autonomy versus shame and initiative versus guilt: Again from and through parents (mainly in the conflict over toilet training and freedom to explore the home), we may or may not learn that we are autonomous persons who can exercise independence without guilt. The archetypical event here is not so much a spanking for "messing your pants," but what happens when the infant crawls into the kitchen and pulls out the pots and pans from the lower drawer. If parents respond with anger and punishment, we conclude that it is dangerous to exercise initiative in exploration. If, however, they had made the kitchen "child safe" so that they applaud our initiative, we incorporate the joy of autonomy. Of course, a single occasion doesn't settle this, but the pattern is critical.
Childhood and adolescence-industry versus inferiority: The development of one's need for achievement depends on the resolution of this issue through the proportion of early successes and failures. If we experience relative success in mastering self-maintenance tasks like tying shoelaces and walking home from school alone, we are more likely later to develop a significant achievement need and sufficient self-confidence to tackle tough problems. Thus, in adulthood, lower-rated managers tend to see their own personal inadequacies as their greatest hindrance to success while better performers see this challenge as external, primarily the task itself.
Our parents' expectations of self-mastery affect this resolution, how-ever. Too early or too tardy expectations are detrimental to developing an industrious outlook. If parents expect too much too early, our failures are too frequent and we may feel overwhelmed; if parental confidence comes too late, the optimal period for discovering achievement's thrill has passed.
The level of our parents' performance standards also affects how we resolve this issue of industry versus inferiority. If parents expect little or think everything the child does is wonderful, achievement need development is hampered. Similarly, excessive parental dominance is perhaps the most destructive force hindering achievement need. Parents of a child with a sense of industry and high achievement need tend to: (1) I expect and encourage high performance; (2) not give detailed instructions, but within broad guidelines allow the child many decisions; (3) reward good effort and performance with hugs and kisses (not money or gifts which is more characteristic of parents with less achievement-oriented children); and (4) to withhold affection and parental esteem if the child doesn't strive for good performance.
The dynamic is the same for both sons and daughters, but many parents expect less from the girl and dominate her more, thus hindering achievement need development. My son and daughter, then ten years old and eight years old, and myself were subjects of an experiment in which a researcher observed my interaction separately with each while they were performing a task (piling up blocks). I couldn't touch them or the blocks, but I could talk. In 80 percent of the families sampled, the father expressed lower performance expectations and exercised more dominance over his daughter in directing her: "Mary, don't use the blue block, put the red and yellow one on next." (Thankfully, I was in the minority 20 percent that treated their son and daughter the same!) Many successful career women report being treated as "sons" rather than as daughters- that is, parental expectations were high, dominance low and affectional rewards given for good performance (and probably withheld for poor effort).
Adolescence-identity versus confusion: One of the clichés of American life is adolescence angst, but it is especially real in our culture because of the vast array of life styles we encounter as we move from grammar school to junior high and high school. Our task is to define ourselves by trial and error, to find out what actually works for us as opposed to what parents, teachers and even friends tell us. When my son was a sophomore in high school, he asked me what was so good about getting As; why did so many parents, teachers and even his classmates prize them? Never having seen many as on his report cards, I asked him why he thought he could get straight as. His reply was quick, "Because dumber kids than me get all As." His confidence was high that he could do it. His question, however, was "why bother?" I explained that good grades would help him get into a higher-quality college and this might assist in entry into one of the prestigious professions like medicine or law where the careers would be challenging and rewarding, and so on.
My parental reply was obviously valid and wise, but Greg's eyes began to glaze over with impatience and he finally said, "Dad, I'll grant that As are neat things to get in the long run, but what do they do for me now?" Perhaps he was fishing for a promised reward like a car, but more fundamentally, he was asking what he would have to give up in order to get As. My answer had dealt with a distant future and he was concerned about the present in which he had become a school and town celebrity by his athletic success. Introduced from the stage to over 2,000 schoolmates, pretty girls whom he didn't even know would greet him by name as they passed in the hall-heady stuff for a fifteen-year-old (heady stuff for a fifty-year-old too!). His concern was that studying to improve his grades would hinder his athletic and social success which was more important to him then. I tried with only limited success to explain that grades and athletics were not mutually exclusive because athletes tend to manage their time better. The straight As, however, never materialized. We all must make these trade-offs during this period of identity versus confusion so that repeated decisions clarify who we are to ourselves and to others.
Young adulthood-intimacy versus isolation: Clarity about self should facilitate entering into close relationships through commitment to family, vocation, organization, or cause. Yet, it can be extremely difficult to give up some freedom after fighting for independence from parents and adult authority figures. Our views on authority evolve as we grow. As infants and young children we are dependent on others, so we generally conform to what adults want. But we soon feel rebellious stirrings and become more counter-dependent as we intentionally oppose authority's desires. We strive to non-conform. Note that the dependent person always conforms, while the counter-dependent person is always nonconforming-but in effect his or her behavior is as much determined by others as for the dependent person. Such adolescent nonconformists may rationalize their behavior in fancy rhetoric about individuality and freedom, but they protest too much. They are every bit as much victims of pressure as is the conformist. Of course, this is not a one-way shift; we are often buffeted by periods of pride and shame about our behavior."
Defining a clear identity means becoming independent by choosing behavior you think will bring you the greatest satisfaction regardless of whether or not your parents like it. This means that sometimes independents will behave just like their parents which may appear as conformity. When my two older daughters were in junior high school the fad was to go barefoot. Since I was hyper about wearing shoes (because as a boy I had almost lost a leg to blood poisoning from stepping on a rusty nail), to appease me, my daughters would leave the house wearing shoes but then deposit them under a thick evergreen tree at the corner of our block and go off gloriously shoeless for the day. In time, however, they independently discovered through various accidents that shoes are one of the great inventions of human history. They began to wear shoes, not because they were conforming, but because it came to make sense to them.
Independence, however, is not the final stage in maturation. The central issue of young adulthood is embracing interdependence by making commitments. After fighting so hard for independence, one then seems voluntarily to relinquish it by taking others into account when deciding how to behave. You consider the impact on those you love and to whom you have extended yourself in intimacy. I remember one former student telling me that she and her "significant other" were moving in together right after graduation. (Being a bit traditional on such matters, this disturbed me.) About a year later I saw Carole and asked how Stan was. She replied that they had recently separated because they had found themselves becoming too "dependent" on each other. I repressed my temptation to say, "What's the point of moving in with someone and sharing a bed unless you are going to be dependent on each other?" Of course, what I really meant was "interdependent," but a still immature person may experience interdependence not as growth but as a return to dependence.
Full independence from parents and interdependence with others occurs quite late in American society. Before our mid-twenties, most of us are not ready to appreciate parents as separate individuals, as having needs, strengths and weaknesses in their own right, separate from being our parents. Even after leaving home physically, the less mature of us not only tend to rely on our parents to help with decisions, but are also sometimes overwhelmed by intense feelings of rage and dependency. At its worst, these feelings can lead us to lash out at our parents even when they are trying to be helpful.
By contrast, more mature young adults have strong confidence in their ability to make decisions on their own and feel in control of their emotions toward parents. They see themselves, rather than their parents, as the best judges of their own worth and so can risk disapproval by expressing values that may clash with those of parents. But in spite of the clashes, they are closer to their parents than the less mature-especially better able to understand the complexities of their parents' lives. So the best of us (but seldom before our late twenties) become more independent and interdependent with our parents.
Young people desperately seeking independence and fearful of interdependence often avoid the responsibilities of power. Among male college students, the desire for power declined during the 1960s and early 1970s. It then stabilized until the early 1980s, but at a substantially lower level than in960 (we don't know what happened in the 1980s). This avoidance of power of course reflects skepticism about the national political leaders of the period, but it also suggests an increased intention to avoid having to hurt anyone through exercising power. It is an effort to remain innocent. But it is a vain intention. It is true that it is impossible to lead without someone being hurt in the process (some British were hurt as Gandhi led India to freedom; some employees were hurt as laccoca saved the ailing Chrysler Corporation). But remaining aloof when power must be exercised for the common good is not innocence-it is another form of guilt.' Accepting interdependence means accepting power and the potential guilt that comes with it.
Middle age-generativity versus stagnation: With maturity and success we face the problem of maintaining effort and interest.
Old age-ego integrity versus despair: With declining physical and mental states, we struggle to maintain a sense of self-worth and optimism.
Jobs and careers take on concrete meaning as we move through these various growth stages and mold our personalities. Especially as we reach young adulthood, our concerns focus more on the meaning of a career.
Career Perspectives and Concerns
The term career is derived originally from the Latin carraria meaning "by road or carriage way." Drawing on this figurative imagery and later usage, career is defined as, "A person's course or progress through life- especially professional life or employment which affords opportunity for advancement." Thus, our focus is on you as an individual in your career, not on the firm performing "career planning."
Careers versus Jobs
Most people, however, do not have "careers," nor do they expect to. They simply anticipate "jobs." In most countries, careers are thought to be open only to the upper and professional classes. In the United States, the difference between a job and career orientation is a matter of time perspective and planned direction. For example, future physicians tend to conceive of their careers early, during their early teens. They select high school science courses and college majors linked to medical careers ten to fifteen years in the future. In contrast, most restaurant workers never plan for their positions, but merely take whatever work is available. Young physicians will probably pursue the practice of medicine until they die; busboys or waitresses will probably go on to other jobs. Even if they eventually become headwaiters, chefs, or owners, most did not start out envisioning such a path.
Of course exceptions to this distinction exist. Some students go to medical school mainly because their ambitious parents expect it; and some waiters and waitresses take great pride in their professionalism and aspire to operate their own restaurants in the future. The point is that career-oriented people have longer time perspectives and sense of direction.
Many (perhaps most) high school students don't actually follow their career aspirations. In time, most of us lower our goals to be more realistic. Those that too slavishly follow their high school career direction may discover too late that they prematurely sought closure instead of trying to stay flexible. Consider the following two comments from a law student and a physician.
I was pushed by my parents into a pre-law program and now I'm in law school.... You can't possibly imagine the kinds of people I meet daily in law school-people who aren't aware that there's anything worthwhile in life, except law, getting into a good firm, making partner, making lots of money. It's all they talk about and, presumably, it's all they think about ... I wish to God I could get out without disappointing my parents.
I'm a physician not because that's what I want, but because my father and grandfather were physicians. I'm continuing the noble family tradition.... What a joke. I'm miserable, even though last year I made more than $300,000. What a joke.
Now, most lawyers and physicians aren't miserable, but what of business managers? Are they career or job oriented? How many of you planned on a managerial career since your teens? Or are you just looking for a way to earn a living? Most business managers have probably held views somewhere between future physicians and busboys. They had faith that studying and going to college would pay off, but had little understanding of what managers actually do. Most current managers developed a commitment to their careers only after beginning work. Grasping the visible opportunity seems to be the rule.
Encouragement of young girls to strive for wider career choice has not yet had a major impact on most. Female college students are markedly higher in artistic and social interests than their male classmates who are higher in investigative and enterprising interests. The women studied, however, still prefer occupations that are stereotypically feminine-perhaps because they still do not believe they have real choice. Remember, however, many individual exceptions exist to these traditional orientations. Female enrollment in undergraduate engineering, for example, has jumped from less than 2 percent to over 10 percent in little more than a decade. Nothing is as powerful in eliciting female commitment to a career (whether traditional or nontraditional) as perceived opportunity for promotions. A real chance for a higher position is a strong career inducement.
Career Phases
As we move through our careers, most of us confront similar problems along the way. These career phases have been termed: pulling up roots, provisional adulthood, and transition to commitment, settling down, potential mid-life crisis, and reestablishing and flowering.
Pulling up Roots-Ages 16-22
We've seen that a major early concern is breaking away and establishing independence. We crave emotional and financial autonomy, but most college students must accept their continued economic dependence on their parents (most do it gratefully, of course, but some deeply resent this remaining blockage to independence and adulthood-some even "flunk out" to force their independence).
Once on a "real" full-time, year-round job, we are concerned with proving to ourselves that we are competent to make our own way. Jobs tend to be perceived as immediate vehicles for income and self-support, rather than as introduction to careers.
Getting established-ages 22-29
Making commitments to others through family, profession, cause, or organization sets the stage for developing the knowledge and behavioral skills necessary to become valuable to an employer. Career success becomes more important to most of us. Awareness of the inadequacies of one's earlier education leads some to attend graduate school in the hope that it will provide entry to a ladder closed to those without appropriate education. Most entering MBA students, for example, have worked for two or three years after college, in contrast to most medical and law students who go right from senior year into a new freshman experience.
Many organizations today put enormous pressures on new college graduates to prove their commitment to their careers by working enormously long hours and sacrificing personal recreation to their employers' needs.
Transition questions-ages 29-32
Uneasiness about progress tends to be common at this stage. Many of us worry about whether we are in the right place, or if we are headed in the desired direction fast enough. Shifting jobs and organizations is common at this age because we are already becoming aware that personal options will begin to decline in the not-so-distant future. Past thirty, it becomes less reasonable to hold on to the myth that one could still start over and go to medical or law school, or change from engineering to English literature and become a college professor. (The mean age of earning a Ph.D. is thirty-one, ten years after college graduation-a fact reassuring to me because that was just the age at which I became an assistant professor.)
For those young business managers on the fast track, by their early thirties they may well have reached positions of significant and satisfying authority, but they are surprised by self-directed questions about the value of what they're doing. As one young branch manager put it to me,
"I'm a success, I earn over $70,000 per year and get a big kick from seeing the climbing sales chart, but sometimes I wonder if getting 'Colonel Zoom' cereal on every breakfast table is really worth devoting my life to" (especially since it was being attacked by nutritional experts as having little food value because it was mainly sugar-coated air).
This questioning can be difficult for a young manager to understand. After years of apprenticeship, he or she is beginning to reap the rewards of effort: autonomy, discretionary authority, and opportunity to achieve. Job morale is high. But for some this is not enough. They wonder: "Am I really selling out to the organization? Have I forgotten to ask the important questions of whether I'm growing as a person? Or am I contributing to society?"
As we've seen, the central issue of young adulthood is commitment versus isolation. But commitment is both admired and feared. A sense of certainty about career is desired because it simplifies one's life and stills the restlessness about whether you are in the right place. Nonetheless, one may also fear commitment because it means closing doors and giving up the pleasant illusion of unlimited choice. Maturity means facing reality and deepening interests. Therefore, a central facet of all careers becomes balancing commitment to performance with personal independence. Pure rebellion, which rejects all organizational values, can end only in departure; pure conformity which accepts everything means loss of self. Creative individualism accepts pivotal norms but searches for ways to have individual impact.
Many young professionals who move into management are surprised by feelings of dependence on their new subordinates. Maturity demands a declaration of psychological independence from home and parental authority while identifying oneself as an individual. Dependence (or more precisely, interdependence) on others can be difficult to handle. But, independence is impossible as a manager. Superiors are dependent on subordinates' performance, subordinates are dependent on their superior's judgment, and middle managers are dependent in both directions.
This mutual dependence can provoke anxiety. Many junior military officers have suffered from stress-induced illness (especially severely in-flamed gums, formerly called trench mouth) because they bear responsibility for their unit's safety and performance even though they don't have the experience or technical knowledge of their senior enlisted subordinates. Young officers cannot solve this problem by denying their downward dependence, but they can reduce it by learning the technical details of subordinates' duties. In the long run, however, young supervisors must recognize interdependence and strive to facilitate subordinate performance while representing their interests upward.
Settling down-ages 32-39
For ambitious, career-oriented people, this period is characterized by marked concentration on work, creativity, and advancement. For many people it is the greatest growth period in their lives, the era of greatest challenge and actualization of their potential-that is, if they have found a vocation or organization worth committing to. As a consequence of career demands, however, friendships and socializing are often curtailed compared with earlier periods. For many, career and family activities leave little additional time for other relationships.
Most young adults are aware of their aversion to being dependent on others, but they are usually surprised by their anxiety about having others dependent on them. As we acquire spouse, children, job status, and community position, we receive increased demands to give financial, temporal, and emotional support to more and more people. This sense of others' dependency can be gratifying, but one's time and energy are limited. Independent and self-reliant managers are sometimes disturbed to discover they feel dominated by the very people dependent on them. If and when the burden becomes too great, we must establish life priorities that balance the demands of employer, community, and family in a way that may fully satisfy none but allows relations to continue with all.
Now let's return to the three protagonists in our opening case and see how these ideas might apply.
What Others Think about Edwin, Maria, and Cynthia
Most people are more optimistic about Maria Lopez's decision in the insurance company than Edwin Mesko's in the Navy. Seventy-five percent of students and executives sampled recommend that Maria accept the promotion to assistant office manager because it would offer her opportunities to train, guide, and nurture young women in a manner consistent with her personality and values. To be sure, the regional vice president emphasized the wrong factors (status, power, and money) in his offer to Maria, but most feel that Maria would find the position's intrinsic activities satisfying. To do this, however, she needs to let go of the past and recognize that working in a professional capacity is not a deterrent to possible marriage (and indeed, it might offer increased opportunity to meet men more equal to her in maturity and competence).
Staying in her present role and trying to remain friends with all the support staff is not really a viable long-term option. The clock is ticking and Maria is already five to six years older than the average secretary. They will increasingly come to see her as an "older sister" and even "mother," a role which she seems to be already moving into gracefully. This could be formalized in the position of assistant office manager where she might make a valuable contribution to the firm by increasing staff concern for policyholders, which she did so well in her work in claims adjustment.
The 25 percent who feel that Maria should not accept the promotion are worried about her "softness." They fear that she would be unable to exercise discipline when necessary and would not protect the firm's interests while trying to keep everyone happy. Therefore, the company would have lost an excellent claims adjuster while creating (and eventually also losing) an ineffective office manager.
Toward Ed Mesko: My students and executives are more divided: 53 percent think he should refuse the offer to attend Officer Candidate School; 33 percent think he should go; and 14 percent think he should resign from the Navy and attend a university engineering school. The majority feel that his antipathy to authority and managers is just too deep-seated for him ever to be happy in that role. They feel he would just hate himself for "selling out" and that the stress of adhering to military standards and accepting responsibility for subordinates would exacerbate his drinking problem. In this view, his desire for independence is so strong that he would never be effective in an interdependent capacity.
Those who recommend that he resign from the Navy and attend engineering school agree with this assessment of Edwin, but feel that simply staying where he is will not work in the long run because he has a significant achievement need which would demand new learning experiences and challenges that could be satisfied only with greater education. Perhaps he could find an autonomous position in private industry that would allow substantially the same freedom that he presently enjoys in the Navy.
The minority 33 percent who say he should attend OCS are optimistic that Ed is now of an age where he can escape from his childhood memories and act on the intelligence, conscientiousness, and personal courage which he possesses. Indeed, with his understanding of life in the enlisted ranks, he might become an especially effective officer. Persuading him to do so would require a different emphasis than the prestige and power pushed by his Naval Academy division officer, but Ed might respond to challenge, personal growth, opportunity to serve, and patriotism.
With regard to Cynthia Wyeth at Gibraltar Bank, there is near unanimous agreement that she should accept the position as vice president and country manager for Central America. Eighty-eight percent believe that this position is most congruent with her desire to exercise power in a central banking function. The employment manager position would offer substantial power, but it is a staff function carrying less prestige and pro-motion potential than a line position in international banking.
A minority (12 percent), however, are worried about the Central American position. The manner of its being offered to Cynthia (as an apparently hurried response to her other offer) suggests to some skeptics that it could be a "no-win" post. Business in the area has been declining, perhaps because of political chaos and military action that are destroying the business climate. If so, significant improvement in the area's performance might simply be impossible so that Cynthia at best would be in a frustrating holding pattern or at worst might be blamed for the collapse of the bank's business there. Cynthia might be able to protect herself by analyzing the situation before she accepts the offer and attempting to define performance measurements in advance, but it still could be risky.
I once discussed Cynthia's situation with a group of professional women in a group called The Women's Personnel Manager's Association. They were more divided than most male respondents. About half the group agreed that the country manager vice presidency was more desirable as a role model for young professional women because Cynthia would be a pioneer at Gibraltar in what is clearly a power-axis function. The other half, however, argued for her taking the employment manager vice presidency on two grounds: (1) that her chances of personal failure would be less because it is a function where as a woman she would be less of a trail blazer; and (2) as the bank's employment manager she would have greater opportunity to fight discrimination and improve opportunities for women in all parts of the firm. These viewpoints were so disparate that substantial debate was provoked.
Now, let's summarize the practical advice implicit in the theory and cases we've described.
Advice on Growing up and Starting a Career
- Recognize the difference between counter dependence and independence by understanding that a mature person sometimes behaves as if he or she were conforming to parental or authority figure desires even though the behavior is independently chosen.
- Don't be afraid to conform on superficial customs like dress and manners if this will give you more freedom to non-conform on more fundamental issues. Superficial as they may seem, promptly returning telephone calls, answering invitations (and keeping your word), sending thank-you notes, and practicing proper table manners are important. Practicing such courtesies may not get you promoted faster, but impoliteness will almost certainly hurt you.
- Don't avoid your commitments by "calling in sick" on Fridays or Mondays just because you'd rather be in the mountains or at the beach. Occasionally taking a midweek afternoon off when nothing is pressing to go to a museum or play tennis is more responsible than spontaneously stretching weekends.
- Understand that independent autonomy is not a viable long-term option for most people, that making commitments and accepting interdependence are essential for a successful organizational or managerial career.
- Accept that maturation is not always unidirectional: sometimes you will mature from being primarily other directed toward being inner directed, but financial or social anxiety can provoke a renewed (but hopefully temporary) dominance by security and social needs.
- Balance your awareness of how your life philosophies have been shaped by your parents' behavior and your childhood experiences with recognition that you are not enslaved by the past; that however valid your parents' admonitions might have been in their time, conditions change and life's successive new challenges are yours to deal with in the here and now.
- Accept that anxiety is endemic in human affairs. It stems from our fundamental nature that in contrast to all other creatures we are aware of our possibility for creative action, not mere slaves to genetically coded instructions. Potentially, we can stand outside of ourselves and be attracted by dreams. But anxiety often results from this consideration and its possibilities. To move en to higher needs for power, achievement, and creativity involves danger and the risk of failure in facing the unknown. To be sure, we mature from such confrontations, but facing successful challenges means repeated separations, giving up old and comfortable ways and embracing new ones. If we do not respond to our beckoning needs, we may stagnate and be permanently chained to lower drives, becoming frustrated and embittered. "To venture," wrote Soren Kierkegaard, "is to face anxiety, but not to venture is to lose oneself.
