Mr. Mom Goes to School
There may be a trend in the making. Some young men are staying home with the children while the wife goes heigh ho, heigh ho each weekday morning. An interesting twist, this seems to be a workable solution for families in which the husband is in a non-traditional career like creative writing, has a technology job that can be performed on a flexible schedule from a home office, or is in career transition. A number of young men need to back out of their careers and start all over to become who they might have been. Online and evening educational programs make the Mr. Mom role especially attractive.
In my experience men seem particularly prone to bad career choices on the first round. Many young men just don’t give much thought to their future while in high school, or worse yet, harbor the unrealistic idea that they can become a pro athlete (you wouldn’t believe how many 12-17 year olds cling to that dream!) and then scramble quickly to land on a major in college. Often the major is one they think will bring monetary success without their having bothered to determine whether or not it fits their temperament and talents. Capability has been considered without regard for suitability. How often have I seen unhappy accountants, lawyers and engineers! Some suffer throughout an entire career.
Recently I became acquainted with a retired accountant, whom I could see was very knowledgable in his field and who had owned a very successful CPA firm a few years back until health problems arose. I marvelled that this man had remained so long in the field, because he has a personality and temperament that seem “out of character” for this profession. His mind races ahead with ideas that his speech can hardly keep up with (something I measure when clients work with me, because idea productivity is a real asset in some careers and a real drag in others). Howard’s a very gregarious fellow who enjoys enteracting with people and I imagine if he’d been an employee he would have been what I call an office prairie dog. You know, the worker who keeps popping up over his cubicle, much like a prairie dog pops up from his hole to look around. Some people just can’t work in isolation and I was incredulous that this guy had been able to focus to do the detailed, accurate work that accountants must be able to do throughout his professional life. Then I heard the rest of his story…..
Howard had married a woman, also an accountant, who said when he opened his business, “Just put me in a back room, send the work in and close the door.” Howard said she was such a highly productive worker, that allowed him to go out and do what he loved to do which was to bring in new business. Eventually he brought in so much he had to find more wives, er, clones of his wife, who were just as happy in the back office. Howard was really a salesman who spoke fluent accounting. It enabled him to use his education, but tailor it to his personality. And everyone lived happily ever after when he sold his business for a healthy profit.
Not every apparent career mismatch turns out this well. Some men can’t reinvent themselves and find a niche in the same industry. If that has happened to you, it might be time to admit that the career’s not working and go home to play with the children (a very worthwhile vocation in itself) while pursuing a more realistic path, one that fits you “just right” (you think as you read that fairy tale for the umpteenth time to little Brenton and Kaitlyn). The important thing is to be sure that you discover your true talents before taking making a hefty investment in time and money, because, hey, you’re the one paying for that degree this time!
What? You still aren’t sure what those talents are? Then your’re not very different from most everyone else, according to Peter Drucker. So get on the fast track and contact me to find out! We can set a time to work together by phone while the children are napping.
Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at—and even then more people are wrong than right.
~Peter F. Drucker
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Will Your Career Make You One of the “Creative Class”?
We’d like to think that our work improves not only our personal financial picture, but has a positive impact on our region’s economy as well. Blogger Jason Keeling notes a group in West Virginia whose efforts to strengthen the state’s economy are directed toward developing its “Creative Class”. Coined by Author Richard Florida, this term refers to workers in areas like engineering, the arts, biotechnology, education, architecure and even small business ownership. Workers like these are going to drive our nation’s economy in the 21st century.
It’s an interesting point when considering what career to enter. Do you want to belong to the Creative Class and be one of the 40 million Americans who will, according to Florida, determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither? West Virginia hopes you will!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
The Only Way to Build Your Career
While I continue on th subject of finding your strengths, I would like to say that your strengths are the only thing you can really build on when trying to enhance your career assets. Common wisdom dictatesthat the way to improve professionally is by shoring up personal weaknesses. That is so wrong!
You cannot improve a weakness.
Why can I say this with such conviction? There is a whole ’strengths movement’ out there, initiated by venerable experts who say you can’t. As I pointed out in the previous post Peter F. Drucker can be considered the father of this movement. He probably ignited the whole thing with his 1966 book, The Effective Executive, in which he wrote: “The effective executive builds on strengths-their own strengths, the strengths of superiors, colleagues, subordinates…”. In 1987 David Cooperrider fanned the flickering flame with his premise that we must “build organizations around what works rather than fix what doesn’t.”
Marcus Buckingham made it personal in 2001, however, with his book, Now Discover Your Strengths and has furthered this thinking with his latest directive, Go Put Your Strengths to Work, in which he calls for a “personal strengths revolution” where we shed our societal preoccupation with improving through studying failure. He challenges us to investigate the unique and intricate patterns of our strengths, becoming an expert at ”finding, describing, applying, practicing and refining your strengths.”
Having helped many find greater career and life satisfaction by doing this very thing, I wholeheartedly agree! So don’t spend time trying to gain imperceptible improvement in your shortcomings when that same time applied to your natural strengths can pay off exponentially.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
