Lifestyle, Autonomy and Challenge. My career anchors. Give me flexibility and freedom and I’ll tackle almost anything. How do YOU find meaning in your work?
One day last month, I woke up and started writing this blog. Just like that, my sabbatical had come to an end. Time to get back to work and back in touch, before too many people realized I’ve been on a break! And I’m so happy to be back at my desk.
If you’ve ever taken a career break or sabbatical, long service leave or just a nice long holiday, you’ll know that the process of stopping does something very important: it gives pause to reflect on the present. To assess our life, our priorities, our success and – sometimes – our failings too.
This process is so important. It gives us a checkpoint. It reminds us why we do what we do. More often than not we return feeling excited, refreshed and ready to tackle a whole new wave of challenges.
Sometimes though, it gently prods us to make some changes. Because occasionally, what we discover when we stop and take a breath, is that we’re not feeling as inspired, excited and motivated as we once did.
No doubt you’ve heard the anecdote of the boiling frog and how the frog is – unwittingly – slowly boiled alive. The premise is that a frog placed in boiling water will jump out; whereas if placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it doesn’t perceive the danger and will be slowly cooked to death.
Over the years I’ve lost count of my coaching clients who’ve described the same phenomenon in their careers: it all started out fine, they were happy enough in the beginning. But over time, as the heat was upped and they were slowly asked to bend and mold in different directions and take different tangents in their career, they slowly became less and less engaged. Yet they didn’t notice it until they had a reason to stop and reflect.
For some it was parental leave. For some it was carers leave with ageing parents. Often it was annual leave or long service leave. Or a life changing event like losing a parent, gaining a child, buying a house or moving to another city.
Whatever the reason, they were given an opportunity to take stock and take a deep breath. This breakpoint provides the opportunity to pause and really reflect on your career, where you’re at, and what’s likely to be coming next.
And for some, this is when the worry sets in.
If you wake up one day and realize you’re not in love with your job – or your life – any more, don’t worry. You’re not alone. And it’s easy to change.
But… if you’re contemplating a move into a new job, new industry, new location or maybe starting a new business… don’t! At least until you understand what’s really intrinsically important to you.
Understanding what motivates you, inspires you, and enables you to push on when the going gets tough is a fundamental factor for career success. The tool I use and recommend for this process is Edgar Schein’s Career Anchors. Although it’s been around for 40 years, it’s still the most used tool for understanding how we derive meaning from work.
Career Anchors theory brings together our perception of our skills, values, motives and needs into a single statement, and organises our career motivations around eight main types:
- Technical/Functional – you derive your sense of identity from building and exercising skills and expertise in a particular area;
- General Managerial – you want to climb the ladder, to lead others, to be involved in decision making and motivating others, and to be responsible for the output of the team that you lead;
- Autonomy/Independence – you are driven by the ability to define your own work in your own way, and to have flexibility regarding when and how to work.
- Security/Stability – you would not give up employment security or tenure in a job or organisation, they are the most important considerations for you;
- Entrepreneurial Creativity – your overarching career objective is to create an organisation or enterprise of your own, built on your own abilities and your willingness to take risks and to overcome obstacles;
- Service/Dedication to a cause – you want a role that enables you to achieve help others and making the world a better place to live;
- Pure Challenge – you are driven by the opportunity to work on solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems, to succeed over tough opponents, or to overcome difficult obstacles; and
- Lifestyle – How you live your total life, where you settle, how you deal with your family situation, and how you develop yourself is more important than any particular job or organisation. Therefore your career needs flexibility to bring all of the major elements of your life together into an integrated whole.
It’s been 14 years since I first used this tool to assess my own Career Anchors – well before starting a family of my own and while I was still working in a big consulting firm. Back then I rated Lifestyle, Autonomy and Challenge as my main anchors.
Today, having adapted to the responsibilities of parenthood and been self employed for over a decade, I’d have to say these anchors have only persisted but they’ve actually grown stronger.
Once your anchors are understood, it’s possible to assess their fit with your current job roles and responsibilities and identify areas of alignment (and misalignment!), or as a checkpoint for evaluating future career pathways.
And although these anchors were designed with career in mind, they’re usually a good reference point for how you manage all relationships and choose to live your life in general.
Have you ever used this tool? Which are your dominant career anchors? Are they in alignment with your current role? Are there areas you’d like to challenge or address?
Post your comments here – I’d love to read them.
Yours in quiet contemplation,
Jen 🙂
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