MANAGING CAREERS

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 2020

PEARL MALHOTRA
WHAT SHOULD ADAM BAKER DO?

 Pay heed to his mentor’s advice

 CEO in waiting (succession planning)
 He’s still young, a newbie, he should learn, extract more from his mentor
 He doesn’t have a choice
 Honesty should be appreciated

 All or nothing route (persist with the cause)

 Prove Merwyn right – not fit, not assertive, cannot fight (test?)
 Get the job you want to learn
WHY ARE CAREERS SO IMPORTANT

 Part of your identity – it is who you are

 It is linked to self-esteem, self-worth, notions of self
 It is linked to other parts of your wholistic being – your happiness, satisfaction, your
general quality of life
 Success – defines you and your position in the society?
FIND YOUR MARSHMALLOW

 “Work Passion Pursuit Questionnaire, (2017 German study)

 Enjoyment at the workplace versus deriving purpose/ meaning - hedonia (feeling good) and eudaimonia
(leading a purpose filled life) – or both?
 Career could be of many kinds:
 Aspirational – Linear careerist, corporate ladder or technical billionaire entrepreneur
 Steady state careers (The Expert Path)
 The Transitory careers (The challengers)
 The Spiralists (Build one, grow and leave and start all over again)
 Protean careers and boundaryless careers
WHICH ONE IS ADAM BAKER?

 The starting question should be “what is Baker’s Marshmallow?”

WHAT MAKES A CAREER?

 Careers will have ups and down – all success and hopefully failures are dynamic. So what
does it take?
 Talent, skill, mental toughness, hard work, tenacity, optimism, growth mindset, and
emotional intelligence – success is equal to competency
 passion, perseverance, imagination, intellectual curiosity, and openness to experience--
do significantly explain differences in success
 Highly unexplained (could it be luck and opportunity ?) – study by Italian scientists!
MANOEUVRING A DYNAMIC CAREER

 The key to move from one career high to another is an easy one to find; the more difficult
one is moving up/ away from a low-career phase
 ‘Even a great talent becomes useless against the fury of misfortune.’
 Mathew Effect -  the rich get richer and the poor get poorer/ or isn’t that just meritrocracy?
 For example – people with “long CVs” versus “short CVs” getting a job – showed no statistical
different productivities
 The divorce of “Talent/ hard work/ productivity / performance” and “success”
 But is this defeatist?
ADAM BAKER AND FITTING INTO THE CEO’S ROLE

 Person-environment fit (e.g. Recession, future of work, buoyant job market)

 Person-job fit
 Person-organisation fit (e.g. Anticipatory psychological contract)
 Person-culture fit (e.g. individualistic vs. collectivist cultures)
HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO ADAM BAKER

 Attribution error?

 What can he do now?

 https://hbr.org/2020/04/reinventing-your-career-in-the-time-of-coronavirus
 https://hbr.org/2012/10/no-you-cant-have-it-all