22 Jul 2024 4 min read

🌊Current🌊 vs. control

Replacing the five-year plan with a more adaptive approach

Have you ever witnessed the heartbreaking confidence of the expectant parent? Wow, do they have it all figured out. With research and planning, they can tell you exactly how they plan to defeat any parental challenges that come their way.

I’ll never forget my cousin’s baby shower, when she received a bassinet and declared with absolute conviction: “This will help her sleep through the night without a problem.” I was pregnant with my second child at the time, and decided not to burst her bubble.

Years later I reminded my cousin, now a mother of two, about how she believed she had solved sleep training with her bassinet research. We erupted into (slightly hysterical) laughter.

There’s nothing wrong with planning and preparation, but that’s doesn’t capture the whole picture. The best bassinet in the world is not going to guarantee a teething baby sleeps, and the most carefully crafted career plan won’t necessarily work out.

In this way, any of us confidently explaining our five-year plan in a job interview is a lot like that expectant parent. We can plan and prepare but we’re still going to need to adapt to unexpected challenges. Our circumstances are fluid, not set in stone.

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Another ladder lie

In previous posts we’ve examined some lies the career ladder contains: that we must go it alone when really our careers are full of people acting as tributaries; that the only acceptable path is upward when sometimes we need to step back to succeed; that constant productivity is a must when really we should shift according to the season we’re in.

The next big lie is this: that we alone are in control of our career progress.

Perhaps somewhere in the world, there is a career that actually unfolds exactly as expected over decades. Where the market conditions never change, the next steps are predictable, and the skills the person climbing this ladder has developed lead seamlessly into each promotion. In this environment, putting together a long-term career plan works well. According to Strategic Doing, a stable environment is essential for effective strategic planning.

This is not the reality most of us face: navigating unpredictable changes in a shifting professional environment. Not to mention experiencing shifting priorities in our lives (hello, bassinet).

🌊🌊🌊

In the career river framework, the shifting realities of the environment we’re working in is the current. We recognize that there are forces beyond our control that will push us toward or away from certain jobs or organizations, and we have to be ready to adjust our plans accordingly.

🌊🌊🌊

Recognizing that we can and should adapt our career plans to the shifting realities of our environment is essential. When I read my friend and former colleague’s description of sailing off the coast of Denmark with this in mind, his advice takes on additional meaning.

“Learning to sail and becoming better at sailing is a matter of calibrating yourself in your environment.”

How do we calibrate our career choices to the surrounding environment?

It starts with asking ourselves what’s realistically within our control. And recognizing that may change over time.

There are many, many, many calls to rethink the five-year-plan approach to careers, based on how rapidly our work environment is shifting.

My own first major career shift came as a result of currents beyond my control. I’d been working my way up the ladder at the newsroom, moving from reporter to editor. If you’d asked me for a five-year plan, I would have said I’d move to a role with more responsibility at a larger newsroom, targeting a major metro newspaper like The Chicago Tribune. The typical ladder climb plan.

Spoiler alert: that didn’t happen. The shifting currents of the news business meant there were fewer and fewer jobs at established newsrooms. By my seventh year at the newspaper, my boss and I were doing the jobs that seven people had done when I started. All those other positions had been cut.

It felt like doors were slamming shut all around me, and I didn’t know where I could go next. When it came to the four approaches to riding the career river, I was Adrift.

Imagine if I had stubbornly clung to my five-year plan in the face of these shifting currents. Instead, as shown in my career river map, I Navigated my way to a marketing role that allowed me to build my skills, and set the stage for every job that followed. I’m not at a major metro — I’m not even in a newsroom. But I’ve been able to do fulfilling work in journalism ever since.

I hope you also find freedom and fulfillment by letting go of what’s outside your control, and riding the current forward.

Happy navigating,
Bridget

Thanks for reading Explore Your Career River! Subscribe for weekly support and inspiration.

🔗 Links:

Career River

Tributaries

Stepping back to succeed

Understanding the season you're in

Lesson one: Don’t get seasick

Riding Your River: Unlock your next career move with this key question

Discover hidden themes by mapping your career river

Five-year plans