It may seem odd to be talking about starvation at a time when most of us are indulging in an abundance of holiday food, but the starvation I’m referring to has nothing to do with what we consume by mouth and everything to do with how we nurture our professional growth.
As I write this column (the week before Thanksgiving) I know there are business professionals who hunger for a little time and space to reflect on where they are in their lives, just as people in third world countries hunger for a bowl of rice. The difference is that for the professionals the starvation is self-imposed.
I see some degree of professional starvation in almost every client I meet with, and I respond much the way a physician would to malnourishment by prescribing an immediate “I. V. of positive energy” from voices outside the draining (and often dysfunctional) systems in which they have isolated themselves.
When I was growing up in the Connecticut suburbs in a middle-class family, I had no idea what starvation looked liked until I was given a book of photographs of people from all over the world by Edward Steichen entitled, The Family of Man. Above the faces of one group of men, women and children was the caption, “Nothing is real to us, but hunger.”
Those words came back to me a few years ago when I was working with the Vice President of Marketing for a well known consumer products company. She had made time in a her 70-hour-a-week schedule to come to me for a career retreat because, in her words, she was “desperate” to change her work situation.
She had been aware for some time that the demands of her position were eroding her effectiveness as a leader, and that she had neglected her own professional well-being.
What she was not aware of, however, was that she had cut herself off from the professional “nourishment” that had made her successful in the first place.
After reviewing her impressive career track, I asked her about the people who had helped her along the way—teachers, mentors, role models in the corporate world. For a few moments her face was blank. Then she slowly groped for names, as if searching for landmarks in a dense fog.
When I asked how often she accessed these nurturing voices and when she had last had contact with them, she only shook her head. She had been too busy, and the busier she had become the more the people who had given meaning to her professional journey had slipped away from her. Her job had so taken her over that she had stopped “feasting” on the bounty these resources provided.
Nothing was real to her but her hunger to get out of the situation she was in. She had forgotten that it was possible to sit across the table from a trusted colleague and be fed!
I. V. OF POSITIVE ENERGY
In his essay entitled, “Effectiveness Must Be Learned”, Peter Drucker observes that when we speak of a profit center in a business as a place where money is made, we are using a “polite euphemism”.
“Inside an organization,” he says, “there are only cost centers,” the drain of money and energy needed to produce a product or deliver a service.
Profit only comes from the outside, or as Drucker wryly puts it: “The only profit is a customer whose check hasn’t bounced.”
This concept of cost centers applies not only to organizations, but also to business owners and executives themselves. When their attention is exclusively directed inside the organization (it makes no difference whether it’s a sole proprietorship or a corporate division), they are using up creative energy, knowledge and talent without renewing it.
Only by looking outside their daily routine for sources of replenishment can they be sure that their professional lives will continue to be profitable.
I see some degree of professional starvation in almost every client I meet with, and I respond much the way a physician would to malnourishment by prescribing an immediate “I. V. of positive energy” from voices outside the draining (and often dysfunctional) systems in which they have isolated themselves.
The “steady drip” of a few basic things is all that’s needed to assure healthy professional development. My personal preferences involve reading, studying, dialogue with a few well-chosen supporters, and the pursuit of learning opportunities.
Things such as:
- Scheduling quarterly meetings with colleagues I respect to catch them up on my activities and goals
- Mapping out a focused reading program on a “semester-to-semester” basis, as if I were enrolled in the graduate studies program
- Attending learning forums presented by thought leaders whose work supports and affirms my philosophy and approach
In the case of the VP of Marketing, the solution turned out to be as simple as restoring regular email contact with a former boss who had mentored her in an earlier stage of her career.
What is essential is not that you do one particular thing or another, but that you make connecting to sources that regenerate your sense of who you are and who you want to be professionally a consistent part of your work life.
So before the new year, while you’re resolving to eat healthy and exercise more, consider what you might put in place for 2006 for the proper care and feeding of your professional life.
