Professional Starvation
by Beverly Ryle

t 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.

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.

Readers Write: Feedback on Last Month’s Column

My last column apparently struck a nerve because there was a good deal of impassioned reader response. A sampling follows:

Thank you, Beverly, for taking the time and effort in your newsletter to cover Barbara Ehrenreich's book Bait & Switch. It is all I have been discussing with colleagues lately. I was transformed by Ehrenreich's book, Nickel and Dimed, as I reexamined my views and reactions to the low-wage worker in America. Bait & Switch hit close to home, and did not seem to accurately reflect some of us in the so-called “transition industry” who work to help folks examine assumptions about themselves and the world of work. Your newsletter article explored some of the issues that both the client and the career consultant must consider when working on moving forward. Career Development Specialist, Newton , MA

Nice newsletter! You brought a lot of clarity and insight into this woman’s depressing view of the job search. Offering your clients cautionary notes and a book to counterbalance hers serves us very well. Professional Organizer, Chatham, MA

This was well written, bold and thoughtful. Thank you for being the progessive voice guiding through change in these challenging times. What I liked most about your review is that you offer alternatives to [Bait and Switch] which point toward the light and away from the insanity of doing the same old thing. Thanks. Owner, Executive Search Firm, Bethel , CT

Finally, I was honored to receive this email from Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute, The Three Boxes of Life, and How To Find Your Mission in Life.

Dear Beverly:

I wanted to tell you that I loved your critique of Barbara Enrenreich's latest book [Bait and Switch]. Books like hers set the public understanding of job-hunting back ten years. As you may recall, I have always taught that a person's job-hunting success or failure is a description of them, not of “what’s out there.” I was so glad you pointed out the error of her thinking, and the aim of her polemic. Bravo! Keep up the good work, Beverly.  I'm very proud of you.

Dick

Also in this issue ...

Quote-of-the-Month

Readers Write

About Us

Privacy Policy

As we move forward into the 21st century it’s pretty obvious to just about everyone that work isn’t what it used to be. Whether we work for ourselves, or for someone else, or are in transition, things are changing rapidly and we’re caught in a shift of seismic proportions. Many things are being demanded of us, and it’s going to require more than just new skills to survive and thrive. We’re going to need to learn how to get serious about taking care of the business of our professional lives.

Taking Care of Business
was created to focus on issues related to this re-education process. If you find it helpful, please pass it on to others you know who are trying to find their way through the new realities of the world of work.

We also invite you to share your thoughts by
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Quote-of-the-Month

The great majority of people tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than with results. They worry over what the organization and their superiors “owe” them and should do for them, and they are conscious above all of the authority they “should have”. As a result they render themselves ineffectual

The effective person focuses on contribution. He looks up from his work and outward toward goals. He asks, “What can I contribute that will significantly affect the performance and the results of the institution I serve?” His stress is responsibility.

The man who asks himself, “What is the most important contribution I can make to the performance of this organization?” asks in effect, “What self-development do I need?” We know very little about self development, but we do know one thing: people in general, and knowledge workers in particular, grow according to the demands they make of themselves.

More and more people in the workforce—and most knowledge workers— will have to manage themselves. They will have to place themselves where they can make the greatest contribution; they will need to learn to develop themselves. They will have to learn to stay young and mentally alive during a fifty-year working life. They will have to learn how and when to change what they do, how they do it, and when they do it.

From the essays “Effectiveness Must be Learned”
and
”Focus on Contribution”
by Peter Drucker
The Essential Drucker

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