I scored goals - Blair McPherson

If you were a footballer you might judge your success in goals. If you were a surgeon it might be the lives saved.  If you were a foster carer it would be the lives you have changed for the better. So how should the rest of us judge our careers?

 

Imagine that somebody asks you the following question: “How successful has your career been so far?” Would it be easy or hard to answer ? Would you refer to your bank-account, would you refer to your reputation among colleagues, would you refer to an ongoing project?

 

At some point in my forties I decided that career success required being a Director by the time I was 50. I did become a Director but not before I was 50 and not in the way I assumed it would happen. Success was status,  pay ( I had a nice round figure in mind) and company car. When I was being interviewed for those Directors posts and asked about my accomplishments I gave examples of successful projects, well executed reorganisations, and challenging budget cuts delivered. Earlier in my career I would have talked about my involvement in innovate projects and work championing Equality and diversity. Strange then that now I consider my most satisfying and meaningful work was my first job, terrible pay, very low status, working in a children’s home. 

 

In asking myself the question how successful do you feel I would say in some posts I made a lot of changes which I saw as achievements, in these posts I felt had real influence, in other posts I was able to bring about very little change and felt frustrated that despite my seniority I had little influence. My attitude to the work was often determined by whether I felt my colleagues were like minded, life was far pleasanter when they were.