Is It Time to Make a Change?
Once upon a time, I was leading a team who helped people find work in organisations where they could make their best impact in their career – a dream come true! I’d always prided myself on proactively managing my career and taking roles that were in line with my values and that allowed me to grow and to make an impact. That’s what made my role at the time so magical – I was helping other people do the same.
One year and one month later, however, things started to change.
The next major employer branding campaign my team and I had been working towards was shelved. The CEO, who was a major reason for me joining the organisation, announced her move to a competitor. Our new CEO, who had very different priorities, was announced.
Then... there was a merger / takeover.
Then… the big four consultancy firms came in.
Then… the cost cutting started.
Then… then… then …
Then, we found ourselves having to justify our place in the organisation and fighting to show the value of what we had built, what we had poured our hearts, minds and souls into. What we’d worked for disintegrated. My role no longer existed.
I’d been so busy ‘fixing’ and ‘firefighting’ in order to overachieve in my current role that I had not prepared or positioned myself for the future.
The strategy turned from transformational, business-wide and global, limitless impact to cost-cutting and limited impact. I could now do my role in my sleep with capabilities I had in the first few years of my career, not the stretching, valuable ones that give me so much more satisfaction.
While we were in merger and transition mode, I was offered alternative roles. However, I felt none of them were aligned with my values or strengths or what drove me internally or what would make a big, meaningful impact. Work became like a pebble in my shoe. It wasn’t the worst job (or life) but I wasn’t being fulfilled or inspired.
Moment by moment, I could feel my purpose, value and impact was being eroded. Within every meeting and every presentation, I felt less engaged and less motivated. I felt myself getting smaller and smaller in terms of impact and value. I felt less heard; my voice was reduced to a whimper.
I began to question myself:
Am I satisfied that this is it? Is this all I have to give?
Should I take the ‘safe’ roles offered to me or do I venture into the unknown to make more impact?
Surely, I can contribute more than this? What’s next?
On a deeper level, I thought, Is this really who I am? Is this all I can be? I know I can BE MORE and make more impact.
It was time to do some real soul-searching. It was time to make a change.
A World of Change
As a senior executive woman, I had put my eggs into one basket – one organisation and one job that I loved – and it had changed overnight. Then I put them into a relationship that I loved and that changed overnight as well.
In all the working so hard, caring, worrying and contributing to the organisation and my team, I had let others control my future. I had put the organisation and everyone else first. I hadn’t planned options and I had been caught with the consequences of a ‘work hard, give your best and commit – the opportunities and rewards will follow’ career (and life) plan.
I was an award-winning executive who had built up global recognition of my expertise in maximising employer brands, leadership and organisations, and developing them for the future.
Yet, I had no future strategy or plan B for myself. Plan A had disintegrated. I was so far from futureproofed, it wasn’t funny!
I was so far from everything that I would have advised anyone to have or be or do – individuals, leaders and organisations. I had been futureproofing others but not futureproofing myself.
It was time to get back in the driver’s seat and to find a successful, sustainable and impactful path that was true to me.
I couldn’t wait for my dream role and future to present itself. I needed to create it for myself.
I share these experiences because I can relate to the constant internal call for career change as well as sudden, dramatic, out of your control, external catalysts for career change. I am well aware that millions globally and locally have it much worse than myself. And I see much more change coming and millions who are not prepared or positioned for it.
After a tough journey back to clarity, I started a consulting business (during the GFC) from a laptop in a one-bedroom apartment in Washington DC – a city I had only known from a best-practice HR & Branding Conference and from the nightly news that beams around the world. I used my professional branding, change, recruitment and leadership skills to engage with clients around the world.
Over the next eleven years, that business would allow me to help thousands of executives, professionals, leaders and women to futureproof their careers, leadership, organisations and lives. I would help them to navigate the ever-changing external environment while remaining centred and aligned with their internal purpose, and amplifying their positive impact and contribution.
Futureproofing is my life’s purpose – I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you. I want you to create and maximise your future.
Confront Your Reality
Do a quick check-in. Are any of the following statements true for you?
I want a meaningful, impactful, fulfilling career.
There is more to my career, leadership and life.
I have more to give.
I am overwhelmed with expectations, roles, workload and/or options and I can’t see a clear path for what’s best anymore.
I don’t have a career or future plan.
I am not feeling my whole self at work.
I don’t want to sell myself or to be ‘cut down’.
I don’t know how to brand myself authentically to be more influential, impactful and valuable.
I don’t want to regret not making the impact I could have.
I am driven to achieve, contribute and be a role model.
I have a need to maintain my livelihood and lifestyle (and others); I want to maximise my value, worth and impact.
Something needs to change but I don’t know what or how.
Yes? Then it’s time to Futureproof You.
You can BE MORE.
You can MAKE MORE IMPACT IN YOUR CAREER.
You can be your AUTHENTIC, WHOLE SELF and BE VALUED MORE FOR IT.
You can ADAPT and MAXIMISE YOUR VALUE & FUTURE in an ever-changing world.
Learn how you can go about making a change in my book: Futureproof You: 3 Keys to Reimagining Your Career and Amplifying Your Impact in the New World of Work