President Obama said in his speech last night, ‘The rules of work have changed’. Today, the Huffington Post asks “What is work?”. In “Part One” Arianna says “the rules of work have changed”.
Four days ago, Psychology today offers “The New Rules of Work”. In “Part One” Michele says “the rules of work have changed”. You’re getting the picture – it’s coming – the widespread announcement of what has been real, present, and true for quite some time. But now the right people are saying it – i.e. everyone.
Michele: “The old rules went something like this: you take a job in a hierarchical, structured, stable organization with a solid bricks and mortar business model – and stay there for thirty-plus years, moving up the ladder and getting pay raises according to the rules, until you retire with a pension and benefits provided by the kindly Big Daddy that is the company. The New Rules: No job is secure. You can expect to change careers five to seven times in the course of your life. You can be laid off from any job at any time. Your CEO can be fired at any time. Your company’s products or services can become outmoded and obsolete in the blink of an eye. You will not have a pension. You might not even have a employer match to your retirement account contributions. You might not get health insurance through an employer.”
She goes on… “Today, to be successful, you have to be a freelancer.“ Michele’s whole 3-part series is worth reading – either at Psychology today or at her own blog [links at the end of this post]
Sally at Talentworks told us more than 2 years ago: “Yes, unquestionably, the rules of work have changed. We’re in an angst-ridden environment now. Planned layoffs in July rose 26% compared with June… But don’t let that anxiety stop you from moving forward. Learn the new rules and get on with rocking the house.” – She had some great advice, like creating multiple revenue streams, and getting involved in revenue-generating projects (not the kind that most are – revenue sucking, time-wasting, massively over-budget time expenditures for the company), and my personal favorites: cut the interpersonal drama, bring more talent and skill, and don’t just rely on your personality as your value.
Albert Ellis told a gathering of CEOs in 2009: “individuals need to recognise that the rules of work have changed, possible forever, and adapt accordingly. Great career opportunities still exist in a downturn, but talent often fails to re-evaluate their career approach during a downturn despite the situation changing around them.” Albeit they were union busting, and the rest went on to say labor needs to compromise with management when times are tough, but still, the original idea is right as far as it goes.
Rosie, a judicial candidate, said in her 2009 campaign blog: “It’s time for more of us to understand that the rules of work have changed considerably.” She recommends relying on your Linkedin profile and other social media like Twitter to showcase your skills. You mean there’s a business use for Twitter after all?
Today (again) the edugain blog cites JT, a career columnist: “The rules of work have changed in the last twenty years, yet we continue to use outdated methods for managing our careers, leaving many Americans spinning their professional wheels.” Among JT’s rules are clarify your story (get the epic of the meaning of your work into a format that takes you forward), network (on everyone’s list – including Obama, who gave his speech on Twitter), and there’s some other stuff that career people say.
Everyone is saying “the rules of work have changed” Or at least about 60 people are: http://goo.gl/TQUrg – Ever since 2008. Well, we’ve been saying it on this blog, of course, for some years longer than that, hence the name of the blog, but back then people were still saying “No, no, the rules are the same – this is a minor hiccup – this will go away.” It was like watching someone so distraught with the disaster around us that he was saying, “That didn’t happen. Nothings wrong. Nothing’s wrong.” Over and over, except it was a general delusion – like zombies taking over the earth, and we all kept going to the mall. Now of course, we know two things: Something did happen. And it’s not necessarily wrong for a whole lot of us. There are a heck of a lot of people saying “the rules of work have changed” that started by saying ‘getting laid off was the best thing that happened to me – in, like, forever!’
Expect to see this getting louder and being more widespread (good thing we bought the darned domain), and be in the mouths of every career coach, columnist, and con man (no, I don’t mean they’re always the same thing), in the coming year. It’s a wave, get ready to ride it. Not the change – the change was that thing that knocked you or someone you know on their ass recently, and hasn’t let up. Personally I like the change – I think the change is good, or at least rife with opportunity. No, I mean the wave that’s coming now is the admission that change has happened. The weathermen have landed. Not the radical group of free thinkers – the ones who report the weather. They’re on the ground, and they’re letting us know, as we watch from our TVs (or these days, our social media and blogs) that our world has been flooded. We now live in water. We are now swimming in it. Good thing we have these guys around.
What this means is now, finally, we can have a cultural discussion, perhaps a debate, on what the rules actually are. Some things we get, but it’s like being told to get your resume in order during layoffs – duh. And some of it is old hat at performance-driven companies, but people just didn’t want to hear it – like, “we don’t have time to care whether you like so and so – what are you bringing of value?”. But some of it really is new-er – it’s new to some, but it was really the case in 2005. It’s just that now, we can stop pretending that people who say so are digging bomb shelters. We’re all agreed there’s a flood now, and we all want onboard the ark. And now you’re going to listen to lots of ladder climbers tell us all about the ark the moment they find the ladder. I don’t mean anyone in particular – just saying – it’s going to be on every freaking media outlet there is.
What’s fun about that, for me personally, is what we’ve been saying over at Free Agent Source: the doors are open, they have been since this started, and yes we have solutions; welcome aboard, the cabin is on the right. In the meantime, have you heard? Different rules! It really does, you know.
Huffington, Psych Today, Michele’s Blog, Sally, Albert & the CEOs, Rosie, JT, Google, Free Agent Source
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