What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?

9 years old was my answer when I was in transition. That said there weren’t a lot of opportunities for a 9 year old executive….

Let me offer this exercise as a beginning in answering that question.

Create two columns on a piece of paper

Title one column: Tasks                                                            Title the other column: Culture

In your mind, go back to your first position (you know the one you considered a real job) be in that place and space.

List all of the tasks that you enjoyed doing (the ones that you lost track of time) and put them under the column labeled tasks.

Then list everything about the culture that you liked and put them under the culture column.

Once you are done, put it aside and go play.

You will repeat this exercise right up to your most current position. It is important not to do them all at one time.

When you are done pull those sheets of paper out and list all of the tasks then all of the culture attributes. Count how many times they came up and re-list them in the order of most often to least often.

You will begin to see a pattern. Take the top quarter and you now have your personalized job description and a set of culture attributes.

Begin conversations with your network about what those descriptions are called in their organizations or their industries. Ask them what the culture of their organization looks like or if they know of a company that has a culture like the one you are looking for.

It’s about starting with you and your patterns of preference and success. Save yourself time by not trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. Don’t change to fit into an organization instead find an organization that fits for you.

By the way... 9 years old… it’s a great age!