A Personal Case Study in Career Development – Part 6

A Rule about Rules

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
                                                                                                             Albert Einstein

 In the previous blog post, we cited examples of the central role played by rules in human interactions.  Einstein’s quote on the rules of the game plus playing better than the competition is great advice for anyone pursuing career development who wants to achieve lifelong career success and satisfaction.

The Rules of Career Development

There are both general rules and specific rules associated with successful career development.

The general rules are simply those that apply to all successful human interactions, e.g., treating others with respect, being kind and considerate in your dealings with everyone, and practicing the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In addition, there are highly structured rules, or decision criteria, that for years have demonstrated great success in changing dreams into reality such as, for example, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or Robert Shirley’s Model of Strategic Planning.  In both cases, these decision criteria apply to individuals and organizations.

The specific rules first tailored to successful career development were developed by Bernard Haldane and summarized in his book: Career Satisfaction and Success: A Guide to Job and Personal Freedom.  Haldane’s Six Rules for Attracting Job Offers are these:

1.       Know that employers want good employees

2.       Present yourself at your best
3.       Know how valuable you can be to an employer
4.       Know the importance of asking for help or advice
5.       Get yourself remembered
6.       Enlarge the chain of helpfulness.

The details behind these rules prepare individuals for a lifetime of career satisfaction and success.

Playing the Game Better than the Competition

Playing any game better than the competition is known to require motivation, planning, self-discipline, and a commitment to personal and professional continuous improvement.  As for motivation, Henry Ford may have said it best: “Those who think they can and those who think they can’t are both right.”

A Homegrown Approach

In the fall of 1972, because of my experience with Haldane Associates and the Strong Interest Inventory, I had a precise career direction in mind for the first time in my life.  And inside any university, that direction would point up the ladder of line- (not staff-) positions, beginning with a pool of hundreds of tenure-track assistant professors at the bottom rung, and ending with single university president at the top.  If we think of it that way, the highly competitive nature of the challenge I had in mind is revealed.   

I was very eager to learn the rules and to play the game better than anyone else.  And while I couldn’t explain it then, I did feel that my career ladder was “leaning against the right wall,” in the immortal words of Stephen R. Covey—but I wouldn’t learn of Covey’s beautiful metaphor until 25 years later.

My homegrown approach to achieving the career development goals I had set involved frequent reminders to myself that any move up the ladder required two positive promotion decisions (a first to associate professor rank, and a second one to full professor rank).  I quickly learned that it would take more than six years to gain both promotions, and might even take that long to accomplish just the first!

Hence, it became necessary to also plan for the awarding of “tenure,” which at Villanova was based on a six-year probationary period.  That is, aside from the issue of promotion in rank, all tenure-track faculty members faced an “up or down” decision by the university as to whether their seventh year of service would be their last year of employment (if denied tenure), or the first of many years of service (if granted tenure) with what basically amounted to a guaranteed employment contract for life!   

At that time, the requirements for promotion to associate professor at Villanova were similar to those necessary for a positive tenure decision.  This meant that my first task was to begin working toward meeting or exceeding the requirements necessary to achieve both of those goals as soon as possible.

Villanova’s rules regarding promotion and tenure appeared in a Faculty Handbook that was given to every new faculty member.  I studied my copy carefully and thought about what it would take to meet the thresholds listed for the various promotions.  I kept that Handbook in my desk drawer and consulted it frequently.  Although trained as a physics-major—not an English-major—I noted that the various thresholds for promotion and tenure were expressed not in numbers but in carefully chosen words, and was reminded, not for the first time, that great exactness can be built into carefully crafted sentences, and that thoughtfully written prose can specify extremely precise outcomes.