Despite the increasing prevalence of social media and telecommuting as a work style option, as human beings we obviously can’t do without face-to-face unmediated communications. While video conferencing certainly helps to bridge the gap somewhat, it still isn’t the same as being together in a room. Amy Slagell notes that “there remains a significant role for public speaking as a means for sharing ideas and motivating others.” [1] New communication channels such as Youtube have allowed for mediated public speeches that can reach a larger and broader audience (though at the same time, introducing new challenges and complications).

Immediate feedback during public speaking, largely in the form of nonverbal cues can help the speaker gauge how well the audience is listening and resonating with the message being communicated. Such real-time feedback is invaluable and is lost in mediated forms of communication. This is to say that the audience is not passive as the speaker delivers the speech, but individually, as a group and in their interaction with the speaker, they are active in creating meaning. Slagell writes:

Listeners bring their own experiences, languages, expectations, and ways of making meaning into the public speaking interaction. The meanings taken away from a public-speaking presentation depend on the audience member’s work in creating them. The more researchers investigate the ways people learn, the more it becomes clear that complex biological and social processes are at work as audience members construct their own meanings in communication contexts. Public communication is a participatory process; a speaker cannot make himself or herself understood without the willing participation of the listener in the process. The complexities of the mental landscapes of audience members—individually and as groups—is part of what makes public speaking a creative challenge that is never fully mastered. [2]

It is this “creative challenge that is never fully mastered” and my desire to connect with an audience that inspired me to join Toastmasters. To be able to look into the face of the Other (to speak in Levinasian language) and make a genuine connection is an intimate and rewarding experience.

With so many avenues for gathering information and for communicating ideas open to the citizens of the 21st century, the central questions for an aspiring speaker must be “What is the added value of using public speaking as the means of communication for a particular message?
…
The answer, of course, is the presence of the speaker. There is high demand for the opportunity to experience firsthand the ideas, voice, facial expressions, gestures, energy, and, in a sense, the character of a speaker through the public-speaking context. The physical presence of a speaker conveys a level of attention of the speaker for that particular audience, which is a gift every bit as desired as is the attention that audience is offering to the speaker. The possibility of an authentic connection continues to bring audiences together. [3]

Endnotes

1. Amy Slagell, “Public Speaking”, p. 194, in 21st century communication: a reference handbook (ed. by William F. Eadie, SAGE Publications, 2009).
2. Slagell, ibid., p. 197.
3. ibid., p. 201.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

(emphasis mine)

You have to understand that job satisfaction is controlled by employers, while career contentment is controlled by individuals independent of employers. …

Once employees are on the job, their satisfaction is codependent on their performance in exchange for what the employer offers to attract, motivate, and retain them. They expect to be made satisfied, but not at the expense of wasting their time and talents in the wrong job or career. If they’re not satisfied, they’ll leave—and it doesn’t matter how hard the employer tries to keep them satisfied.

Just as employers are obligated first to pay attention to the purpose of their business and only second to the commitments they make to employees, employees are obligated first to pursue their life purpose and only second to keep the commitments they make to employers. Each is in control of their destiny, and each perceives the other as instrumental to their purpose but interchangeable to suit their evolving needs. Employers change people, just as people change jobs, careers, and employers.

… Frankly, if you expect pay, benefits, perks, your employer, or any other traditional measures to provide you with contentment, your search will be long and fruitless. Career contentment must come from within you.

I’ll post more thoughts after I’ve read a few chapters.

In the meantime, this song seems very fitting for my current context:

I’m still turning myself to the great key, I’m still, I’m still
I’m still mining for light in the dark wells, I’m still, I’m still

I’m still a frequency swaying, a leaf in the wind, I’m still, I’m still
I’m still searching for whispers in between yells, I’m still, I’m still

I’m still swimming in harmony, I’m still dreaming of flight
I’m still lost in the waves, night after night

I’m still an arrow unshot, fixed in a bow, I’m still, I’m still
I’m still a fire unlit, ready to go, I’m still, I’m still

I’m still loaded and waiting, with anticipation to fly
I’m still studying the patterns in the night sky

I’m still a note that’s unplayed, ink on a page, I’m still, I’m still
I’m still a cry in the night, lonesome and high, I’m still, I’m still

I’m still tuned to an instrument of greater and unknown design
I’m still looking for direction, some kind of sign

I’m still tuning myself to the great key, I’m still, I’m still

I think the phrase I’m still pretty much captures the dynamic tension I feel: on the one hand, I’m STILL searching, and yet, there is a growing sense of acceptance, contentment, i.e., I’m “still”.  My circumstances remain the same, yet my attitude seems to be slowly changing …

I’m still …

Specifically, the authors examine four external influences:

1. Family expectations and needs
2. Life circumstances
3. Spiritual and religious factors
4. Social service motivation

The first point is certainly a constraining factor in any change of career choice I may make insofar as it impacts work-life balance.  Financial remuneration and retraining costs would also be considerations that relate to this point.

With respect to life circumstances, the authors admit this is a rather broad category that “refers to all of the uncontrollable situations, events, and conditions that occur at an individual and societal level that may constrain career decision making.”  For example, the current economic climate has an obvious bearing on the job market. A change in one’s health status would be another factor that would override any ideal career path one might be envisioning.  While the authors also state that these unpredictable circumstances can be “positive and produce beneficial career outcomes for an individual, such as serendipitous events that lead to better employment”, that generally hasn’t been the case for me, and in any case, one can’t depend on serendipity alone!

I was going to just brush off the third factor as irrelevant but clearly there is something to said for individuals who believe that there is a Divine plan for their lives, including their career which they view as their calling. This sense of an integrated and  transcendent framework for their lives that grants a sense of purpose, mission, and meaning in life would obviously be a powerful motivating and sustaining force. Indeed, the authors note that research has  found “such factors relate positively to desirable career development outcomes such as career decision self-efficacy, career maturity, and job satisfaction”.  Maybe this prodigal son needs to return home …

The last external influence, social service motivation, resonates with me as volunteering has been a very rewarding experience, though I’m not sure I’m quite as altruistic as those whose “desire to serve others may take precedence over other aspects of personal fulfillment.”  At the same time, I have recently considered the possibility of working for not-for-profit organizations that align with my interests and support. Alas, there usually aren’t a lot of openings in these organizations.

At this stage in my life, a desire for growth, purpose and significance are probably the main driving forces behind my restlessness. How to fulfill this desire within the constraints noted here and elsewhere on this blog is still something I’ve not quite figured out yet.

Here’s a remark made early on in the article: “plateauing may have harmful consequences for both the employee and the organization”.  Gosh, really?!    Yeah, I know, academic research has to be rigorous and all that. But still.

I’ll summarize some of the article’s key points and then offer some of my own observations and opinions.

The authors note that employees who have plateaued in their career are generally still solid performers.   Therefore, “managers, because of their limited resources, tend to concentrate their attention on the organization’s rising stars and problem employees.  As a result, most plateaued employees, who generally continue to perform well at work, are pushed aside.”  And though it may not be intentional,  “the resulting sense of abandonment could be a source of declining motivation and psychological distress.”

They go on to describe two forms of career plateauing: structural (or hierarchical) plateauing, when an employee has low likelihood of vertical advancement (and possibly horizontal as well), and content plateauing, “which occurs when individuals have mastered their work and feel it no longer offers opportunities for learning or challenge.”  Then they state what to me seems obvious, that “plateauing has generally always been associated with negative consequences. Among other things, it has been linked negatively to employee satisfaction at work, affective commitment to the organization, work performance and psychological well-being.”  In other words, if you feel you’ve hit a plateau in your career, then you’re going to be a stressed, unhappy, emotionally disconnected and disengaged employee.  Surprise, surprise!

They hypothesize that career plateauing (structural and content) are negatively related to employees’ perception of supervisor (manager) and organization support. In other words, generally speaking, an employee experiencing plateauing perceives less support from his or he manager.  He or she may blame the supervisor for unfair performance reviews or preferential treatment of other team members. As well, “employees experiencing hierarchical or content plateauing have often been left out in the cold by the organization” (or so they feel).  In this case they may blame downsizing or company policies (e.g. outsourcing) for example.

I would suggest that in addition to content and structural plateauing, we might add what I’ll call compatibility plateauing, which can result from the first two. That is, an employee who finds herself stuck in her career because she feels there’s no chance of upward mobility or that her current job is stagnant and  has “become routine and no longer offer opportunities or challenges”, may opt for a lateral move (often without fully thinking it through) to a new role in the company because of the desire for change.  (The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.   Then over time, she realizes that her real interests and passions actually lie elsewhere.

When faced with career plateauing, what can an employee do?  What factors enter into their thinking and ultimately, their decision-making process?  This is outside the scope of the article, but there are some obvious considerations such as age,  internal and external opportunities, willingness to retrain, etc.  For me personally, my (positive) relationship with my manager and team has a strong weighting (i.e. commitment, loyalty) on any decision I would make, which unfortunately, only adds to the stress.  My wife reminded me of another factor: how much self-definition and significance do I derive from my career? Especially in relation to family, friends, health, volunteering, hobbies, etc.  A good question that I can’t give a simple answer to.

Of course, such a quest now seems silly, given the vast sea of data scattered throughout the Internet.  In this regard, Madelyn Blair’s recent book Riding the Current: How to deal with the daily deluge of data, which I just finished reading a few weeks ago, offers some very useful practical advice.  I’ll have more to say about this book in a future post.

The other night I was listening to an interview with James M. Bach (son of Richard Bach, author of the bestseller,  Jonathan Livingston Seagull), who describes his unconventional “education” growing up. Nowadays, of course, there is a whole unschooling movement afoot that seems to appeal to the radical and rebel types.

I thought of how this self-learning philosophy, in conjunction with so-called social learning, fits into modern corporate culture.  Well, it seems to me that job ads still ask for formal degrees, certifications and such things. Then of course, there’s this thing called “experience”.  So I’m wondering, as a professional at the past-midpoint of his career, how to transition to a new career, one that’s radically different from my IT background. It’s not good enough that I may have read avidly in that new field of interest – I have no formal training and no formal experience (unless you count my related experience volunteering on non-profit boards).

Well I’m told I should focus on “transferable skills”.  Sure, but at the end of the day, I still lack formal “domain” knowledge in the new field I’m planning to transition to.  So what’s one to do?  Invest the time and money for formal training?  At this stage of my life, I’m not sure I want to do that …

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don’t turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.

Those who do not understand
their destiny, will never understand
the friends they have made,
nor the work they have chosen,

nor the one life that waits
beyond all others.

- David Whyte, “All the True Vows”