Business Book Club: The Squiggly Career
I've set myself a goal to read one self-development book per month. To make sure I truly reflect on what I'm reading, I will extract the wisdom from the best business and personal development books and share it with you.
This time, I've been reading The Squiggly Career by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis.
The Book
In the world of the modern workplace, we have more control over how we work than any generation that has gone before us. We are no longer bound by the traditional corporate structure. We can choose where we work, when we work, how we work, who we work with and more importantly why we work. No longer are our careers bound to a traditional linear structure. Of course, with more choice comes more responsibility and therefore we need to decide what it is that we want to do in terms of our career direction. We need a roadmap, and The Squiggly Career contains a range of useful tips and exercises to help us create our own personalised plan for our career.
Identify your strengths and focus on what you are already good at
As a strengths coach myself, I was really pleased to see the book start with this skill. I am a big believer in following your strengths and as the book rightly points out, those who focus their work around their strengths are more engaged in the workplace. Tupper and Ellis refer to:
Natural Talents: things that you're just naturally good at.
Learned strengths: things you've acquired skill in over time.
Super strengths: Identify your top few strengths and evaluate them against criteria such as openness, success, frequency and how happy or fulfilling you find using them. These are your ‘Super Strengths’.
Recognise and integrate your values into your daily work life.
Tupper and Ellis explain that our values are formed over three phases:
Imprint phrase (1-7yrs)
Copycat phase (8-13yrs)
Rebel phase (14-21)
By the time you get to your twenties, you will probably have three to five core values that have followed you throughout your life.
When we become adults, we have to distinguish which values are ours and which ones were given to us and make a conscious choice about what we want our values around work to be
This section has some handy exercises to help you identify your own values and it also has some suggestions for work values in case you find this tricky.
Confidence can be learnt and practised
I was pleased to see this included because quite often when people don't implement the wisdom from books like this it's not because they don't know ‘the what’ or they don't know ‘the how’, it is usually because they don't have the confidence to take action.
In this chapter, the authors talk about what confidence is and how to identify your ‘gremlins’. Again, there are useful exercises in the book for how to do this.
Networking is an exchange of help
Networking has always been a useful skill to have but it is particularly important if you're going to pursue a squiggly career. The key takeaway is that networking is not just exchanging business cards, it's an exchange of help. It is more like cultivating a garden than creating a cobweb style network of people. The emphasis here is on nurturing and maintaining relationships. There is also a focus here on the quality of connections and being really specific about who we're networking with and why.
Focus on exploring future possibilities rather than linear paths
We shouldn’t take it for granted that the only way is up in our career and there is an exercise in this chapter I particularly like. The authors suggest you consider your direction from different perspectives:
The obvious possibility: this is the clear next step from where you are now.
The ambitious possibility: A stretch goal in your current role. The one that you would like but perhaps you lack the confidence to go for.
The pivot possibility: think of a way of using your existing skillset, knowledge and experience but applying them in a very different way.
Your dream possibility: if there were no barriers holding you back what would you do if you could do anything at all?
By looking at these three options you will probably find you have three very different answers or perhaps you will find there are some common threads. This exercise can help you think much broader and wider about your career direction.
Additional skills: curiosity, gathering feedback and GRIT
There are some final skills in the book that are sought after in almost all job roles.
Curiosity: being inquisitive and open. Spotting trends, opportunities, risks and managing complexity. People with a mindset of curiosity are better able to handle ambiguity and translate complex problems into simple solutions.
Feedback: knowing who to ask, being able to receive feedback and give it confidently too
GRIT: the ability to combine talent with effort in order to reach a long-term goal. The commitment to sustaining deliberate practice to turn skill into achievement.
What did I think of the book?
I think the book is great for helping you plan your career and a lot of the exercises are very similar to what I would do with my coaching clients. I wasn't as taken with a book as much as I thought I would be but I think that is because I’m already sold on what the book is selling.
One disappointment for me with a book is that it was talking about the new world of work but there's nothing in there about starting your own business or working on a freelance basis. If you're going to encourage people to think broad and wide about their career and how to recognize your talents and sell them, it seems odd to me that there wouldn't be a chapter on how to do that on the open market. Particularly as that is exactly what the authors did themselves. I would have liked to see a chapter about freelancing.
Overall, I think the book is great for anyone wanting to shape the direction of their career, and my recommendation is to do the exercises (even if you've done something similar before) as well as reading the content. If you use the book as a self-guided workshop, you will find some excellent food for thought for choosing your career direction.
What should I read next?
Have you read The Squiggly Career? What did you get from it? What should I read next?
If you have any recommendations let me know below or via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn
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