How Brilliant Careers Are Made and Unmade
July 31, 2017
The source of most career problems boils down to personal blind spots, argues Cast, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, in this accessible guide. Asking why some careers flourish and others stagnate or implode, he identifies five archetypes that personify common, and mistaken, mind-sets. These memorably named archetypes are as follows: Captain Fantastic, Solo Flier, Version 1.0, One-Trick Pony, and Whirling Dervish. Cast provides detailed descriptions of each, and readers are likely to find that some of these hit uncomfortably close to home. However, Cast does not put the entire onus for misguided career-planning on individual employees. Partly at fault, he says, is the focus-on-the-positives development process adopted by so many organizations for their workers. In his telling, management is not being honest about workforce competencies and skills or the lack thereof, and therefore does not foster real improvement. Cast ends by providing a helpful guide to the kind of rigorous self-evaluation that can help readers avoid common pitfalls. This relatable career manual should inspire plenty of white-collar professionals to work on serious self-accounting, take responsibility for their own mistakes, and form support teams of friends, managers, and mentors.
November 15, 2017
Cast, former CEO of Walmart.com, now a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, and partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, estimates more than half of competent executives will derail and never understand why their careers did not go as they envisioned. Cast contends many executives have the "right stuff," however; it is more likely they cannot see their own blind spots. Cast developed five archetypes to enable an executive or manager to see their career derailers or the "wrong stuff": Captain Fantastic, The Solo Flier, Version 1.0, The One-Trick Pony, and The Whirling Dervish. Cast addresses the sidetracking behaviors of each archetype, and the necessary corrective action. Likewise, he profiles the framework of competencies required for success including specific job skills; industry knowledge; ability to prioritize; and the personal strengths of initiative, perseverance, and working well with others. Cast asserts that a good job fit and continual skill development are essential as well. VERDICT Insightful and practical guidance based on solid research, experience, and industry knowledge with wide appeal for midlevel managers and executives, recent graduates, and students of management.--Jane Scott, Clark Lib., Univ. of Portland, OR
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
September 15, 2017
Choose wisely, grasshopper: in the workaday world, jobs and needs are changing, and everything rides on whether you forecast those changes correctly--and whether you listen.At some point or another, writes venture capitalist and business professor Cast (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern Univ.), more than half of all workers will be fired, demoted, or sidelined. There are many reasons: some workers are abrasive, some feckless, some overspecialized, some disorganized, some incapable of learning new skills. Organizing such failings into office archetypes such as "Captain Fantastic" and "The Whirling Dervish," Cast counsels that traits such as learning agility and active listening are more valuable than ever. "So try hard to stay flexible," he writes, "try not to be too judgmental, and don't become locked into your positions." By his account, some of that flexibility includes the recognition that professional skills require overhaul every five years or so, meaning that workers who are not on top of refreshing what they know how to do may find themselves part of that dispensable half. Some of Cast's recommendations seem obvious and a little squishy ("the best way I know to capture knowledge is by journaling"), and he seems to be a fan of the dreaded 360-degree review, but there's plenty of hard-nosed and useful advice, too--e.g., "never miss a good chance to shut up, watch, listen, and learn." The best of the author's counsel is quite specific, coming from industry leaders in various sectors: when the head of LinkedIn gives advice on job-skill refreshment and the former CEO of Twitter recommends that you dabble in new technology relevant to your work, pay attention. Cast closes with the thought that what motivates us most in work is not primarily money but meaning: "achievement, affiliation, power, autonomy, and purpose." Solid, positively delivered advice for job seekers and job holders everywhere.
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