After Abu Dhabi’s dramatic crescendo to the Formula 1 season a few weeks ago, the newly crowned champion, Nico Rosberg, made the even more dramatic announcement that he would be quitting the sport at the grand old age of 31. While there are some suggestions his departure may, at least partly, be a personal reaction to his rivalry with teammate Lewis Hamilton, the sudden nature of his retirement is still striking.
We might all, at some point at least, have contemplated making as loud and impressive an exit from a particular role. Be it the receipt of an exciting new offer that promised new professional and financial rewards, or because of dire working conditions that made a show of leaving appear particularly satisfying. The idea of announcing a bold new professional direction has probably occurred to many people ready for a change.
Even if you are not motivated by this level of drama, most will be familiar with the sometimes torturous process that occurs when you start thinking practically about making a change at work. This can occur not only when you start considering changing employers but also when you are looking at simply taking on a different set of responsibilities or a new challenge in a different area. Alternatively, you might be thinking about a new educational undertaking – maybe that long-delayed and expensive MBA you always planned – or have started checking out vocational skills development to take your experience in a new direction.
The decision-making process you are likely to go through, regardless of what the change might be, will probably be based largely on a mixture of gut feeling, your current mood about your work and the potential opportunities that suddenly appear. This is not to say that it’s impossible to act rationally about such decisions, but it is worth noting that we often start considering career moves based on things that appear immediately in front of us, rather than as part of a more measured plan. Because of this, it is helpful to remember that making a bold decision to make a move is not necessarily the same as making the decision rapidly.
Some people jump into something new before they’ve properly considered what it is they actually want to do next. Knowing definitely what you don’t want from a role is only part of the answer, and making a career decision based on little more than a hope that “it has to be an improvement” is fairly shaky ground on which to take on any new commitment. Nevertheless, such a route is understandably tempting, especially because of the sense of control over a career that it can bring – even if it is only in the short term.
Conversely, other individuals are often held back from making a move through over-analysis of the decision which leaves them with a simple fear of the unknown – the sense that a current position, whatever its drawbacks or limitations, is familiar and “known”, while a new undertaking holds the potential for some greater discomfort. They may also be concerned that a career move – be it new letters after their name or a new title on their door – might set an unintended end point for their career, perhaps locking them into a career track they don’t want to be on forever and marking their CV with an experience that will close other doors. While rationally you might realise that nothing is so set in stone, big decisions often have a way of feeling overwhelmingly final.
Thankfully, there is a middle ground to be had, which comes from regularly assessing your current working life and questioning what your current aspirations and ambitions are. Are you too comfortable in your role? Have you really developed your skills as far as they will go in this job or is there honestly still more you could learn? Is the glimmering new work prospect really what you want to do, or does it simply represent an escape from your present routine? Such questions help you feed in a healthy measure of strategy to the process, hopefully meaning that you don’t simply snap at opportunities or refuse to act out of a fear of other obstacles further down the track.
Ahmad Badr is the chief executive of Abu Dhabi University Knowledge Group.
business@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
