Are You Ready? Try this questionnaire by Andrew Holmes

It should be clear that the case for lifelong learning is an obvious one with plenty of upside. But how should we respond? What can we do? With the half-life of information reducing year on year we need to be smart at assessing what we need to learn and how we are going to learn it. Time it seems is of the essence if you are going to survive in these turbulent times. But responding to the challenge that lifelong learning presents is not an easy task because it requires you to take a long hard look at your capabilities, attitudes and behaviours, as well as putting in the effort to make it happen. Success should mean long-term employability, more choices in your career, and employers clambering over themselves to have you in their organization. This may sound a little far fetched, but the changes in the workplace favour those who:

• Change jobs more frequently

• Continuously develop their skills

• Seek out to stretch their capabilities and work outside their comfort zone

The question is, are you ready for the challenges that lifelong learning holds for you? The following questions can be used to assess your degree of readiness for the road ahead. When answering the questions, choose the option that represents you the most closely.

1. To what level are you educated?

a) I left school without any qualifications

b) I have non-degree level qualifications (high school, secondary education, or other non-degree level qualification)

c) I have a bachelors degree (BA, BSc)

d) I have a masters degree (MA, MSc, MBA)

e) I have a PhD

2. Since leaving formal education (school or university), have you undertaken any additional formal education?

a) Yes

b) No

3. If you were made redundant tomorrow how quickly could you find other employment?

a) I could walk into a new job almost immediately

b) Within 1-2 months, allowing sufficient time for interviews

c) Within six months

d) Not sure

4. How many times have you changed job in the last 10 years?

a) Never

b) Once

c) Twice

d) More than twice

5. How often do you review your skills?

a) Never, I leave it to my employer

b) Annually, when I am appraised

c) Every six months

d) Continuously

6. When was the last time you felt you were learning something?

a) Yesterday

b) Last week

c) Last month

d) Sometime during the last year

e) I can't remember

7. If your job were advertised, would you get it?

a) Yes, I would have no problem getting it again

b) I might have difficulties

c) I don't think I would get it

8. Do you know what you contribute to your current employer?

a) Yes, definitely

b) No, I am not absolutely sure - I have never asked

c) Definitely not

9. Do you know your learning style?

a) Yes

b) No

10. Do you see every challenge, success and even failure as a learning opportunity?

a) Always

b) Sometimes

c) Never

Answers

1. a) 0 b) 1 c) 2 d) 3

In a general sense, the longer you have remained in education the more likely it is that you will have been trained in how to learn. This is especially the case with tertiary level education because as a student you would have been expected to find out a lot of the information you needed to complete you studies rather than have it spoon-fed to you as in school. In addition, university also exposes you to a learning environment in which the majority of students are self-motivated and are keen to learn. This again is very different from school, where many people are switched off from learning because of the way in which it is delivered or the way they have been brought up. In addition schooling is a statutory requirement up to a certain age, so there is no getting out of it. These days it is important to have more than one degree. A first degree, although an essential entry level qualification into the world of work, will not set you aside from the increasing numbers who also have degrees. Having a second degree does, especially if it is relevant to employers. But you can go too far, as a PhD can be detrimental in some commercial environments. This is because it narrows the student's skill set to a very limited field and unless this is something that is needed by the employer it adds little additional value beyond a Masters degree. A PhD can also make you too specialist to undertake any other role than that you are eminently qualified for.

2. a) 3 b) 0

Many people are keen to continue their studies once they have entered the world of work. Very often this reflects the level to which they have already been educated. Thus those with bachelor degrees often want to gain a masters. Occasionally you find that people without any formal education complete degrees later in life. For those who have nothing, the future is bleak.

3. a) 3 b) 3 c) 2 d) 0

This is a reflection on how employable you think you are and relies on you understanding what transferable and marketable skills you have. Knowing your worth is vital in the employment market of today. Clearly if you don't know how long it will take you to get a job, then it is a good idea to check. With limited skills it can take up to a year to find other work. Anecdotal evidence from the United States suggests that the time taken to find alternative employment after losing a job is increasing.

4. a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 3

It is interesting how the perceptions of job movers has changed over the last 20 years. Previously someone who moved jobs fairly regularly was frowned upon and considered untrustworthy. It was believed that such people had little loyalty and were unable to settle in one place for too long and were often viewed with suspicion. This all changed with the march of technology, globalization and most importantly the downsizing of the 1990s. Employees witnessed the destruction of the psychological contract and the rise of market forces. They recognised that their marketability relied almost exclusively on their skills and abilities and what better way to enhance these than by changing jobs. So today the perception has reversed. People who stay in a job too long (say more than five years) and cannot demonstrate progression or significant learning are likely to be perceived as risk adverse, not interested in their careers and inflexible. Such people may have become comfortable in their work and may have not taken the trouble to develop new skills instead relying on their employer to re-skill them when required. And don't fool yourself either by assuming that moving around a single organization is akin to changing jobs. It isn't. After all you are still working in the same organization, you know the same people and the learning required to become competent in your new role will be limited to functional skills only. Conversely those who have moved jobs, reinvented themselves and showed adaptability and flexibility are actively sought out. Recent research suggests that employees will have worked with ten different employers by the time they retire. Moreover, they will have probably worked in three different disciplines. Today's workplace requires such flexibility and for those who have become comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty and who have supreme confidence in their ability to continuously learn will be best placed to succeed.

5. a) 0 b) 1 c) 2 d) 3

Reviewing your skills, attitudes and behaviours is increasingly important. With the half-life of information reducing sharply, the knowledge you have come to rely on becomes almost worthless. The workplace moves on too fast to allow you to rest on what you have learnt a few years ago. By the same token you cannot expect your employer to manage your learning for you. Despite the rise of the corporate university (see Chapter 1) the process of skill replenishment is down to the individual. Continuously learning is an essential skill in today's workplace and for those who rely on their employer or annual appraisal to define their learning needs are missing the point when it comes to lifelong learning.

6. a) 3 b) 3 c) 2 d) 1 e) 0

This really follows on from the previous question. Taking an active stance to learning means that you should be in a position to learn something if not every day, then certainly every week. When considering this question think about what you may have learnt over the past six months and what you expect to learn over the next six. If you are learning next to nothing it might be time to reconsider your position, as lack of learning may mean that your employer is not providing with the skills you (and they) need for the future, or that you are not stretching yourself sufficiently to increase your abilities. As we will see, there are many ways to learn and pick up new knowledge. The essential ingredient is motivation.

7. a) 3 b) 2 c) 0

If you find it difficult to answer this then you need to consider what you need to do to ensure that you find it easier. One of the best ways to keep ahead of the learning game is to read the appointments sections of quality newspapers. These outline the skills and attributes currently in demand and provide an excellent opportunity to benchmark yourself against the job market. In these uncertain times you would do well to assess any differences between the skills and attributes employers are seeking and what you have and feed these into your lifelong learning strategy.

8. a) 3 b) 1 c) 0

If you don't know what you contribute then how can anyone else? Although it is not always easy to know how we contribute, it ought to be possible to find out. Key things to consider here would be to understand how what you do improves the bottom line either by delivering better customer service and sales, operational efficiencies or productivity gains. Knowing this and then considering what skills and attributes you use to achieve these outcomes will help you understand where your strengths lie and more importantly, where your weaknesses are.

9. a) 3 b) 0

Understanding how you learn is important as it helps you to get the most from learning situations. People tend to use to one of four learning styles. They can be activists, reflectors, theorists or pragmatists. Activists prefer to use trial and error to learn, enjoy new challenges and like variety. Reflectors prefer time to organise their thoughts and like to watch and absorb information rather than leap into situations like activists. Theorists like to research new concepts and prefer structure to the learning process. These are people who enjoy complexity and stretching themselves intellectually with a complex idea or concept. Pragmatists like the practicality of learning. They want the application of the concept to a real world situation and tend to shun conceptual or abstract thinking (more on understanding how we learn in Chapter 4).

10. a) 3 b) 2 c) 0

It is possible to learn from any situation as long as we have an open enough mind. Unfortunately we are generally poor at doing so for a variety of reasons. For example, organizational culture often restricts the opportunity to learn from experience because failure is frowned upon and feedback is generally ignored or rejected. This ensures that people do not rock the boat and that errors are repeated. Success also has the tendency to restrict learning because, as with failure, we do not take time to understand why we have been successful. Learning has to be an active process if we are to benefit.

How did you score?

0-10 You clearly have a lot to do if you are going to embrace the uncertain future ahead of you. You may feel that lifelong learning is not for you, and you may also have the feeling that the world is passing you by without any hope of catching up. But wise up you must, as any hope of a long-term career is looking very slim without some concerted action.

Another belief you may hold is that you know enough and that you really don't need to pick up new skills or knowledge. Wrong again. Such arrogance will not serve you well. I have found this in ex-forces personnel (especially officers) who move into commerce and industry after retiring from their military careers. They believe they know everything. In reality they know little of the real world of work and as a result add very little value in the short-term. Commerce is very different from the disciplines of military service. Such people expect to be obeyed and bark orders at those around them. They also lack content, expertise and appear to be unwilling to learn.

11-20 You probably understand the importance of learning and its link to your career and earning power. You probably are well educated (to degree level) and may think that that's enough. You may also believe that the pursuit of learning predominantly resides with your employer and not you. Although your position is not as precarious as those who have scored 10 or less, your future will still be uncertain, especially as the speed of change increases and what you are expected to know and apply is in a constant state of flux. Taking a more active stance to learning and developing a lifelong learning strategy will allow you to take control.

21-30 You have a healthy attitude to learning and recognise the importance of learning and reinvention to your career. You probably take active steps to increase and extend your knowledge through a variety of channels.

Knowing where you stand, based upon your score, is one thing, but in order to derive the most benefit from assessing your readiness you need to:

• Recognise and overcome your learning obstacles

• Ask yourself why anyone would want to employ you

• Determine how you set yourself aside from your competition by branding yourself

• Understand how you can future proof your career

Recognise and overcome your learning obstacles

The painful reason why so many people fail to continue to learn and develop their skills is because they do not think it is worth it. But according to Dennis Waitley, author of Seeds of Greatness it is because they are too lazy to make the effort. He believes that people have an aversion to doing more than is absolutely necessary to get by. The quiz you have just completed will test your attitude towards learning and if your score is low it may reflect the need to update your mental models associated with learning. Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline describes a number of learning obstacles that reduce our ability to learn and you might want to assess which of the following applies to you.

• I am my position. This refers to the way we become defined by our job and how it can be very difficult to do anything else or think outside the confines of our immediate role. This tends to be reinforced by the culture of the individual functions people work within and the technical training they receive. In extreme cases this can be perpetuated as people move up the organization. For example, if we consider most career routes, they tend to remain within a single discipline, such as finance or information technology. This can act as a major barrier to learning and lead to blind spots in knowledge. In particular, such blind spots tend to arise at times of crisis when stress and anxiety prevent learning (this is an automatic, physiological response of the brain, which shuts down the reasoning capability in favour of a fight or flight response).

• The enemy is out there. This is a by-product of 'I am my position' and is associated with blaming others when things go wrong. This is very common in organizations where one function blames another or when a project, product or process fails. We become so embroiled in our narrowly focused roles that we fail to see the wider issues involved. As a result we fail to learn from the experience or see the other function's or person's perspective. This ensures that we end up repeating the same mistakes time and time again. In addition, too many organizations have a blame culture that prevents learning when things go wrong. As a result people fail to take risks because the implications of failure outweigh the benefits of going out on a limb. When things go wrong in such organizations every effort is made to find a suitable scapegoat rather than directing energy towards the learning required to ensure the same mistake is not repeated.

• The delusion of learning from experience. Increasingly, and especially within work, there is no direct link between the actions we take and the outcomes that occur. And although we learn best from direct experience this is rarely the case within the organizational setting. To address this we must seek feedback from those around us so that we are able to learn from experience. Being a small cog in a large wheel usually limits an individual's ability to see the bigger picture and prevents learning. The increasing complexity of organizations is reducing our ability to learn from experience.

• We fail to see the long-cycle changes. With the pace of work speeding up and our obsession with getting things done at an ever-faster rate, we often fail to see the long-term changes. Indeed we often dismiss them as irrelevant. This is leading organizations and individuals alike to dismiss the benefits of strategy and planning. But without strategies or plans, it can be very difficult to gauge the results of action and learn from the experience. Short-termism also affects the way people manage their careers and develop new skills. Long-term trends are not used to focus skill and knowledge need. This has to change. This issue of short-termism is the primary reason why Stewart Brand wants to create the clock of the long now (see introduction).

• Inaction and the knowing doing gap. We all suffer from knowing that we should do something but failing to do it. We all avoid difficult situations, and we are all guilty of procrastination. The same applies to organizations that skirt around problems or spend endless amounts of time discussing their underlying components rather than solving them. This type of inactivity fails us all, and even though many people know that lifelong learning is an important building block for their future, very few embrace it. They know they should do, but they don't.

Senge believes that those who are keen to learn (and hence willing to overcome their barriers to learning) must embrace five disciplines:

• Personal mastery. This is all about personal development which is directed toward achieving stated goals.

• Mental models. They should update their mental models, by removing those that are outdated and no longer suited to the modern workplace and adding new ones which are more useful. This can be done by testing existing mental models against the external environment and adjusting them as necessary.

• Shared vision. They should be open with other people by sharing knowledge, taking and giving feedback and so on in order to achieve things collectively.

• Team learning. They should work with others around them to widen their learning network and capabilities.

• Systems thinking. They should understand how their organization really works, including the political and power dimensions (this is Senge's fifth discipline; being able to see patterns and systemic relationships)

The problem facing all lifelong learners is to accept that the learning process is different from the learning we experienced at school and university. It is a shame that so many people have been switched-off from learning by the process they went through during their teens and early twenties. Many tend to it as a formal event that is dry and not particularly enjoyable. Alastair Rylatt, author of Learning Unlimited believes a wounded learner is no different from someone who has been physically hurt, and to improve their health requires effort to understand why they have problems with learning and second to make them more aware of their motivations and learning preferences. Chapter 4 looks at the process of learning in a little more detail and this should help you to understand the process through which you can learn more effectively and hopefully with more enjoyment.

Why would anyone want to employ you?

Having made an assessment of your readiness and looked at your attitude to learning, it is now worth considering what makes you employable. Considering your employability is a great way to understand what you need to learn, where the gaps in your knowledge are and what you need to include in your lifelong learning strategy.

Employers expect a lot from their staff. Pick up any job advertisement in any quality newspaper and you will see that the combination of skills, experience, attitudes and behaviours expected by any quality employer are extensive. Words like flexible, team player, blue chip/Fortune 500, fast-moving, professional, global, business management, entrepreneurial, leadership, change and so on crop up time and time again. Of course these advertisements are painting an ideal employee, which may not exist in reality - even inside the employing company's own organization. When it comes to interviewing and selection, employers will be seeking the ideal, but will usually settle for a candidate that matches as much of this ideal profile as possible. But just imagine that you had all of the skills identified, you would certainly be in high demand and have the pick of any job.

Job advertisements provide an indication of what the market place wants now and in the near-term. You would be wise to look at these regularly and test your skills against them to highlight gaps in your capabilities. Naturally, this is not always easy because it requires that you take a long hard look at your abilities, and although it is possible to rationalise why your current skills are still useful, it is far better to consider which ones are no longer required and what new ones you need to develop.

These days, of course, it is not such a one sided relationship with the employer calling all the shots. So as well as making yourself attractive to your current and prospective employers, employers themselves have to take a more active stance when it comes to attracting staff to their firm.

The war for talent has emerged as one of the biggest management issues of the day, so if you have the right qualities you have the upper hand, not the employer. Despite the demise of the dotcoms and the recession in the United States and Europe, the war for talent is hotting up. It all began with the Information Age when knowledge replaced physical assets such as machinery and property as the key determinant of an organization's wealth. Look at Microsoft. Its continued success relies on the collective genius of its staff and nothing else. The fact that it grew from nothing to the world's most dominant software company is testament to the shift to the knowledge economy. Lifelong learning is at the centre of this new economy because without it, companies will not have the resources they need to survive. Even though the combined effects of globalization and technology are making for an unsettled working environment, the aging of the population is actually working in our favour - the pool from which talent can be sourced is reducing rapidly. For example, in the United States the number of 25 to 45 years olds will decline by 6 per cent. This poses a headache for organizations that increasingly need to hold onto their best and most productive staff. But holding onto them is increasingly difficult because talented people change jobs far more frequently, especially the younger ones. A recent survey by McKinsey found that 20 per cent of managers expect to leave their company within the next two years, but 60 per cent more junior managers were expecting to do the same. Although high, this percentage does not include the large numbers of employees who would change their jobs if they could. A recent survey by the career consultancy Penna, Sanders and Sidney found that two-thirds of employees would change jobs tomorrow if they could . These people are held back by anxieties over money, age or are too risk adverse to take the necessary steps. This same survey showed that nearly 20 per cent of people are not satisfied at work. With so many unhappy people at work, employers clearly have a problem as staff turn up for work and switch off. But more importantly it shows that employees do not know their own worth or the talents that make them attractive to other employers.

We have all seen people around us who appear to be more productive, produce consistently high quality work and effortlessly grasp new concepts and ideas. These people shine in the workplace. But in order to understand how we can become more talented, we need to understand what talent is. Knowing our talents also allows us to breakthrough our mental barriers to realise our potential. Some of the techniques and skills described in Chapter 6 will help you break out of the anxieties that hold you back. Remember that lifelong learning is not just about the simple work based skills we all need, it is also about finding a bit more about yourself and developing a much better understanding of what you want out of your career. Life is too short to be trapped in a job that you find restrictive and unsatisfying.

Although talent is not easy to define precisely, it can be considered to be the combination of:

• Knowledge

• Experience

• Intelligence

• Judgement

• Attitude

• Character

• Drive

• Energy

• Leadership

• Emotional maturity

• The willingness to learn

Although not an exhaustive list, it does provide an indication of the qualities that are associated with talented individuals. I consider the most important of these to be attitude since it is this that determines how successful we are at developing the others. The good news is that these can be developed and enhanced through the application of such things as neuro linguistic programming.

Setting yourself aside - brand you

I believe that long-term success in your career depends on how you set yourself aside from your peers. Understanding what makes you special, your brand if you like, is increasingly important as it defines your uniqueness and the mix of skills, attitudes and behaviours that make you interesting to an employer, or if you are selling yourself in the open market, your clients. Previous generations were defined by their position and job rather than their skills and attitudes. Daily activity, roles, responsibilities and work patterns were repetitive and predictable. This gave rise to the paternalistic organizations of the 1950s, and 1960s. The impact of the computer, the energy crisis, the Information Age, booms and busts and the advent of the Internet changed all this because it brought into stark relief the significance of the individual within the world of work. In particular it was the shake up of white-collar workers during the 1990s that forced people to take more interest in their own careers rather than rely on their employer, who had long since dropped their paternal attitudes. Self-managed careers were in. Despite this wake up call, there are still plenty of people of working age who still just don't get the message. Thus, for those who do understand the significance there is the chance to gain competitive advantage over those who don't. Branding yourself by understanding what you offer and then marketing it is probably the only way to set yourself aside. Creating a personal brand that is accepted in the widest possible sense means that you need to consider the following:

• Brand loyalty - how do you establish this?

• Brand awareness - how do you make your employer or client aware of what your brand means?

• Brand associations - how do you create associations about what you can do and how can you make those that come into contact with you instantly recognise what your brand means?

• Brand quality - how do you ensure that the quality of your brand remains consistently high?

Of these brand loyalty and brand awareness are the most important. Brand quality is very much a component of brand loyalty and brand associations are driven by a combination of brand loyalty and brand awareness.

Brand loyalty

Brand loyalty is all about how you are perceived by your peers, subordinates, bosses and clients. As with products, loyalty is a core dimension to your brand, as it determines whether people will come back to you for your input, direction and advice. Quite simply this is because they have a consistent experience in every dealing with you. The advantage of brand loyalty is that is reduces the level of marketing you have to do to make you standout from your peers. I believe that brand loyalty relies heavily on generating trust between you and those who you come into contact with. Ultimately, trust depends on how well you achieve results, act with integrity and demonstrate concern.

• Achieving Results. First and foremost, people trust those who are willing (because of their drive, discipline and commitment) and able (because of their knowledge, skills and courage) to deliver the results they promise. By contrast, we distrust those we consider misguided or incompetent. Anyone who cannot achieve the performance expectations that our organization imposes will be hard-pressed to earn trust.

• Acting with Integrity. Integrity requires honestly in one's words and consistency in one's actions. People trust those who are direct in expressing their views and predictable in acting within a known set of principles. Inconsistency suggests that leaders are dishonest or self-serving. Those who conceal or distort the truth, or who constantly change their strategies and practises, are rarely trusted. The impact of integrity is paramount early in a relationship, as each side assesses the degree to which it can trust the other.

• Demonstrating concern. Fundamentally, trust requires that we understand and respect the interests of people at all levels and in all constituencies. More specifically, people trust those who consider their interests even in the face of potentially conflicting pressures. This does not require people to place our needs above all others. We do expect, however, that they will not deliberately take advantage of our reliance on them.

Brand loyalty comes from experiencing the brand, but before we can develop this we must think about what we want our brand to mean and use this to create our brand awareness.

Brand awareness

Making people aware of what your brand is, what it stands for and what it means in practice is essential and depends on your ability to summarise it. An essential part of this is knowing about your mix of skills, attitudes and behaviours that sets you aside from your peers and competition. We are not talking about products, but individuals, so it is necessary to understand your brand as a personality. Research into measuring a brand's personality has provided us with some interesting dimensions to what people feel about well-known brands. And although focused on products, these are equally applicable to how we brand the people around us and more importantly, how other people brand us. There are five personality factors that can be broken down into 15 facets and 64 characteristics.

Sincerity

- Down to Earth

Characteristics are Family-orientated, small-town, conventional, blue-collar, all-American

- Honest

Sincere, real, ethical, thoughtful, caring

- Wholesome

Original, genuine, ageless, classic, old-fashioned

- Cheerful

Sentimental, friendly, warm, happy

Excitement

- Daring

Trendy, exciting, off-beat, flashy, provocative

- Spirited

Cool, young, lively, outgoing, adventurous

- Imaginative

Unique, humorous, surprising, artistic, fun

- Up-to-date

Independent, contemporary, innovative, aggressive

Competence

- Reliable

Hardworking, secure, efficient, trustworthy, careful

- Intelligent

Technical, corporate, serious

- Successful

Leader, confident, influential

Sophistication

- Upper class

Glamorous, good-looking, pretentious, sophisticated

- Charming

Feminine, smooth, sexy, gentle

Ruggedness

- Outdoorsy

Masculine, western, active, athletic

- Tough

Rugged, strong, no-nonsense

Brand characteristics

When considering your personal brand, it is a good idea to consider which of the five factors and their associated facets and characteristics you want to display to your employer, customer or colleagues. The type of role you perform, or wish to perform will influence the brand personality you will need to portray. So, if you are a marketing expert it is likely that excitement and its associated characteristics will be of greater importance than ruggedness. Whilst if you are a project management consultant it is likely that competence will be the overriding factor. This concept of personal brand can be used to drive your lifelong learning strategy by focusing on how you want to be perceived and then matching your learning and experience to achieve and reinforce the brand you wish to establish.

It is important to recognise that developing your personal brand will take some time because you will need to take actions that communicate, reinforce and deliver your brand. Therefore, do not expect to have a brand defined and accepted overnight. Instead understand what sets you aside, know what your unique selling points are and work hard to market your skills through strong delivery and reinforcement. Think about how you can develop a positive brand perception by getting involved with projects and initiatives that allows your brand personality to come through. Other things, such as writing articles, books, making presentations and networking also help you to communicate your brand. It should be clear that active management of your brand is essential.

Tom Peters believes that answering the following seven questions will help to focus your brand related activities:

1. What you are known for now and what you will be known for next year?

2. What is challenging you, which might include your current project or role?

3. What you have learned in the last 90 days?

4. Who has been added to your external network?

5. What does your visibility (marketing) programme looks like?

6. What you are doing to enhance your resume over the next 90 days?

7. What have you done over the last year that has enhanced your resume?

Future proofing your career

The conventional wisdom of work and careers has been turned on its head. Stable working environments are the thing of the past, as are defined career paths. We can no longer leave our careers to our employer and we cannot begin our working life in our twenties and expect to be in the same career when we retire in our 50s or 60s.

Although much of what Super said back in the 1960s and 1970s still holds true, there is one major difference. This relates to the way we need to set and adjust our career objectives as we progress through our working lives. It is no longer possible, or indeed sensible to set objectives that span thirty plus years, as it is likely that you will find yourself unable to interpret or adapt to the changes occurring around you. Equally, having no plan is not an option because it means drifting through working life without any direction - something that employers just don't want. What we have to do is to plan our careers in three to five year chunks. This allows you to assess how you are progressing towards your current objectives and then refresh these in light of progress and of the changes that are happening around you. Such medium-term career planning:

• Forces you to actively review your progress

• Forces you to test your assumptions you have made about your career

• Sensitises you to the changes around you and their effects on your career objectives

• Allows you reconsider your future more carefully

• Ensures that you are taking proactive steps in the management of your career, thereby reducing the risk of your being impacted by a shock event such as redundancy.

When determining how to future proof your career you would be wise to consider the advice of William Bridges who wrote the book Jobshift. He believes that survival depends on the following three things:

• Your employability. Security comes from being attractive to employers. This depends on a number of things including your attitudes, behaviours, skills and abilities. It is important to recognise that your level of employability will vary according to what is needed by your existing or prospective employer. Learning plays an important role in this and as we will see in Chapter 6, having a learning strategy that looks into the future as much as the present is essential.

• Thinking like a vendor (or perhaps like a consultant). Adopting this mindset allows you to determine how to add value to your existing and future employers by looking at the tasks you fulfil in a different light. It's time to stop thinking like an employee and begin to think like someone who is selling their skills and capabilities to a new client.

• Being resilient. In an increasingly turbulent working environment being able to cope with what is thrown at you is vital. Flexibility, adaptability and a strong learning capability are skills at the heart of a long-term career. Things such as emotional intelligence and the skills related to neuro linguistic programming (see Chapter 5) are increasingly relevant.

It is essential to change your mindset about your career and more critically understand that so much depends on your ability to learn and adapt. Being smart at spotting trends, acquiring new skills and knowledge and dropping stuff that is no longer required is vital. This ability to unlearn things is an important part of lifelong learning and future proofing your career. This is of course very difficult, especially if we have spent a long time developing the skills we no longer need. Going through a periodic reframing process is one way in which to identify those skills that are no longer valuable to you.

Can I do it?

The short answer to this is you have no choice. Your future career depends on your willingness to embrace lifelong learning and change tack in your career. Being prepared to learn means addressing the areas covered in this chapter, and over coming any of your inherent barriers to learning. Being open to the future and understanding the implications of the wider social, economic and demographic changes on your career will allow you to update your objectives more easily. The alternatives are bleak, with fewer employment opportunities, lower salaries and less fun. Developing a trusted brand is another part of your armoury, especially one that demonstrates flexibility and openness to change. Employers are increasingly interested in those people who can adapt rather than those who have deep technical skills and experience but are unwilling to change. The adaptable employee who recognises the importance of learning is able to develop new skills and expertise in response to their changing working environment. Reinvention is critical here and the lifelong learner knows how to achieve it. Nothing but ourselves stops us from reinvention and this depends on our ability to accept change. Being able to deal with change means a number of things:

First it means recognising that change is inevitable

Second it requires us to anticipate the changes ahead. If we do this we are less likely to be surprised and we are more likely to prepare for it.

Third it means being able to adapt to change quickly, as sometimes action is more important than words.