Introduction to The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction

[Note: Though many of you are probably in job search rather than
career, I thought that I would share this with you. Below is a
Business Week best seller. What I would recommend is that you look at
the Five Patterns take the quiz and use the results in your
job/career to guide you o the next position--not necessarily the one
you have or had. Good Luck! ]

Why is it that some people's careers just seem to soar while
others — who are equally talented — see their careers stagnate?

You might think it is just dumb luck, but there are actually distinct
patterns that distinguish those at the top from the rest of the pack,
James M. Citrin and Richard A. Smith write in their new book, The
Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers.

If you want to take a career quiz and see how you stack up against
top professionals, go to http://www.fivepatterns.com.



Here is an excerpt of the book:

Introduction to The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

You don't just luck into things as much as you'd like to think you
do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or
opportunities. — Barbara Bush

— We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of
those we don't like? — Jean Cocteau

The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers reveals the subtle yet
powerful factors that determine career success: why some people
ascend to the top and prosper, while others who are equally talented
never reach their expectations. The latter was a fate Timothy
Reynolds suddenly feared might have fallen upon him.

For many years, Tim Reynolds had every reason to think he was on the
path of an extraordinary career. After all, he seemed to have it all —
three kids, a beautiful wife, a four-bedroom house in a leafy
Chicago suburb, and a good job as vice president of marketing at a
leading consumer-products company, all before the age of forty. But
standing beside his classmates at his fifteenth college reunion on an
unseasonably warm spring day, Tim began to feel a little unsettled.

That's no surprise. Reunions are famous for making ordinary people
feel rather unsure of themselves. Especially disconcerting is facing
the former classmates who have somehow blossomed into the next
generation of leaders. But Tim wasn't just one of those people who
always see the grass as greener on the other side. He was someone
everyone admired and considered successful and put together. Yet over
the course of this particular weekend, Tim found himself going into a
full-scale reexamination of where he was with his career and life and
what he had accomplished.

Early in his career, Tim had been a star in his corporation's
management training program, which led to rapid promotions and
increasing responsibilities. Throughout the first dozen years of his
working life, he was spontaneous, optimistic, energetic, and
confident, feeling that continued professional success was almost
inevitable. But now that he thought about it, he realized that more
recently, he wasn't feeling quite as sure of himself — or of his
professional direction. He had survived two rounds of layoffs at the
company, but it was always possible that more were to come. The
prospect of being forced into the job market in a difficult economy
was a grim scenario for Tim to consider. Even more disquieting,
however, was a growing sense that he was on a path that wasn't
leading him exactly where he wanted to go. He had never even thought
about this consciously before. After all, Tim had been on a well-
defined career track and he had progressed steadily, achieving many
of the milestones for position and compensation that he had set for
himself. But as he reflected, he found that the responsibilities,
daily activities, and politics associated with his job were
increasingly debilitating. Whatever happened to his starry-eyed
dreams of becoming an ambassador, a university professor, or a public
servant?

Tim had suppressed these feelings, but now that he'd let them out of
the cage, he was beset with a sense of being ensnared in a direction
that he could not change. He was actually unsure if he even wanted to
be promoted again, fearing that this might move him still further
away from the things that mattered most to him — a strong family,
making a positive impact on society, being passionate and proud about
his work, and continuing to develop a broader set of skills and
knowledge. On that particular spring day at the reunion, all of this
pent-up anxiety surfaced as Tim was reunited with old friends and
classmates. The alumni association had organized a panel, "Career
Success and Satisfaction," that included some of Tim's most
successful peers. The star-studded panel went something like this:

John recently had been appointed the president of a television
group for one of the major broadcast networks after a five-year run
developing critically acclaimed and commercially successful
television shows. John had begun his career as a lawyer and migrated
into the entertainment business by coming to represent actors,
directors, and writers in Los Angeles.

Martha was a professor of law and history at an Ivy League
university, specializing in the areas of property, religion, and
legal history in the university's law school. Before joining the
faculty, Martha had served as a clerk in the United States Court of
Appeals, which she joined after having been an associate at a
Washington, D.C., law firm.

Stephen was a senior vice president of the National Association of
Securities Dealers, with the responsibility to develop programs,
services, and technological innovations to benefit the entire
securities industry. He had joined the industry trade association
after the emerging technology company that he co-founded in 1999 ran
out of capital and was liquidated.

Todd was the founder of a small specialty restaurant company in
Chicago that was generating profit in each of its seven locations.
Previously he had co-founded and built a natural foods supermarket
company over seven years into a twenty-store chain serving five
metropolitan areas, which he sold to a major food company. Before
moving into the food business, he had been an account executive with
a major Wall Street brokerage firm.

Lynn was a doctor of audiology and president of the parent/teacher
association at her daughters' private school in Manhattan, now
working three days a week. She had worked full time in private
practice for twelve years after medical school.

As Tim listened to each of their stories, he wondered why these folks
had met with such good fortune. Thinking back to school, he realized
that none of them were necessarily smarter, more energetic, or more
charismatic than he, nor did they seem to have any special
connections. This certainly wasn't the group the graduating class
would have predicted as most likely to succeed. But they seemed to
have it nailed.

While Tim thought that his career seemed to have become more
complicated and difficult to manage, this group seemed not only
successful, but also fulfilled by their personal and professional
lives.

Somehow they had apparently gained control over something Tim
increasingly believed was uncontrollable — their careers.

As his peers told their stories on the panel, Tim took copious notes.
He wanted to find clues into the surprising success of his
classmates. Each panel member discussed how, over time, he or she had
gained command of the job and became valuable within his or her
organization or profession. John, Stephen, and Lynn all pointed out
how they had benefited from working with exceptionally talented
mentors and co-workers. All the panelists hinted at having found
themselves in the right place at the right time and having gained
access to the kinds of opportunities that mattered most. Todd and
Martha articulated how they never took their job descriptions too
literally and had always found ways to expand their responsibilities
within their organizations. And slowly it became apparent to Tim that
each of these individuals was not only highly skilled in his or her
chosen field, but also truly passionate about their work. Together,
the enthusiasm for their jobs was undeniable, and seemed to provide
each with a sense of purpose, belonging, and power that Tim longed to
attain. Each had gained a level of control over his or her career
direction that Tim so desperately sought.

Just then Tim had an epiphany. As he listened closely, he came to the
blinding insight that the key was not the uniqueness of the
panelists' careers, but their surprising similarity. Although their
careers were completely different, each of his successful classmates
had followed a path that twisted and turned, had setbacks and
accomplishments and changes of direction. But somehow, each of them
kept getting closer and closer to the mark — employing similar
strategies and actions to achieve success.

Intrigued, Tim wondered whether the similarities were just
coincidence. Or rather, was what he was observing actually the result
of cause and effect? And if so, was there specific knowledge that
could be harnessed and actions that could be taken to create similar
success in his own career?

Do successful careers possibly follow a pattern?

The idea that there are patterns in extraordinary careers is not the
conventional wisdom. Many believe that success is the result of
either luck or larceny.

Luck, however, is a convenient excuse for a lack of success. A
colleague gets a promotion — how lucky. An acquaintance gets a huge
bonus — dumb luck. Everyone assumes that he works just as hard as the
next guy. So what else could separate those who are successful from
those who are less so? It must be good fortune and impeccable timing.
If not luck, then perhaps it is political savvy, or worse, something
we may refer to as "assmosis," the process by which some people nab
success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than earning
it. Fueling myths about luck is that many high-performing executives
make career success seem relatively easy, reinforcing the idea that
they haven't done anything special to hoist themselves up the
corporate ladder.

The other commonly held belief is even more disheartening — the
feeling that high-flying executives are nearly as successful as they
are greedy. With the string of corporate scandals and criminal
activities of some executives, many have come to assume the worst
about what it takes to ascend to the pinnacle of the business world
and that ethics run in inverse proportion to success.

The truth is, a successful career is not the result of one critical
lucky break, like an actress waiting tables when a star movie
producer walks in. It results from a consistent series of
opportunities and performance over time. It cannot be faked. And
professionals who lack character and ethics and are still able to
rise to and remain at the very top are in fact extremely rare. When
they do attain career successes, their grasp on what they've achieved
is tenuous and ephemeral.

It turns out that extraordinary careers follow a strikingly
consistent trajectory, marked by five distinct patterns that
distinguish the very top from the rest of the pack. There are two
foundations for this judgment. The first is our observation and
distillation of these patterns through the lens of our experience at
Spencer Stuart, the preeminent global executive search firm. When,
over a decade's time, your firm conducts approximately 60 percent of
all Fortune 1000 CEO searches (including the CEOs of IBM, AT&T,
Honeywell, Merck, Gillette, Hershey Foods, Albertson's, WorldCom,
JCPenney, Tyco International, Reader's Digest, and Yahoo!), you gain
a front-row seat to study some of the most successful people of our
time. We have also recruited board directors, presidents, and general
managers of global companies and CEOs of venture-capital-backed start-
ups, as well as conducted searches for CFOs, marketing executives,
human resource professionals, and nearly every functional role in
companies today. Our work has crossed every major industry, ranging
from manufacturing and health care to technology and energy. Thanks
to our reach and our intensive process of identifying, interviewing,
and placing the elite of the global corporate world, we collectively
engage in an estimated four hundred thousand conversations each year
with professionals about careerrelated issues. But we didn't stop
there.

THE RESEARCH BEHIND THE FIVE PATTERNS

Building on this experience, we conducted exhaustive research on who
exceptional executives really are and how they achieved their
success. Our goal was to get beyond anecdotes that describe career
events and discover the factors that actually cause them. What
emerged from our analysis was surprising clarity and commonality from
diverse individuals.

Our research followed a three-pronged approach. First, we segmented
and analyzed Spencer Stuart's 1.2-million-member proprietary
executive database, QuestNT. This state-of-the-art system contains
detailed employment histories, qualitative information, references,
board and other professional affiliations, and a rich contact history
of all interactions that our firm has had with these individuals. The
database is coded in such a way to permit sophisticated extracting
and manipulation. From QuestNT, we constructed a representative
sample of executives to survey. Our survey, which formed the heart of
our research, asked each participant eighty separate questions about
his beliefs, actions, and career. (The survey is available online,
along with an instantaneous analysis of results, at
www.5patterns.com.)

Relying on the advice of the statistical experts who counseled us in
the survey's creation, we were looking to garner one thousand
completed surveys to analyze (actually, they felt that four hundred
would be more than enough from which to draw conclusions, but we
wanted to be sure and therefore set a goal of obtaining more than
double the required amount). Based on projected response rates, we
would need to invite sixteen thousand executives to participate. So
as not to clog up the e-mail system, we decided to send the survey
out in two equal and representative waves, eight thousand each.

But it turned out that the response was beyond anything we could have
hoped for (or the statisticians would have believed) — the survey was
completed by more than two thousand of the initial eight thousand
individuals, a staggering 25 percent response rate. We also received
hundreds of cover letters and notes passionately expanding on the
topics queried. Clearly we had touched a nerve! It turns out that
people — even the most successful — want to think about, learn about,
and talk about what makes for career success in these volatile times.
The respondents, whose careers represented hundreds of industry
sectors and more than a thousand different companies, completed the
survey in mid-2002.

The third step in our research was conducting more than three hundred
in-person interviews of executives over a two-year period. Through
these discussions, we attempted to uncover their thoughts, beliefs,
goals and aspirations, motivations, turning points, actions, and
behaviors. The goal was to identify and explain those factors that
really distinguish the different trajectories of the ordinary from
the extraordinary executive.

To analyze the information, we segregated the survey respondents into
three groups.

Average employees, professionals who have worked for at least
twenty years but have not reached a senior professional or executive
level
Successful professionals, those individuals who have attained
positions within executive management of their organizations or who
were top-level contributors, such as senior partners, at professional
services firms
Extraordinary executives, executives hand-selected by us and our
research team for their documented, consistent, and exceptional track
record of success, stellar reputation, value in the marketplace, and
impact on their organizations
These three groups provided a distinctive comparison for our
research, and we refer to them throughout the book. What
distinguishes extraordinary executives from the wanna-bes is not
advantaged connections, higher levels of intelligence, or social
connections (although these rarely hurt), but rather the occurrence
of the five specific patterns discussed in this book. Executives such
as Larry Bossidy, the highly regarded longtime leader of Honeywell,
and Lou Gerstner, the former chairman of IBM, intuitively used the
patterns to manage and gain control over their careers. Their results
in terms of control and compensation speak for themselves.

The extraordinary executive is not the son or daughter of the boss
and is not more likely to have an IQ in the 99th percentile than
other professionals. The vast majority of executives in the world
today began their careers like most others — with a good education, a
lot of ambition, and precious little relevant experience. In a
process similar to compound interest, the extraordinary executives
achieved success slowly and consistently, with each phase building on
the prior one. They did not rely on luck, engage in illegal activity,
betray their colleagues, or sleep with their bosses. The occasional
executive who did get ahead in these ways is, not surprisingly, juicy
prey for the media, and surely makes for great fodder around the
office or golf club. But this type is exceedingly rare in the real
professional workplace.

THE FIVE PATTERNS OF EXTRAORDINARY CAREERS

So what are the five patterns of extraordinary careers? As the five
chapters that follow will detail, they are to:

1. Understand the value of you. People with extraordinary careers
understand how value is created in the workplace, and they translate
that knowledge into action, building their personal value over each
phase of their careers.
2. Practice benevolent leadership. People with extraordinary careers
do not claw their way to the top; they are carried there.
3. Overcome the permission paradox. People with extraordinary careers
overcome one of the great Catch-22s of business: You can't get the
job without experience, and you can't get the experience without the
job.
4. Differentiate using the 20/80 principle of performance. People
with extraordinary careers do their defined jobs exceptionally well
but don't stop there. They storm past predetermined objectives to
create breakthrough ideas and deliver unexpected impact.
5. Find the right fit (strengths, passions, and people). People with
extraordinary careers make decisions with the long term in mind. They
willfully migrate toward positions that fit their natural strengths
and passions and where they can work with people they like and
respect.

MANAGING COMPLEXITY VIA PATTERNS

The five patterns are not a simplistic formula for distilling the
complexities of a career into a set of rules. Many of us desperately
yearn for a set of simple rules for dealing with the complexity of
our working lives: Do these ten things, avoid these five. If this,
then do that. The problem is that in managing a career in real time,
where you have to make important decisions without all of the facts,
where there are important and sometimes painful trade-offs, cookbook
rules are simply not effective.

Careers, like weather systems or financial markets, contain patterns.
When a cold front collides with a warm front, thunderstorms are
likely to appear. When interest rates decline, the stock market tends
to rise. In any complex system, there are usually a handful of
factors that govern the vast majority of the behavior of that system.
So while in situations with great complexity, such as careers, there
are no easy, rational answers that will always lead to the most
positive outcomes, there are patterns that correlate very strongly
with success over time.

Careers based on success patterns are quite different from those most
people feel they are in. Many believe that success is out of their
control. Yet careers guided by success patterns are understandable,
predictable, and manageable over the long run. Our goal in this book
is to answer two questions that lie at the heart of what you would
presumably like to accomplish on your lifelong career journey: How
are extraordinary careers really achieved? And what deliberate
thoughts and actions can you institute to create extraordinary
success and ful- fillment in your own career?

WHAT PROFESSIONALS ARE UP AGAINST: CAREER UPHEAVAL

This isn't your parents' career ladder anymore. Gone are the days of
The Organization Man and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which
described a world in which you moved steadily up a preset career
ladder at the same company until you retired with a gold watch and a
pension. While large corporations historically attempted to create
career opportunities for their employees, today we are all on our own
to navigate an increasingly complex and competitive business
environment, as well as a daunting number of career choices and jobs
along the way. Four of the most important forces at play:

Executive turnover is at an all-time high. Fifty-eight percent of
large and medium-size companies changed CEOs from 1998 to 2001,
according to an international study of 481 corporations by management
consulting firm Drake Beam Morin. The median tenure for CEOs is now
2.75 years (down about a year from 1999), and only 12 percent of CEOs
have held their position for 10 years or longer. Low-performing
companies have nearly twice as much turnover among top-performing
employees as high performing companies, according to the consulting
firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
Career choices are much more unclear. There is no single perfect
job out there, and in a world of increased specialization, there are
many more forks in the road and avenues to take. This means many more
career decisions, with each one potentially leading you down a
slightly different path. And with an increasing number of choices
comes the danger of career drift along with the vagaries of the
market. For example, in the mid and late 1990s Internet and
technology companies were hot and drew hundreds of thousands of
people. Subsectors such as technology consulting firms or outsourced
customer service providers also flourished. When the recession hit,
traditional corporations with perceived stability came back in favor,
so back many people went — or tried to go there. Other sectors, such
as pharmaceuticals and private companies, are coming into vogue and
will certainly attract many of the most opportunistic professionals.
But keep this Ping-Pong game going and you risk a severe case of
career vertigo.
You are going to move through more jobs in a decade than
executives did in a lifetime thirty years ago. The average
professional with thirty-five years of experience has worked for just
over six different companies during his or her career. Yet those with
only ten years of experience have, on average, already worked for
four companies. This trend is likely to persist for two major
reasons. On one hand, companies are going to continue to be rigorous
about their cost management and efficiency drives, making reductions
in force a normal part of doing business. On the other hand,
individuals are going to feel simultaneously less loyal to their
companies in the face of potential layoffs and increasing career
alternatives, and liberated by the portability of their IRAs, 401-K
plans, and pension plans. Addressing individuals' deeply held desire
for stability in an environment of unrelenting uncertainty and change
will require new guideposts and principles for successful career
management. Specifically, managing the experiences and perceptions
associated with working for many employers, including those who are
viewed as arch competitors, is a challenge that today has no simple
solution.
There is no safety net. Until recently, if you or your company
stumbled and you lost your job, there was a long list of companies
that would be interested in hiring you. Now, with huge waves of
corporate downsizing and the fall of once high-flying companies,
nothing is guaranteed. The seemingly safe company you join today
could possibly turn into tomorrow's downward spiral. As the Internet
boom and bust illustrated, one can go from MVP to persona non grata
in a matter of months.

Your individual career is becoming more complex, and so is the
overall business world. Competition is driving every business to
lower costs, wring out inefficiencies, compete globally, and
outsource noncore activities. "The rapidity of change has clearly
raised the level of anxiety and insecurity in the workforce," said
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.

Even the factors that are positively impacting the value of
individual professionals, such as the increasing competition for top
executives, often are accompanied by additional challenges and
complexity. With a shrinking pool of people between thirty-five and
fifty-five — the future generation of top executives in the years
ahead — companies are becoming more sophisticated and creative about
attracting talent, and navigating the many forms of incentives,
compensation, and opportunities will only become more complex.

The good news is that despite what you may be feeling in these
volatile times, your actual value is higher than at almost any other
time in modern history. As the complexity and specialization of the
business world increases, more value is placed on intellectual
property and specialized skills such as financial acumen, direct
marketing, and turnaround expertise as well as intangible factors
like teamwork and the ability to work across organizational lines.
Consequently, companies are investing more time and money to seek out
executive talent.

THE ULTIMATE PAYOFF

Career success is not achieved easily. Like all things of value, it
requires significant investment-in time, effort, focus, emotional
exertion, and personal sacrifice. Yet as Tim Reynolds realized
longingly during his college reunion weekend, and as our own research
clearly confirmed, those achieving the highest levels of professional
success are more satisfied with their jobs, their lifestyle, their
compensation, and the balance in their lives.

Understanding the five patterns of extraordinary careers and
tailoring them to you — your personality, aspirations, personal
situation, and strengths and weaknesses — is well worth it and will
help you accomplish the ultimate payoff: career success and
satisfaction, under your control, and beyond your grandest
expectations.

The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, by James M. Citrin and
Richard A. Smith. Copyright (c) 2003 by James M. Citrin and Richard
A. Smith. Published by arrangement with Crown Business, a division of
Random House, Inc.