The one time I wrote something on the personal side the nature of the post was achieving success in academic librarianship. I asked how you know if you are where you should be in your career? For the most part the response was positive, although a number of you, particularly the younger demographic, thought my formula for success depended too much on a slow but steady approach. Well, get ready to start hearing a whole lot more about the nature of success, what it takes to achieve it, and on what terms you should define your own interpretation of a successful career. I’ve recently come across some different perspectives on being successful or reaching your potential, and they are showing up in some fairly different sources.
One individual who will be driving the conversations about the nature of success is Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell, best known for his popular books The Tipping Point and Blink, has a new one coming out this fall and according to a recent NYT article, it may be even bigger than those previous two books. A clue as to the book’s content appeared in a May New Yorker article by Gladwell titled “In the Air“. What we do know is that the book is titled “Outliers: Why Some People Succeed and Some Don’t” and that it promises to show that the ways we think about success and how it is achieved are all wrong. The clues suggest that Gladwell will make the point that success is often more about where you are at a particular point in time and whether you have the smarts, intuition and ability to spot the right opportunity and grab it “out of the air”. I think we all know there is something to this idea. In our profession the difference between success and mediocrity can be getting the right student internship, being on the staff at a library that has the right resources for a timely, innovative project or disseminating your ideas in a blog post ahead of a colleague with the same thoughts.
But even if you aren’t in the right place at the right time there may still be some strategies you can use to get on a better path to achieving success on your own terms. The key is to take personal responsibility for your career. That advice comes from an article in the July-August 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review titled “Reaching Your Potential” (subscription required). Career success, as defined in this article, is not necessarily about getting to the top. Rather, the author says “It’s about taking a very personal look at how you define success in your heart of hearts and then finding your path to get there.” Getting there involves three accomplishments: knowing yourself; excelling at critical tasks; and demonstrating character and leadership. All careers, even the rewarding ones – as I said in my post – are a series of hills and valleys. This article wraps up by pretty much saying the same thing, but points out that the challenge for many of us is to not abandon our career plans when we hit the valleys. That’s when we each must take responsibility for the management of our own careers.
Finally, there may be something to gain from taking things slowly in your career. Though you may scoff at my source, an article in the August 2008 issue of Best Life talks about the virtues of taking it slow in life. As the author writes “Apparently, slower is the secret to success.” Surprisingly, there are more than a few things in life where you may actually do much better if you slow up and take your time. It can be difficult to be patient when it comes to career success, making a name for yourself, being in the limelight – whatever you want to call it. But sometimes being deliberate about taking your time can make a difference in whether or not you succeed. The opportunity for success you think will be gone for good if you fail to rush to “grab it out of the air” may only be replaced later on by an even bigger and better one.
So keep in mind that there is more than one path to success, and that career success is based on your own definition of what it is.