English Columns

Today marks the beginning of former President Vaclav Havel’s annual conference at which world leaders in politics, intellect, business and religion gather in Prague to discus issues and conflicts facing civilization that have ethnicity, religion, race, national origin or political beliefs at their core. This year, however, is a special year for the conference. It is President Havel’s 70th birthday and it is the tenth anniversary of the conference itself, which is known as Forum 2000.

What would a column on career development be without a discussion about your future? For millennia people have been fascinated with methods of predicting the future—tea leaves, tarot cards, astrology, psychics, palmistry—the list goes on and on. In fact, when I Googled “ways of predicting the future”, I got more than 52 million hits, which was two million more hits than “ways to develop your career”!

Say good-bye to the knowledge-based economy. Knowledge is everywhere. We are awash in a sea of knowledge. It is a commodity today. Say hello to the Wisdom-based Economy. This economy is driven by not only knowing how to use the knowledge we have access to, but understanding the subtle and powerful relationships among the various elements that come together to make wise decisions—sustainable decisions in a global marketplace. Let me explain my thinking.

Many centuries ago it would have been easy to identify someone of courage. You would just have to look for people with lots of scars from sword fights, perhaps a few missing teeth from battle and probably a very stern look about them. The first person who comes to mind for me is Jan Zizka, the 15th century Bohemian military leader who fought under various rulers and who, in 1420 at the age of 60 and blind in one eye, led the Taborites in several important battle victories, even after losing the sight in his other eye. Now that’s courage!

I have received several letters from readers asking for my thoughts on how to do one of the most difficult things any manger has to do in the course of his or her duty: fire somebody.

Let me begin by saying that firing someone, except in the most egregious situations such as theft, fraud, or gravely serious misconduct of some sort, should be looked at as a process not a one-time event.

Over the years I have had the privilege and honor of knowing a number of very successful people in a variety of fields of endeavor from business to the arts and archaeology to sports and politics. I have also spent many hours counseling people who were less fortunate, at that moment in time, in their careers—those who had not achieved that which was truly fulfilling to them professionally and personally.

Dictionary.com defines serendipity as: “The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.”

Years ago, when I first heard the term philosopher kings, I formed an image in my mind of a bunch of old guys sitting around thinking, just thinking, and maybe every once in a while one of them would lift his head off his chin to say something like, “I think, therefore I am”.

Plato, however, had something different in mind when he used the phrase “philosopher king” in The Republic to describe Socrates’s ideal ruler. And I think much of what applied then to this term applies today, maybe even more so for today’s “rulers” in business—managers and CEO’s.

As Czech professionals become more mobile and the economy provides more opportunities, more upwardly mobile professionals will resign from one position to accept a new one. It’s a fact of life. Research shows that a career is rapidly becoming a collection of employers over the span of one’s professional life. And, as we transition to more of a serialized career model, the manner in which one exits an employer will have more importance. Indeed, it will have far reaching consequences on your future career and how you are perceived by potential employers.

As a magnet is to iron filings, so is attitude to success.

It’s quite simple actually. The world is full of “content” experts—people who know a lot about any given subject. There is no shortage of smart people today. If being smart was the key to success, the world of business would be awash in successful people, but it isn’t. The real shortage is an attitude shortage--people with the “right” attitude to be specific. (I’ll define that in a moment.)