Harvard Business Review on Managing your Career

Brought along some books that I intended to read on my holiday trip to Vietnam. I only ended up finishing just one book! (And it was a book that I was already halfway through on.) Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe that means that I actually took a proper vacation instead of thinking about work and career all the time.

But anyway!

Some key points from the Harvard Business Review book on Managing Your Career.

Goodbye Career, Hello Success - Randy Komisar
Pretty inspiring read of the biography of his success. Komisar did not follow any conventional career path, but instead let life work itself out along the way as he tried out a myriad of businesses and employment, throwing himself and his passion into each one of them. Would love to have a career like that - pretty much the way that I live my life. Actually, why not right!

Managing Oneself - Peter F. Drucker
Have seen this concept reiterated in many different forms, but it was still good to see how Drucker puts it into words from his perspective. Essentially, it means applying the rules of management to oneself - to think through what my values, passion, abilities are, and then align my career and time spent accordingly. This essay also talks about the "second career", which many people embark on after they have achieved reasonable success in the first one. This "second career" often lies in the area of philanthropy or social entrepreneurship, as people think of ways to contribute back to society. It is important to start thinking about this early on - so that one can transition smoothly into the second role (usually in the fifties). This IS definitely something that I am interested in.

Managing Your Boss - John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter
We all kindof take this for a given nowadays, but this was quite a landmark piece when it was written in 1979. Reminds how we should often think from the perspective of the boss to understand his needs, concerns and abilities when engaging them. One key thing to remember is that they are but humans with their own limitations and fallibilities!