oliviatamccue

With more past years in our career than future years, we are more frequently approached with the topic of retirement planning.  An important part of retirement planning is our portfolio investment.  Maybe not too surprisingly, there are quite some similarities between career and investment.

• Time, knowledge and skills are applied in a job to make a living or achieve something, so is investment.

• Stock selection in investment has the fundamental approach of starting from top down – pick the market, sector within the market, industry within the sector, and then the company.   Against the odds, one could have the right talent and luck to land on a job in a great company of a top performing industry.  That aside, would you prefer an average company in a top performing industry to working in a great company in an average performing industry?  Are there more chance for a company to be better in a top performing industry? What is the chance of a company to transform an average performing industry it is in?

• Past performance is no guarantee of future results.  Don’t count on your illustrious past?  Yet, also don’t underestimate your potential if things  have not worked out before.

• Have both an entrance and exit criteria for each investment.  How many have entrance criteria for a new job? And far fewer people have exit criteria.

• Review the portfolio every x years – where discipline battles against complacence.  Do you set aside time to reflect how you are doing in your job?

• Most of us could not beat the average.

• Money is a mean not the final goal.

I was once in an interview to a position where the hiring manager confidently said that “people don’t leave a company, they leave their manager”.  I give him the vote of confidence of a good leader and would not mind a bit working in his organization.

How does one differentiate great leaders from not-so-great ones?   People with enough years of working are likely having fair shares of relatively great, good or bad managers.

– is the organization a prosperous one with high spirit and high level of engagement?

– is the organization doing meaningful things?

– is the employee of the organization highly motivated, willing to try new ideas?

– is the leader competent in its position and ready to take up additional responsibilities?

– does the leader acknowledge challenges facing the staff versus make the staff feel incompetent?

– does the leader help to remove obstacles versus creating obstacles?

– does the leader listen and ask probing question versus offer solution that belittle the staff?

– does the leader expand the strength of people versus exploiting the weakness?

– does the leader say “thank you” enough?

– does the leader care about career goals versus squeeze the most?

– does the leader put effort to help people grow?

– does the staff learn from the leader?

– what does the top performer and average performer say about the leader?

There are zillion books on Leadership.   The reality is – when we run into great leaders, we know them; and when we run into bad ones, we also know.

There is a saying that “a bird should find a good resting place”, so is it that “one need to find a great leader along the way”.