The New Commonsense Guide to Your 401(k): Rebuilding Your Portfolio From The Bottom up

Chapter 2. "Management" Is Not a Career Choice

WHAT IS YOUR PASSION? What do you do well? Of course we'll always have managers. But you need to develop a skill that you can perform on your own. Here is the problem for millions of middle managers who were "downsized" or "outplaced" or just plain fired as the American economy grew leaner and maybe meaner. As corporations became flatter and team management replaced the management hierarchy, few people are being paid simply to manage other people. If you want to succeed, you must identify something you can do that commands a fee or a salary. Managing is not it.

It's not easy for many people to discover what their skills and talents are beyond the title a corporation gives them. "But we all have a lot of neglected talents," says Handy. "It's a matter of redefining yourself. You need help because you've only seen yourself in one light."

To free up your thinking about what you're good at, what you enjoy doing, and how you might turn that into a career, Handy suggests that you go to twenty people you know and ask each to tell you one thing you do very well. Handy instructed a forty-eight-year-old advertising executive who had just lost his job to do that exercise. "It was sort of embarrassing," this former adman told Handy. "I got twenty answers and not one of them was advertising." Instead, this man was told that he was very creative, good at organizing teams, presenting ideas, leading people, selecting wines, and recalling historical details. ...