What Happens Next?

I meet people from different companies, countries, career stages, cultures and communities every week.

• Newly promoted into a senior role

• Embarking on a graduate scheme to kick off a career

• Considering leaving an institutionalising career of 10+ years

• Going to work every day in survival mode

To name but a few.

Across all these diverse conversations, we inevitably land on one key question:

“What happens next?”

Which, at face value, is a perfectly neutral question that can lead us to consider endless possibilities dispassionately and rationally and decide what the best course of action is. Then all we need to do is follow the plan step by step and in due course the rewards will arrive at our doorstep.

Except… it doesn’t often work like that.

Anyone who’s been on a leadership programme facilitated by me will have heard me talk about Mike Tyson’s philosophy on your carefully crafted plan. If you haven’t, just make sure you’ve got your figurative mouthguard in before you start diligently working through your intricately aligned chevrons and diamonds on Life Plan v1.

This moment of change that’s left you pondering the next step doesn’t have either a positive or negative energy of its own. As a human being with complex thoughts, emotions and behaviours though, it doesn’t feel like that. It might feel like you don’t have much choice, that you weren’t prepared, that you are mega-excited or mega-daunted (or both), that it isn’t fair, that this is the moment all your dreams come true… in fact none of this is 100% true.

To shoehorn in some Shakespeare, “it’s our thinking that makes it so”.

Which is why it’s so crucial to be able to create space between whatever brought us here, and the action we choose to take in response. It is a choice, even though again it might not feel like one.

• Hiding your own leadership style and values to mimic the leaders that went before you versus doing things your way even if it raises eyebrows

• Showing up as a new graduate with ideas, opinions and questions versus waiting a year to share an opinion in front of others because you’re “too new”

• Holding on for a pension because it feels safe, versus banking what you’ve got and choosing your own level of risk and reward in the next chapter

• Nodding to your colleagues with a “living the dream” each morning versus finding work you enjoy or derive meaning from (whether that means a small or a large move)

The point being: when we start to deeply understand where our choices are coming from (values-wise), drill down into who we are at our best (strengths aka values in action) and speak our hopes and ambitions in action – it all feels a little lighter and a little more possible.

Or, in the more succinct words of Seneca: “we suffer more in imagination than in reality”.

So, there’s some work to do on perspective. Then what?

Well, seeing as you’ll be doing some discovery work on your values here, it makes sense to maximise the return on that time and energy investment and apply your values to your next steps. This is how you make them personal and tailored. You wouldn’t buy a suit in someone else’s size, so why would you choose a career or a leadership style that wasn’t designed for you either?

Let’s say you determine that some of your core values are curiosity and collaboration; and you’re currently out of love with your career. You think it’s probably time to look elsewhere to rediscover your mojo, but don’t know where to start.

I would ask you:

“What would a curious person do?”

“What would someone who valued collaboration do?”

At a deeper, perhaps subconscious level, you know exactly what they’d do, because you are them and they are you. You’ve probably just forgotten somewhere along the way, while you were doing other things to fit in.

In practical terms, continuing this example, your plan might now look like:

1. Making more LinkedIn connections in fields of interest

2. Asking those new connections what a day in their World entails

3. Asking what you could help them with

4. Reconnecting with people you enjoyed working with in the past and asking them what they're up to now, how they would describe you, if they'll write you a testimonial...

For starters.

Because you’re essentially playing to your strengths, this should also feel a lot less like a chore than the aimless doom-scrolling of generic jobs pages.

If you’re after something a little more challenging, try this:

With a maximum of 200 words, write the retirement speech you’d want someone else to give about you when you finally hang up your boots/headset/pen.

Then re-draft it over and over until it says what you really want it to. Now you've got a plan to work towards.