Career planning and better ways to reach your career goal

I recently spoke to a guy who was thinking about doing a two-year part-time MBA at a cost of $90,000.

My first question to him was, “Ultimately, what do you want to do with this MBA?”

There was a moment of an awkward pause.

This pause was not dissimilar to a lot of situations I have been in when I asked people about their ultimate destination or purpose in life.

On many occasions, people just draw a blank.

Many people just don’t know what their ultimate destination is. Or where they see themselves ten or twenty years from now? Or what is their purpose in life?

This is what I said to this person after a short pause – “Everything we do, every action we take, must bring us closer to our goals, our destination. If it does not, then there is no point in doing that activity. In your case, it is doing that MBA. It could just be a waste of time and effort.”

This person then answered that he aspires to be a CEO of a company.

Now, this is a good start (in a non-judgmental way)

At least I have something to work with. Something to explore with him.

Here’s his story as he reveals his thinking process.

He is prepared to spend up to $90,000 over two years in part-time study to acquire an MBA. Ultimately, with this MBA, he hopes that this paper qualification will get him a CEO position.

He is prepared to work hard for many years to accumulate the necessary knowledge and experience to climb up the career ladder up to the CEO position.

At 34 years of age and having an IT undergraduate degree, his wife works and they have no children.

I wasn’t surprised that he did not have a clear career plan to get there. He wasn’t clear as to what experience he needs to get there. He wasn’t clear as to the kind of job roles he needs to apply for.

To keep things simple, I then proceed to set out two possible options for him to think about.

The first option was the traditional route.

It’s the normal route that many employees will take – Study hard, get a college or university degree, and work your way up the corporate ladder.

For some people, they will take costly MBAs to turbo-charge their chances up the various organisational layers.

For others, it’s playing the office politics or working in jobs they truly hate.

For this guy, it will take many years – working and studying. He may not even earn the additional salary just to pay for the cost of the MBA.

A point to note is that there is no guarantee that he will ever get a CEO position. Possessing an MBA does not guarantee anyone any specific position.

The hope and pray strategy usually does not work for the majority. As people are more educated with two or more paper qualifications, I wonder whether over-qualification will fly in the future of work.

As there are more job seekers than job vacancies, always count the cost of obtaining a college degree or an MBA. Head knowledge does not easily translate directly to higher incomes.

Like any investments, what is the return on investment on acquiring a college degree or doing an MBA? What is the likelihood of realising that investment?

When we buy a real estate property for investment, we need to do the proper due diligence.

Likewise, the same due diligence rigour should also be applied for investments in education.

Let’s face it. In every organisation, there is only one head. There are many people eyeing this same position.

There are lots of office politics to play in order to get to this position. This assumes that you can stomach these games. There are many people you need to “fight against” just to progress up the corporate ladder.

The other option I gave him was to be an entrepreneur or a small business owner. This option may be a better option for him.

Being an entrepreneur for a start-up, he creates and seeks an innovative idea to his customers. If you love creating value, creating things, then entrepreneurship is for you.

The other pathway under this option is to be a small business owner who sells tradition products and services. For example, a café owner, a suburban bookkeeping practice, or a novelty store.

For both pathways under this option, this person can be his own boss – his ultimate goal. There’s no pre-requisite to have an MBA or a paper qualification. Perhaps, it’s about acquiring knowledge and experience from the school of hard knocks – in my mind, the best teacher we can ever hope for.

To me, the risk for him is low.

He has no kids to support. He has an employed wife who can support both of them during the start-up phase. They just need to keep their expenses low or manageable.

There are lots of resources and assistance to help wannabe entrepreneurs or small business owners that he can tap into.

I basically encouraged this person to be an entrepreneur or a small business owner instead of an employee.

This is the quickest route for him to reach his ultimate goal of being a CEO of a company. His own company. There is no need to look over his shoulders and play the game of office politics.

The reality is that he’s never going to be a CEO of a large company.

Perhaps starting small and working his way up to different company sizes may be the best way.

Make as many mistakes as possible in a small company. Learn and gain the appropriate higher education to get the job done.

The in-demand timely acquisition of knowledge is the future of education. It is not the just-in-case education that we usually see.

The hands-on experience will be invaluable to prepare him for other CEO jobs in the future.

For him, he should be taking the path of least resistance; the low hanging fruit.

However, he seems hesitant. I told him to think about it.

I wasn’t surprised by his hesitation. People just don’t look beyond their current situation.

Here’s the thing.

Many people have dreams, big dreams.

But they are limited by their own ability to take risks, to go after that dream, to realise that dream.

It’s a mindset change that they need to undergo themselves in order to achieve our goals.

They need to get comfortable with change, to do something unfamiliar.

They are also limited by their own personalities. Some personalities are more suited for entrepreneurship while others are more suited for being an employee working for someone, trading time for money.

The guy may need to understand his personality type, say through an MBTI assessment.

Perhaps this person thinks that slowly climbing up the corporate ladder and acquiring an MBA will get him to his ultimate goal.

So, I asked him about the likelihood that he will succeed to become a CEO given his current situation, where he wants to be, and what he needs to do to get there over many years.

After a while, he admitted that the traditional career path may be too long for him. An MBA will not guarantee him that job that he seeks.

The ability to take risk is so important especially when we are much younger. I wished my parents had encouraged me to take more risks when I was younger.

I did not have the necessary tools, resources, knowledge, and support to take risks. I didn’t know anyone who could mentor or help me. My circle of friends was limited at that time.

Hence, I have now made it a point to equip myself with these things for my own children’s sake.

I want to be able to continuously encourage them to take the necessary career risks especially when they are younger. I really don’t want them to go through the traditional pathways.

You may not have children now. Or you may be over 40 and wondering whether is it worth taking a career risk at your current age.

If you have a burning dream and you really want to realise that dream, then there are different risk-free strategies you can take.

For starters, doing a part-time gig while having a full-time job is the way to go. It reduces your risk.

When you have achieved a sustainable level of income from your gig, you can slowly reduce your full-time hours. At some stage, you may even resign from your current job to work full-time on your ultimate dream.