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Career Courage

16 January 2018

Imagine tomorrow morning, before leaving the house, you draw a small square on your chin, then forget about it and go about your day.  If anyone asks you about the square you simply say it is nothing.  Chances are you will get lots of strange looks and pressure from those close to you.  People will want you to conform to the norm and remove it.  The pressure through the day will rise, your job though, is to resist it.  Especially, to resist your inner voice of conformity.  Just last the one day with the square on your chin.

This exercise is one recommended by Stanford University Professor Philip Zimbardo as a way of weakening the link between peer pressure and making our own decisions. 

Conformity is a huge influence on the decisions we make about our careers.  From an evolutionary perspective conforming to group norms kept us safely and securely in our tribes, uneaten by sabre tooth tigers.  We trusted that the group around us had greater access to information, a better understanding of how the world really works, and that the norms that had been determined were ones that had been proven to be in our best interests.

This worked a charm when we lived in caves and in small tribes where our ‘career’ was largely set in stone. 

Conformity, though, is not so useful to today’s career.  Having a flourishing career requires making decisions that not everyone around us would have made.  It requires speaking up in a meeting, taking a bit of extra time to decide the best way to present a unique idea to your manager, taking that online course when you could just watch Netflix, or saying yes when everyone expects you to say no.  It requires building a habit of ongoing, regular, decision making in your career, as I outline in this previous article.

Your career decisions do not need to be momentous, they just need to be a tiny bit more courageous than you are comfortable with.  Incrementally you will build a flourishing career.

Remember though, in making these decisions you slightly shift everyone else.  You help them be a little more courageous, a little more open to difference, to uncertainty, to possibility.  You become an inspiration.

Which brings us back to the square.  Zimbardo has encouraged many people to try this exercise and overwhelmingly the feedback is clear.  It increases personal courage and helps weaken our need for approval from others.  

It might not be what you need to do in order to take that next courageous act in your career, but if I do see you out and about with a square on your chin, I for one, will give you a big High5!

As always wishing you a flourishing career.

Katherine

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