The Optimised Career Portfolio: Living, Learning and Leading through your work
How well-diversified is your career? Are you putting all of your investments of time and effort into one job or one skill set? Or, are you investing in other career assets that enable you to grow your "career wealth" over time?
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These are the questions Carol Poore, PhD, asks in her book, Building Your Career Portfolio.
My strong desire to assist leaders in achieving success in their careers and my deep knowledge and expertise in portfolio management led me to embrace this idea of career portfolios.
This concept goes beyond creating multiple income streams.
It allows individuals to curate a career portfolio that offers the freedom to live, learn and lead with impact in a job market that is constantly changing and unpredictable.
Everyone hopes their career path will bring them happiness, purpose, and opportunities for growth and leadership.
However, there are common obstacles that can make this challenging to achieve.
For example, we may lose interest in a job we once enjoyed while discovering a passion for something new.
Sometimes, demanding managers can make work unbearable.
Additionally, as businesses change, our skills may become outdated, potentially leading to unemployment.
It's important to remember that one job or one skill set may not fulfil all of our aspirations, and that's okay.
Managing the risks associated with our careers is not the only advantage of having a career portfolio.
It also presents an appealing chance to engage in meaningful work and maximise the "wealth" we get from our labour.
Nowadays, work is no longer confined to a specific location or a traditional 9-to-5 schedule.
It can be done remotely or through a series of projects, allowing us to work independently or collaboratively at any time and from anywhere.
With the technology available today, we can connect with and serve a broader range of people from the comfort of our homes after regular working hours, surpassing what we could accomplish in an 8-hour workday. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Nowadays, many individuals are prioritising their overall well-being and do not want to spend their entire lives working at the same job, under a boss they may not like, and dealing with late nights followed by watching TV and going to bed, only to repeat the same cycle the next day.
The Optimised Career Portfolio assists individuals in developing a work portfolio that aligns with their goals and desired lifestyle.
Career design and execution
As a CFA charterholder, I know that managing wealth starts with understanding the client's objectives and constraints.
Investment professionals use this understanding to create a portfolio of broad asset classes or categories that offer the best return with minimal risk.
From there, they choose specific investments to form a portfolio that helps clients achieve their goals.
The portfolio is monitored and rebalanced as needed but generally stays invested in the broad asset classes.
Everyone can use the same principles to design and execute a long career with significant financial and non-financial benefits, whether we are investment professionals or not.
Investing in four broad asset categories
Carol Poore, PhD, suggests that there are four main areas in which individuals should invest their career time. It is essential to have assets in each category throughout your career journey.
Primary Portfolio: This is what you are primarily engaged in, your day job. It is the job that takes up a significant amount of your time. It does not necessarily mean that this is what you are most passionate about.
At least it helps you pay the bills, keeps you engaged and allows you to learn and contribute.
Secondary Portfolio: This portfolio enables you to incubate other passions and ideas. Many have used it successfully to launch into new careers and opportunities.
Being able to allocate time to this regularly offers significant benefits over a career lifetime.
It is a source of additional income. Also, your secondary portfolio can become your primary portfolio when you decide to rebalance and focus most of your time on the assets in the secondary portfolio.
Volunteer/Community Portfolio: Committing to this portfolio means dedicating time to support your passion for voluntary causes and community activities.
Volunteering provides significant opportunities to network and develop new transferable skills, which you can use in the primary and secondary portfolios. For some, this is their source of meaning and purpose.
Learning: Given the changing nature of work and the need to reskill and remain relevant, the final time allocation is the learning portfolio.
Continuous learning is an integral part of the overall career risk management strategy. It enables all professionals to stay at the cutting edge of their profession and develop new skills they can draw on in times of change.
Case Study I:
The concept of Optimised Career Portfolio is simple to implement, but it requires some effort. Consider Catherine, who only possessed a primary asset and was concerned about her career progression. During our coaching session, we utilised the framework to explore her options, given her career goals and constraints.
After nine months, she has established a thriving secondary portfolio with two significant investments.
She now serves as a paid board member of a school and has also created a paid program from her passion while working with a leading financial institution.
Thanks to her diversified career portfolio, Catherine now experiences greater job satisfaction, earns a higher income, and has a stronger sense of purpose. Although she's still working on other investments, the progress is remarkable.
Case Study II
Consider Robert, who used the concept to optimise his career for over two decades.
During this period, he has enjoyed working full-time in diverse areas such as consulting, corporate finance, asset management, leadership development, strategy consulting, business development, and teaching. He has also invested in volunteering, learning, and secondary portfolios.
Although he has experienced several career transitions – anticipated and unanticipated, he has always remained in control of his career by tapping into his portfolio of interests nurtured over time.
He has managed to mitigate the risks and enjoyed a successful career by relying on a diversified portfolio of primary, secondary, volunteer, and learning investments throughout his career journey.
Freedom to Live, Learn, and Lead
With career assets spread across the four portfolios, over time, you earn the freedom to explore your passions profitably, enjoy your life's work, and live your dreams without stress or fear.
We all desire to make a worthy contribution and lead through our work. An optimised career portfolio approach makes it possible to exercise significant leadership by choosing your portfolio of exciting and profitable career projects without feeling compelled to take a particular job.
It's time to craft your purpose and design a career portfolio that allows you to live, learn and lead.
Take this opportunity of a lifetime and build your dream career portfolio.
The writer is a Leadership Development Facilitator, Executive Coach and Strategy Consultant, Founder of the CEO Accelerator Program, and Chief Learning Strategist at TEMPLE Advisory.
The mission of The Leadership Project is to harvest highly effective leadership practices and share them in a manner that other leaders can easily incorporate into their leadership practice.
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