Disrupt your own job before it's too late

Roger Grant thought he had it made when he landed a job as an IT manager in Nokia back in 1996.

At that time, IT and Nokia were on the ascent.

At the age of 23, Mr Grant was paid more than his father to, in his own words, "basically hook up printers to networks".

"I felt that I was part of the core business team. IT at that time was like the dark arts. People thought we had magical powers, and there were very few of us," he tells The Business Times Weekend.

But by 2003, the perfect illusion was rapidly disintegrating. IT as a whole was becoming more plug-and-play, and more people were growing IT savvy.

He recalls: "I still thought that I was a rockstar, so I put my hand up in the job market, thinking I would be snapped up in a heartbeat. No takers."

It was his much-needed wake-up call that opened his eyes to the changing tide.

In hindsight, the signs always seem obvious.

The eventual fate of Nokia doesn't faze anyone now, but back then, no one expected its downfall to happen so quickly.

And employees who refused to leave their bubble found themselves going down with the sinking ship.

The term "disruption" is thrown about so often that it almost seems like a recent phenomenon.

But it is not.

The only constant throughout human history is change, and there are only two ways to go about it.

When it comes to jobs, either you get disrupted, or you pre-empt the disruption.

Now, that sounds simple, but it is by no means easy.

Mr Grant, now the CEO and co-founder of Singapore-based people development firm Personna, described the process of disrupting his career as getting his nose bloodied multiple times.

When he failed to land a job the first time around, he adamantly stayed on in his comfort zone at Nokia.

But soon, an IT outsourcing project started where people were given the option to stay on in the company, or lead an outsourcing team into IBM.

"There was a (game of) musical chairs happening internally.

People were fighting to stay within Nokia," he says.

But he decided to lead the project and join IBM.

In IBM, he was loaded with two additional accounts on top of his Nokia account and it felt like he was doing the jobs of three people.

At times, he envied the comfort of his old colleagues.

But slowly, he saw that he was becoming more relevant again.

He started engaging better with clients.

He could tackle customer issues

. He was getting better at selling.

It was a humbling experience, he says, and one that took "a large chip off" his shoulder.

But his efforts eventually paid off.

"Those colleagues that hung on in Nokia longer, they experienced this constant fear of restructuring. Nokia was restructuring every three months. One colleague, eventually forced to leave, experienced 18 months without a job. He had to start his career all over again."

But disrupting one's career does not need to turn out as dramatic as Mr Grant's story.

Sometimes, this means having the foresight to see where the growth areas are, and then taking the leap of faith to pursue them.

Closer to home, another individual who decided to make the unusual step to "disrupt herself" is Valerie Chen, marketing manager at startup RedMart.

She left a branding agency after five years as she felt that there was little future in the industry at that point in time.

She observed that many agencies are slow to move to digital, and have a narrow scope of expertise.

"Many crowdsourcing platforms now can do branding at a fraction of the cost. Branding as how it's operating right now will be obsolete if agencies don't reinvent themselves," she says.

On top of that, she wanted a chance to be involved in solving business problems at every stage of a brand's life cycle, and not just the creation phase which she was focused on in the agency.

Determined to grow her knowledge, she left her job to focus her energy on pursuing a role that would enable her to do so.

She polished her LinkedIn profile, made a list of companies and roles that she was keen on, and wrote to potential employers to ask for exploratory chats.

Ms Chen revealed that she approached each meeting as a business pitch, putting in 100 per cent to research about the business and offering ideas.

She eventually managed to land her current job at RedMart through one of these meetings after nine months.

Ms Chen described it as a rollercoaster ride that left her depressed at times as it was a period of rejection and uncertainty.

She admitted feeling tempted at times when recruiters offered her pay increases to go back to an agency role, but she knew that she would be back to square one.

It was a gruelling period, but also one of personal growth.

She shares some of the lessons learnt from her experience.

"Don't be afraid to make a career switch if you are in a job where you don't see a future or progress. We all can reinvent our career even if we don't have all the necessary skills. Be proactive in finding out your knowledge gaps and do something about it."

Ms Chen says it's about identifying where you want to be, and finding out how to get there.

She adds that it's a myth that people need to make a 100 per cent change before they can reinvent themselves or make a switch.

Sometimes, just a tweak of 20 per cent is enough for you to become relevant again, she says.

"It's about adaptability - go out there and be brave to change that 20 per cent."

As for Mr Grant, his advice for workers fearful about their careers getting disrupted is to have frequent informal interviews with other companies.

This was something he regretted not doing earlier in his time at Nokia.

Stay ready.

Be more visible outside your company… Start getting comfortable having those uncomfortable conversations."

Job disruptions are a fact of life.

In today's economy, none of us can say for certain that we are not in the next Nokia or another fading industry.

But it is what we do about it now that makes all the difference.

This article was first published on April 22, 2017.
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