(Photo: Escapadas Mexico Conocido)
It’s already mid-April. Three months already passed of good intentions.
The beginning of the year is often about getting back in the gym. And like any other quotes that are meant to be inspirational, we can have a few laughs. Let’s just pick a few of the start the year and and move to things beyond 2023.
Push harder than yesterday if you want a different tomorrow
“PUSH HARDER THAN YESTERDAY IF YOU WANT A DIFFERENT TOMORROW”
"WORK HARD IN SILENCE. LET SUCCESS BE YOUR NOISE”
"THE HARDER THE WORKOUT, THE GREATER THE FEELING OF ACCOMPLISHMENT”
“YOU DON'T FIND WILLPOWER. YOU CREATE IT”
“THE STRUGGLE YOU'RE IN TODAY IS DEVELOPING THE STRENGTH YOU NEED FOR TOMORROW”
“FITNESS IS NOT ABOUT THE WEIGHT YOU LOSE, BUT THE LIFE YOU GAIN”
The problem with tacky inspirational quotes is that they appeal to your rational brain (prefrontal cortex) in a way you cannot possibly disagree. But what actually determines your feisty motivation and ultimately drives behavior are emotional systems. And there’s nothing linear about it. So, an apple a day does not keep the doctor away.
The same applies to your career. It’s not linear, and it needs to be nurtured.
But you can use methods developed for businesses and adapt them to your career. The most funky thing about it is that you get creative without resorting to fads like ‘design thinking’. If anything, we can use techniques that only became just that because of others’ intuitions. That’s where a lot comes from in history.
The other one is listening to people’s advice after the fact, after their commercial success was undeniable. But a lot went into that, that often cannot be created or recreated.
But read on how some people creatively paint a non-linear path that needs constant pushing around, like aligning tires on your a car.
Business Model Canvas
Most people know the book “Blue Ocean” by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim, released in 2004 and updated in 2015. It describes how companies can choose to operate in blue oceans where the rules and marketspace are unknown but where they will be unrivalled and create demand.
In red oceans, on the contrary, all existing industries in known market spaces operate and compete only for market share. Everything else becomes commoditized. Fierce competition, all played by the same rules, also undermines differentiation attempts. The market is crowded and many players bleed.
I have often argued that the airline business is like a big red ocean. And working in the industry can also be a red ocean as many jobs between airlines are inter-changeable while job holders have few prospects outside the industry. People are specialists within the airline but not to the extent they cannot easily be replaced.
Better careers, arguably, are often made from outside serving the airline industry. There’s better compensation, too. And it’s also where we can specialize differently, become multi-disciplinary, and create a unique path that creates future demand for work, advisory, and inspirational hand-holding.
To some extent, it’s how my own career evolved, combined with some help, luck, and support from the many people that enabled me to apply new concepts and gave me a shot at the various types of enterprises. In the end, not much is my own doing, other than (1) motivation and (2) the discipline to keep learning outside the initial comfort zone.
* * * * *
Career Canvas
But there was one thing I found useful. On one day, I started looking at the Business Model Canvas exercise Mauborgne and Kim propose.
But differently.
After I published my first book “Cruising to Profits” in 2015, I asked myself: “What if we can use a similar technique to diagnose a career, create career options, test scenarios and walk along the pathway it can create?”
So I created my framework along the 9 pillars that would create 81 (9x9) lists of combinations of exercises/questions that would trigger indications of my future career.
The 9 pillars were:
Professional offerings (value propositions)
Key professional and personal assets
Key (professional) partners
Key channels
Key resources
Key customer groups
Key PR (key customer relations)
Necessary costs to incur
New (types of) revenue models.
I also created a goal: “To independently work in airline organization design with novel service offerings”
I realized that I needed to juggle all 9 pillars creatively to create a path that, step-by-step, would get me closer the goal. I further understood that I would have had to retire from all the ongoing work and contracts to focus on creating time for that hobby and path.
But it was not that simple, because I had started work in business model transformation in 2011, which led to “Cruising to Profits” and I needed to build a bridge before I could work on organization design.
* * * * *
Bridging Gaps
Important career changes are all about bridging gaps. Mostly, competences and confidence gaps.
So, why was “Cruising to Profits” so instrumental? Because all of the ideas and the framework I proposed for sustainable economic growth in aviation needed to go beyond blue print to execution. And many of my ideas could not be implemented without new technology and new types of technology applications that had not been pursued, yet.
Until I started looking at Artificial intelligence. That became the bridge.
But working in AI at enterprise level (workflow design) led me to important organizational and behavioral obstacles and let me to focus on people and psychology.
What followed was using a mix of channels (online, key former clients), partners (professional services firms), new resources (research), new assets (degrees and capital), at a cost (foregoing revenues and new investments), to create my new service offerings.
I did try out different paths and career model types [I identified 5] as I lay out below, and they became part of a tool I use to help executives in their career plans. In fact, each of the 10 steps has its toolkits I can make available.
(Source: Partial overview of Transforming to Profits®, ©Ricardo Pilon, 2019)
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The Path
So this was the path throughout which I gradually changed the composition of assignments in the airline industry. It also led me to work with industry suppliers and aircraft manufacturers:
2015: Publication of “Cruising to Profits” and start of Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) and Certified Business Valuator (CBV) designations for business transformation work.
2016 - 2021: Programs in Artificial Intelligence and Ex-Ed certificates
(Harvard, MIT).2017: Obtain CFA
2019: Obtain CBV
2019: Start MSc in Applied Organizational Psychology degree
2019: Publication of “Solid Concrete”, a book on my personal transformation and Career Canvas framework, including 81 appendices
2021: Obtain MSc-Psy in Applied Organizational Psychology
2023: Started Doctorate in Psy in Applied Organizational Psychology (exp. 2030).
I am now specializing in the intersection of organization design, cognition and employee behavior caused by the application of Artificial Intelligence. This makes up for a unique space that ongoing and future business transformation success hinges on.
In fact, it’s a big contribution to modernizing organization design and that’s how I’m getting immersed into the field, together as Partner with Reconfig.no in Norway.
But above all, I love it and it’s a hobby that allows me to continue to be active, differently.
I hope this is helpful to the readers. It’s not as straight forward as it may have sounded, but it’s doable and I like to share and exchange with people about these experiences.
If you have any questions about the steps, tools, and framework published in “Solid Concrete” or in “Transforming to Success - T2S”, contact me and I will share them for free.
Wishing you all a wonderful day, and greetings from Montréal.
Ricardo
Montreal, Tuesday, 11 April 2023
Feel free to contact me for questions, comments, or a chat:
ricardo(at)pomonaadvisors(dot)com
my general email has changed to: info(at)ricardopilon(dot)com