Walking Straight in Circles

Have you ever felt that you were walking in circles? I have recently discovered that you probably are. It is not possible to walk consistently in a straight line without help. Walking without support will mean you inevitably go in circles.

Don't take my word for it. You can try it yourself. Find a big open space and start walking. The Sahara seems a decent place to try it out, else a forest on a cloudy night. Alternatively, I have 2 excellent sources. The first is a German study of a few years ago, led by a chap called Jan Souman from the Planck Institute. The second is a scene from Flight of the Phoenix (1965), where Capt. Harris (played by Peter Finch) and Sgt. Watson (played by Ronald Fraser), leave their companions in the desert to walk to summon help. They go round in circles and fail heroically.

Bottom line, if you don't have reference points, you end more or less back where you began. Career choices are a bit like that. I recall even comparitively recently being asked (or more often asking a candidate) where they saw themselves in the future - demanding purpose and clarity. These days, I am less sure this need for certainty equips people to make the most of what's out there.

Having too sure a path is as dangerous as having no path at all. Having a path where you walk in the well-trodden footsteps of others or even re-tread those paths you yourself have worn, provides surety but no adventure. No chance to fall victim to serendipity.

Finding new roles has seldom been tougher. It is so very tempting to go back to what and who you know. For many, this can be the right path. For some though I am increasingly sure that understanding how experience and know-how can cross boundaries opens up the door to success. To places that would never have been explored and bluntly to roles in organisations and industries that are very different.

I claim no specific insight here. The world is full of resources on how to amass and recognise transferrable knowledge. I am reading a decent one myself. Much of this is pretty simple stuff, if only I'd taken time before to consider it. "Common Sense" even - and if there was ever a word that described something that was not "common" at all!

So, take great care in transition to know what signs to follow. Be sure we do need signs but do not always look to the familiar. Other constellations are as valid as those that have served you well before. Strangers can indeed be friends you have just not yet met.

Takes me back full circle to Flight of the Phoenix - those lost in the desert eventually flew to safety in a full-sized plane made by a man who designed "toy" planes. That's a story about transferable skills too!

Yesterday, I learned my old boss had sailed the Atlantic in seventeen days. The romantic me wants to think that he did it in his own boat, and not on a cruise ship!  "... a tall ship and a star to steer her by." (Sea Fever - Masefield) come to mind.