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Advice for the Graduate in All of Us

4 June 2013

Allison read Dean Robert Bruner’s remarks for the University of Virginia Darden Graduate School of Business Administration 2013 graduation ceremony. His advice to “hang on, hang in there, and make a difference” is a lesson we can all benefit from as we shift from one stage of life to the next.

Tags: careers, change

It’s that time of year again. People are graduating. Whether it’s from elementary or graduate school, I’ve enjoyed watching my friends and their loved ones celebrate the graduation experience in-person and on Facebook. I especially appreciate how easy social media makes it to read and watch commencement addresses. I support many individuals and organizations through life transitions so I’m always looking for new insights. While I haven’t graduated from anything in quite some time, I’m beginning to realize that perhaps we graduate from one stage of life to the next more often than we realize.

With these graduation musings in mind, you won’t be surprised to learn that I found a lesson for all of us in Dean Robert Bruner’s remarks for Darden’s 2013 graduation ceremony. For quite some time, experts have been predicting that the number of careers (not to mention jobs) that an adult will have during his or her work life is steadily on the increase. Bruner sites surveys that find “61% of all employees are open to or are actively searching for a new job. And the median tenure of all job-holders is 4.4 years.”

While there may be some added benefits to movement in the workplace and there are often good reasons to move on, I completely agree with Bob that more often than not graduates (and all of us) need to “hang on, hang in there, and make a difference” at work and in life (especially when the going gets tough).

As you read through Bob’s remarks, you’ll enjoy some success stories of people who chose to be with their organizations longer than the norm. You can also consider whether you agree with United Technologies Corporation’s former CEO, George David, who encouraged employees to build deep knowledge in one area. Or perhaps you’d run a business more like David’s main competitor, General Electric’s former CEO, Jack Welch. Welch picked the “best available athlete” (aka the most talented manager) for a business line with less concern for “domain knowledge.” (Bruner notes “that Jack Welch’s successor, Jeffrey Immelt, has since disavowed the ‘best available athlete’ theory.”)

I imagine we all tend to have natural comfort zones somewhere on what I'll call the “stick-it-out” versus “move-on-and-up” continuum when it comes to our careers and life in general. I think we could benefit from exploring why we stay or go and challenging ourselves to shift up or down that continuum. However, whether it’s in your current or next job or after a major or minor life change, I encourage you to consider hanging on, hanging in there, and making a difference. You can always make a change later, but in our fast-paced world, there just might be something to be said for slowing down and sticking around for a while.



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