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In project management, there's a model of constraints known as the Iron Triangle. You can have something done good, fast, and cheap. But you can only pick two. When it comes to managing your career, you also can't have it all. You have to make choices or tradeoffs.
Andre Martin, author of the new book "Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever," has a similar model that boils down your career choices into three areas: craft, company, and cause:
- Craft is about developing your skills and becoming the best at what you do.
- Company is about loving where you work and being solely committed to helping it succeed.
- Cause is about having a mission that transcends your company and furthering some greater aim, injustice, or issue impacting the world.
"Getting clear about what your career is about will help you think about where to be and where to go," Martin wrote in his newsletter, "Monday Matters." "However, having all three is the career unicorn, as chasing either company, craft, or cause means that you will invariably compromise the other two over time."
Higher education professionals are susceptible to these constraints. But limiting factors should be viewed as beneficial. Constraints force you to focus on what matters most.
Faculty are stretched across obligations of service, scholarship, and teaching. There are some overlaps, but generally speaking, company (or "college" heretofore) is their service, craft (creating expert knowledge) is their scholarship, and their cause is teaching (disseminating knowledge). Invariably, professors will choose whichever is rewarded most by their tenure and promotion committee.
For administrators and staff, the choice is more of a matter of personal preference. But as schools' budgets become tight, higher education professionals might have to compromise their specialized craft and become more versatile to help the institution survive and fulfill its mission. And with market pressures and programs being eliminated, college sometimes even comes before cause.
Because there are more job opportunities than in recent years, constraints affect institutions more than higher education professionals. You have choices, whether that means changing your job, the skills you develop, or what motivates you. Institutions don't change so easily.
You might find yourself enjoying the tactical aspects of your work and perfecting your craft more than your affinity for good ol' State U. Or, you might not care much about what you're doing or where you are doing as long as you're making a difference in the lives of students -- any students. Maybe you just want to be useful and invaluable to your team, a particular leader, or your institution.
"If you are 'of craft,' you need to find a place where you can hone your skill, your art," Martin wrote. "If you are 'of company,' you should take a diverse set of roles and become enmeshed in the company. If you are 'of cause,' you need to go wherever you are needed and do whatever it takes to see the injustice eradicated or problem solved."
Even if you're convinced that you can have all three, or if you can't decide if you are of craft, college, or cause, there are realities that influence the direction of your career.
Craft First
Focus on the odds of getting a job right now. There are only so many job openings at your preferred college or in higher education to go around. In that sense, you should invest in your craft and emphasize your skills that are valued inside and outside the academy. Choosing craft might be harder for an academic with a Ph.D. in a specialized discipline than, say, a finance or IT professional, but everyone has talents to offer other industries.
College First
You build the most career capital at the places where you've worked. The people at your current or former institution know your capabilities and should trust you the most. Use this to your advantage. And because past performance is the greatest predictor of future success, stick with the place where you have more certainty of what it takes to succeed. Investing further in a narrow, specialized skill or pursuing some idealized type of "meaningful" work elsewhere might not be worth the risk.
Cause First
Your craft or college might someday become obsolete. Instead, shape your career around addressing the greatest needs. Because of advances in online learning, not to mention possible disruptions from artificial intelligence, higher education professionals must adapt and acquire new skills. Some colleges might close because they are set up to serve a specific demographic. But what will prevail are people's need to learn job skills and the mission of higher education to support human development. And so will your career if you commit yourself to this cause and make it your priority.
So, which career focus should you pick? Like a project manager choosing good, fast, or cheap, it depends on your circumstances and what you value. The most important thing is to embrace constraints to guide your career.
"Each of those careers has a very different trajectory and a very different choice you make around the types of jobs you take," Martin said as a guest on the "How to Be Awesome at Your Job" podcast. "It's not impossible to have all three, but you create very different experiences and design very different careers based on what you're really making primary."
