Disaster Proof Your Career: Tactics to Survive, Thrive and Keep Ahead in the Workplace

Citation

Cho, Y. (2010), "Disaster Proof Your Career: Tactics to Survive, Thrive and Keep Ahead in the Workplace", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 34 No. 7, pp. 694-696. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591011070798

Book synopsis

This book is one of a kind that is written for “career enhancement made possible by career management” (p. 3), in which the author emphasizes individuals' analysis, planning, and action as opposed to the concerted effort between individuals and organizations that other HRD books have defined (Werner and DeSimone, 2009).

The author begins with a brief introduction to the challenges of the twenty‐first century workplace: an environment requiring individuals' career enhancement tactics including, basic preparations (e.g. CVs and watching the job market), communications skills, relationship management, creating the right personal profile (e.g. manners and appearance), understanding office politics, achieving goals, and constant readiness, to name just a few. A fundamental basis for career success, according to the author, is confidence. Generating confidence requires hard work at understanding negative self‐talk and using knowledge to give power, particularly during presentations. Interestingly, the author details 11 fears that cause people to show a lack of confidence during presentations, for example butterflies in the stomach and drying up.

The following six chapters deal with step‐by‐step career enhancement tactics starting from career planning (e.g. self‐assessment and action plans), job performance appraisal (e.g. how to review the experience from the appraisee's perspective), benefiting from appraisal, the development process, methods to take individuals forward (e.g. choosing methods), and creating career‐enhancing opportunities (e.g. putting feedback to work). In the last chapter, the author encapsulates ten key steps that can help readers develop successful careers.

Evaluation

According to McLagan (1989), HRD is defined as a combination of training and development, career development, and organization development, among which career development garners the least amount of attention in the field. This may be because it is rather difficult to strike a balance between individual and organizational efforts in long‐term careers in an organization.

The author takes a rather simplified approach by focusing on the individual's micro‐level career management tactics, regarding “development as a personal responsibility, something that individuals make happen, rather than something that is wished on them” (p. 90). It seems as though this may be the reason why the author uses the term “tactics” instead of “strategies”. Using short‐term micro‐level tactics, individuals are expected to survive in changing management environments, but it is uncertain that they can “thrive and keep ahead in the workplace” as the book title suggests, without having the organization's concerted effort for career development. The author's approach stands in stark contrast to the one that Ibarra (2004), an expert in career development, suggests as unconventional strategies for reinventing the individual's career from a long‐term perspective.

One critical drawback of this self‐help book is that it is unclear about the major target audience, though the author mentioned that his approach to career management “can be taken by an individual at any stage of their career” (p. 3). We may assume that this book is targeting individuals in organizations because several chapters deal with tactics on how to survive in organizations, for example the focus in chapters four and five on surviving and benefiting from performance appraisals. The author gives advice and guidance that is general and intended for a wide audience. For this very reason, it is not easy to find specific details if we are interested in in‐depth information concerning career enhancement. This book lacks a variety of examples and stories to identify with the readers' own experience and skills. As a result, it may be a misstatement to say that “the situations it addresses are widely true across the globe also” (p. vi) as the author claims.

Nor is the book so theoretical as to provide any solid evidence for what the author attempts to convey. For instance, when the author declares “confidence comes from within” (p. 26), does this statement have to do with the concept of “job sculpting” (Butler and Waldroop, 1999)? What does it mean to say “career management is as much an art as a science” (p. 14)? On what grounds are particular career management tools better than others for self‐assessment? Is networking important to create career‐enhancement opportunities on the basis of the concept of “the strength of weak ties” (Granovetter, 1973)?

Shall I recommend this book to individuals who need guidance for career enhancement? It is believed that there are four eras to adult development (pre‐adulthood, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood), which are qualitatively different (Werner and DeSimone, 2009, p. 390). As a beginner, I would need more detailed information on how to build up my career. As a mid‐term career changer, I may need more solid evidence to reflect upon and need to know what others are doing in the middle of their careers. In addition, I would envision future management environments based on a variety of useful resources (e.g. electronic information) that I would want to get from the book. This lack of evidence and real‐life stories as well as resourceful information would make me hesitate to recommend this book to others.

In the author's own words

This is not a guide to how to apply for a new job successfully, though it touches on some of the issues. Nor is it a guide to career planning and development in the corporate sense; that is it is not about how a company may organize career paths for people, or at least for some people, though again this is mentioned. Rather it is about the career enhancement made possible by career management in the sense of the analysis, planning and action that can be taken by an individual at any stage of their career – and ideally throughout – to actively increase the chances of their doing well, by ensuring that they are in a state that actively makes success more likely (p. 3, italics in original).

About the reviewer

Yonjoo Choo earned her doctorate in Instructional Technology at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. She had worked as an HR professional in the past 13 years in South Korea, both in business and academic sectors. Her latest position was MBA Director and Visiting Professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Business School. Her research interest centres on action learning in organizations, based on her experience as an external facilitator in large companies in South Korea.