Career Sustainability - Highlights from RebelCon 2024

Written By Michelle McDaid (She/Her)

Highlights from The Leading Place talk at RebelCon 2024 on November 21st 2024 on “Career Sustainability - Achieving Work Life Balance"

What is Working Sustainably?

The term “sustainability” originally was derived from research on the environment and refers to the use of resources in a way that prevents their depletion and retains them for future generations. Sustainability from an employment context is about creating the conditions where employees can make a valuable contribution now, and in the future. We have moved from speaking about the bottom line to the triple bottom line - People, Profit and Planet.

Creating Sustainable Work Environments

In my experience of leading and scaling global software engineering teams, I have seen the benefits of starting with trust and creating environments of Psychological Safety. My product development philosophy and leadership style are interwoven. My life experience has shown me the value of trusting, empowering and supporting teams to work to their strengths, in a collaborative environment with a clear vision. I believe it is important to communicate in an open and transparent manner, leading with context, not control. Something that is important to me as a technology leader is working in a sustainable manner - working in a way that enables team members to deliver value now and also in the longer term. In today’s fast paced environments, people are often working under extreme pressure and in an ‘always on’ manner. It can be hard to get opportunities to fully switch off, rest and reset. We have a head, heart and gut and each of them give us signals about what is working and also when things are ‘off’. In engineering we tend to favour the logical response. As a coach I see my role as unlocking the inner wisdom of others. We all know the answers, we just need to stop and listen to our bodies. We need to trust our inner knowing.

Minimum Virtuous Products

As the demands of the workplace keep rising, many people respond by putting in ever longer hours, which can inevitably lead to burnout, costing both the organisation and the employee. Words I heard too often in my tech leadership roles were ‘We need to move faster’! Of course we are working in highly competitive environments and we need to move with pace, but sometimes we need to ‘slow down to speed up’. An interesting HBR article from 2019 said “the ‘move fast and break things’ era is over… Minimum Viable Products need to be replaced by Minimum Virtuous Products… new offerings that test for the effect on stakeholders and build in guards against potential harm”. The early Facebook motto of “Move fast and break things” was about an experimental mindset which I embrace. However my issue with the words ‘We need to move faster’ is that they often indicate a scarcity mindset, a frantic way of working which doesn’t bring about the expected results. In the rush to get a product into a customer’s hands quickly, user research can be sacrificed. The end result may be burnout team members and a product the customer didn’t even want!

Flexible Hybrid

Another challenge that the tech industry is dealing with is the threat of strict RTO (Return to Office) mandates and inflexible hybrid approaches. I spoke with a HR leader in a tech company recently who shared their approach is ‘Flexible Hybrid’. They don’t mandate what days people need to come in to the office. It is about intentional connection and treating people like adults. Having autonomy and flexibility is critical to working sustainably. The discussion on remote and hybrid working has become very polarised. This cannot be an either/or approach. There are too many nuances. It is a complicated or ‘wicked’ problem. It can be helpful to look at challenges such as this through the lens of Polarity Management.

Polarity Management v Problem Management

Technical or Complicated problems need a narrow focus to solve them. Adaptable or Complex problems need to look broader and outside where we think we should. Problems have a right or best answer - there is a solution. Problems push an either/or mindset. Polarities give us two ideas that are complementary and interdependent. Polarities push a both/and mindset. What are polarities? Some examples include breathing in and out, people and profit, centralisation and decentralisation. Polarities are like a figure 8. If we are in beneficial use of either side, we are okay, but when we go too far, we have an issue. E.g., Activity and rest. We need to consider how we can get the benefits of A without losing the benefits of B. How can we achieve a good balance?

Managing your Energy, not your Time

This concept comes from The Energy Project, and they talk about four dimensions of energy - our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy. There are four zones that we may be operating in - Performance, Recovery, Survival and Burnout Zone. If we focus too much on Performance without some Recovery, we may end up in Survival Zone, and if we don’t take steps to get out of Survival Zone, we may end up in Burnout Zone. We can be brought into Survival Zone when we are feeling overwhelmed, or we can be triggered into this zone. This is a big topic but it is worth bearing in mind that when we are in Survival Zone we can lose 70% of our cognitive function. Having an awareness of our triggers and noticing what triggers others we work closely with can be helpful! It is also worth considering how we can intentionally bring joyful activities into our day that replenish our energy. Dr Rangan Chatterjee talks about four pillars of health - sleep (the most important one), move, eat and relax. I would add a ‘fun’ pillar.

Dealing with Uncertainty

The pace of change in the tech world can be overwhelming. Uncertainty has become the norm Getting involved in emerging technologies can be exciting, but people can also be concerned about what the future of holds. I love Christine Armstrong’s Friday vlogs on the Future of Work. In a world where there is so much coming at us to consume, these are short, snappy and funny! Check out the conversations between Christine Armstrong and Bruce Daisley or remote and hybrid working also! Oliver Burkeman in his book ‘Meditations for Mortals’ compares overwhelm and the realisation that you can’t do it all, with getting caught in torrential rain and the moment you realise there is nothing you can do but get soaked. When you are overwhelmed and realise you just can’t do it all, it can be freeing. It can push you into a more ‘essentialist’ mindset. It we feel overwhelmed we can tend to stay in our comfort zone where things are easier and we know what we are doing. However to learn and grow we need to proactively push ourselves out of our comfort zone.

Learning through Pain and Failure

Some of my greatest learnings have been through pain. Nietzsche said ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ but sometimes the ‘What doesn’t kill you almost does’ version feels more true! ‘How To Fail with Elizabeth Day’ is a podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven’t gone right and what we might learn from them along the way. Every week, Elizabeth’s guest explores three failures, and what these failures have taught them about how to grow and succeed, better. We can certainly take great learnings from failure IF we take time to reflect! However, everything doesn’t have to be that hard. Sometimes we learn through positive experiences. I am in year two of a Masters in Work and Organisational Behaviour at DCU (Dublin City University). I am generally a positive optimistic person but during an exercise in my Organisational Learning & Development class recently, I noticed when asked to reflect on key learnings outside the classroom, all my examples were from painful experiences. I reflected again and realised that I had examples of learnings outside the typical learning environment which came from very positive experiences - in some cases the learnings felt ‘easy’. Perhaps I was playing to my strengths. When we think about investing in our personal growth and learning sometimes we think we don’t have time, but small incremental improvements can really make a difference. My daughter Jane has a 923 day streak on Duolingo and having invested approximately two minutes a day, she can now speak Swedish! When presented with an opportunity, my go to mantra (which I have taken from my sister) is “Say yes and figure it out later”.

Sustainable Careers

What does a good career path look like? Why are we conditioned to think it should be one with clear goals, a plan and a tidy trajectory? “The path is rarely a straight line until hindsight selectively connects the dots”. When you look back over your career journey, you can probably see themes emerging that perhaps were not apparent when you made decisions along the way. You may have chosen roles that play to strengths you were not fully aware of. According to the research, the core indicators of a sustainable career are Health, Happiness and Productivity. Sustainable careers are about a dynamic person-career fit over time, with mutually beneficial consequences for the person and for their surrounding context - over a long term perspective. This can be viewed over the following dimensions:

  1. Person-centred approach: Traditionally we have thought of our careers from an Individual perspective - how a career develops over time, resulting from many choices the individual owner makes. We encourage people to have Agency, to own their career. We think about Motivation and Self-Determination. Yet, nothing happens in a vacuum. Individuals’ choices must be aligned with the organizational objectives and cannot be separated from their broader life context.

  2. Context: Careers happen within and across diverse contexts that the person is operating in - work, home, friends, leisure. Stage of life and external commitments play a part.

  3. Time: Careers may go through a cycle of events and decisions that determine the work that people are doing, the changes they make when moving from one job to another (within or across organizations), or transitions between paid work and other statuses (Eg, non-paid work, unemployment, temporary leave, and retirement).  We may consider a lateral move. We may take a pause for many reasons. When looking at gaps in CVs it is helpful not to rush to judgement. People may come back after a pause in their career with renewed energy and motivation.

Sustaining Ourselves Over a Longer Career

According to the book “The 100 Year Life”, we will need to consider how we can sustain a longer career than we would have envisioned. The book speaks about how with greater longevity we are moving from a ‘three stage life’ to a ‘multi stage life’. Transitions will become the norm. Age is not a stage anymore. We can expect to be younger for longer! This will spark more intergenerational relationships and collaboration. At the recent AIB Sustainability Conference, Mary Robinson spoke about the benefits of the ‘elders’ having meaningful conversations with younger activists.

Vital Ingredients for a Sustainable Career

  1. Self Awareness - establishing some form of a reflective practice.

  2. Continuous Learning Mindset - This requires Proactivity (Those who are proactive about their career tend to fare better), Adaptability - navigating change confidently and taking transitions in your stride, Keeping abreast of the latest technological advancements - with a greater focus on AI, the skills that bridge tech and human insight will be needed. As well as acquiring new knowledge we need to also unlearn.

  3. Positive Psychology Mindset - Thinking in abundance, celebrating progress and wins, which can help build self-efficacy and the motivation to keep going.

  4. Support Networks - Coaching, Mentorship, Sponsorship, Communities - internal (Eg., CoPs) and external (E.g., MeetUps). It is important to have diverse networks. We hear about opportunities from weak ties (friends of friends).

Practical Tools

I shared some practical tools including “How I like to Work”, Ikigai, and Hype/Brag Documents

The Power of Community

I came across the concept of “Collective Effervescence” in Bruce Daisley’s book “Fortitude”. It refers to The emotional state we reach when, as an individual we become part of a collective, a whole, sharing a common purpose.

We are wired to connect!

References & Links:

Michelle McDaid (She/Her)
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