Remember when you would be in a job interview or a performance review, and they would ask you where did you see yourself in 5 years? Hahaha, that seems so funny now.
I see myself not in a mask. I see myself able to shake hands with people. I see myself alive, I hope.
In this new post-COVID-19 world, how can we anticipate where we will be in our careers? Five years seems a long way off. So let’s break it down to five months. Where do you see yourself in five months?
I see myself working hard every day and successfully navigating the new digital landscape. Instead of thinking of it as frightening, I see it as an exciting time full of never before newly imagined possibilities.
For example, if they could make a vaccine in a year or so, could they solve world hunger? By incrementally changing a few things in the way third world agriculture is done. Or using new methods like vertical farming to make agriculture more productive?
I am not a farmer, so I don’t really know about these things. A friend of mine years ago, we told each other that we would try to do something new every year for the rest of our lives. Maybe learn a new skill or experience something new to keep our minds fresh and curious.
If we imagine a better business world, we can work the five-year plan backwards. Let us start with the work environment. Take away commuting to the office every day. Let us make employees more productive by having them choose the best work environment for them.
Combine the office technology with working from home, communicating remotely, working in the office some days, meeting in person some days, and even working flexible hours. Forty hours a week one week, thirty hours the following week, or working every Saturday so you could have a month off.
Working hard for the business is the goal. Focusing on the team and what you need to do could be assisted by technology. When I go into doctor’s offices, and I see a bank of lateral filing cabinets with old-fashioned paper file folders behind reception that they are taking down and using to phone patients, I always think “there must be a better way”. Let us use technology to help teams eliminate endless meetings and non-productive paperwork, among other things.
That’s the way it was always done before. Maybe we can find a better way to work hard and make companies profitable, using innovation and technology and a new pioneering spirit. We can look at new solutions to the same old problems. Look at the possibilities. Think of new, better ways of doing things. The working world can be creative, innovative and adaptive in a refreshing new way!
Writer/Editor 