Throw Your Five Year Plan Out The Window

Today marks the release of The 8 Man Rotation, an ebook focused on the intersection of talent management and sports. Put together by Matthew Stollak with contributions from Steve Boese, Kris Dunn, Tim Sackett and myself along with forwards from Bill Kutik and Laurie Ruettimann, it’s an excellent resource for anyone looking to get some more of the game into your talent management strategy (or just a good reason to read about sports while on the clock). You can read it online or download your own copy.

In the spring of 2006, Greg Oden was preparing to enter Ohio State as one of the top prep prospects in the country. Do you think he had a five year plan? You know, the one HR people ask about in an interview? If he did, I don’t think it would be a stretch if it went something like this:

1. Become one of the top college basketball players
2. Take his team to the national championship
3. Get chosen first in the NBA draft
4. Go to a team with championship contention possibilities
5. Win a championship ring as a key player for the team

That’s a pretty good plan. And in the first year of it, he took a big chunk out of the list. He became a top college basketball player, took his team to the championship game, got chosen first in the 2007 NBA draft and went to a team with a core of players that could go all the way in a few years.

In September of 2007, his plan got derailed. He had to have microfracture surgery on his knee. He was out for the season. And over the next three seasons, he would miss significant playing time and have two more surgeries on his legs. The last time I saw him play was in December of 2009 when he was carried off in a stretcher.

The point isn’t that life comes at you fast and that changes are going to come. You already knew that. In fact, you probably think five year plans are as unrealistic as I do.

The real point is that many people think Oden is a failure because he hasn’t met this plan. I may be the only person who is optimistic about what he does in the future. Getting back into basketball is a possibility near term but even more so, doing something different with his life is a certainty at some point. And that’s exciting for me and it should be for Oden. It is something he hopefully has more control of than the durability of his knees.

When I lost my job in HR and took a job outside of being an HR professional for the first time, I thought I had taken a step back. I was nervous. You can ask the people I asked for advice. I had progressed with my plan up to that point, looking to take an even bigger leap into the next great HR role. Then, I discovered something else I liked, outside of HR.

Yes, it is difficult to describe how I got here.

Yes, it is difficult to say I didn’t accomplish what I wanted in my HR career.

Yes, I haven’t exactly thought through what’s next.

And you know what? That’s fine. I really like where I’m at right now. I (mostly) wake up inspired and ready to take on the day. That linear career path we always hear about? The one we use to plan our next five years? Bupkis. Find things about your career you enjoy and do them. And if you can’t do that, do things with the rest of your life that you enjoy and do that.