The lost art of sticking around
Yes, it’s still possible to rise through the ranks at one company
The pandemic has prompted many to rethink their professional lives, what makes them happy and how they spend their time. In what’s being dubbed the Great Resignation, millions of people are now quitting or changing their jobs — or at least thinking about it.
COVID-19 aside, a perfect storm of reasons explains the increasingly wandering labor force: the ease with which workers and prospective employers can find one another over the internet; the increase in remote working that removes geographical tethers; the disappearance of defined-benefit pensions that rewarded longevity; and the emergence of the gig economy. Even before the Great Resignation, the median number of years that workers spent with one employer was a mere 4.2, according to U.S. government statistics.
It’s been suggested that continuously changing jobs fulfills a basic human need, and that the single-company career model of past decades was more an exception, psychologically speaking, than a rule. Or perhaps people are simply more restless and less loyal than they used to be?
All of which makes me an anomaly. I joined Juniper Networks in 1997 as employee number 32 (there are now more than 10,000 of us). At that time,
Bill Clinton was starting his second term as president. One gallon of gas cost $1.19. Bruce Willis still had hair, and mine was still a dark brown rather than the current salt and pepper.
I started as the most junior engineer in the firm, and I suspect that what compelled management to give me a shot was the need to find somebody who would do the mundane work. After a series of promotions and 17 years at the company, I was named CEO in 2014.
As the years have piled up, I’ve done a great deal of thinking about my journey. In the beginning, I didn’t plan to remain with one organization for so long, nor was I aiming for the corner office. Yet it all happened. Why? How? And what observations and advice would I offer others about what it takes to survive and thrive in a single company for so long, even in tumultuous times?
Pick the right company
If you’re going to stay married to one company, make sure it’s a company you love. It must offer a range and diversity of experiences, opportunities for interesting responsibilities and, last but not least, have a mission, culture and corporate values you believe in.
Without these foundational elements, the risk of getting bored or suffering burnout is high. With them, the company can start to feel like a home.
Forget the 5-year plan
Many have coached me to develop a professional plan with short- and longterm objectives and strategies to achieve them. I’ve never had one, and you might not need one either.
I never set my sights on the CEO chair. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t ambitious, but my aspirations didn’t lie with winning this or that promotion as part of an imagined career arc. Rather, what drove me was simply getting the opportunity to work on important and intellectually stimulating projects and to have a seat at the table where consequential decisions were being made.
I figured if I did a great job in each new role, the rest would take care of itself. And it did. So, toss the five-year plan and just get to work.
Perseverance
In his book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ben Horowitz wrote, “Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, ‘I didn’t quit.’ ”
I’ve worked with some incredible people throughout my career who were equally, if not more, ambitious than me, but who lacked the patience and grit to stick out the tough times. I have a stubborn personality that causes me to dig in my heels when the going gets tough (some would say to a fault) and to prove the skeptics wrong. I’m not suggesting this makes me great. I’m saying unshakable perseverance can be a powerful ingredient to seeing your career grow and achieving your full potential in any organization.
Disrupt or be disrupted
A huge potential pitfall of the single-company career model is that you can fall into a comfort zone and get stale. To achieve long-term success with one employer, you must not ever allow yourself to get comfortable.
I’m a scholar of Andy Grove and a big believer that only the paranoid survive. In a fast-paced and competitive industry like tech, you need to wake up every day thinking “disrupt or be disrupted.” You have to get used to the discomfort of constant butterflies in your stomach and always be open to change.
Comfort means inevitable death to a high-tech company. It can also be the greatest inhibitor to your career.
Avoid myopia
Longtime company veterans have institutional knowledge — they understand the organization deeply, how work actually gets done, where the skeletons are hidden, etc. The possible hazard, of course, is the myopia that can come from being part of the system for so long.
It’s important to surround yourself with teams that have a healthy balance of veterans and newer people with fresh, outside perspectives. It also helps to build a strong and diverse network of professionals outside your company.
Yes, the single-company career is becoming almost unheard of, but I’ve found it can be richly rewarding — if you’re aware of what it takes to succeed. Call me a proud member of the Great Non-Resignation.