Young People, You Should Force Yourself to Grow Systematically

Published: 2019-09-03

Recently, the semiannual macroeconomic data were released: the situation faces internal and external difficulties, and official statements say domestic economic downward pressure is increasing.

To cope with the economic winter, companies have rolled out the classic “cut costs and improve efficiency” measure—layoffs. Employees in top-tier cities can feel this firsthand.

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Layoffs are a market-driven behavior, and market forces mean "survival of the fittest." The “less fit” here is not absolute. For example, if the company changes strategy and your department is deemed expendable, being affected in that way is a broad form of being “less fit.”

Today I want to talk about people who, after being eliminated at the tail end in a large company, suddenly feel their skills and experience evaporate and become at a loss.They are often concentrated among those over 30 who already have some professional experience.

The midlife crisis of professionals

In this round of layoffs at Tencent, the company prioritized cutting over 10% of middle managers. Middle managers are mostly in their middle age.

I read an article about a middle-aged man who, under family pressure after leaving his job, hid it from his wife and two children. He commuted as usual but spent his days in a café anxiously preparing for the next job. Several failed interviews made him suddenly realize that the experience he had painstakingly accumulated for years was no longer needed by society.

Many people like this, through years of effort, have turned their prime developmental years in their thirties into something that resembles the bleak end of a career.It may seem sudden and unexpected, but its essence is a lack of self-awareness early in the career and a weak sense of crisis.

In fact, these people are widespread in the workplace, especially in large companies; the layoff wave just exposed some of them first and drew public attention.

Mistaking the platform for yourself

Whether in traditional or internet sectors, when a company grows large it naturally develops some ills. As a system, the company can catch “big-company disease,” and so can the employees within that system.

Working in a big company for a long time, you hold a large stack of resources—supply chain, brand, users, traffic, and so on. Any card you play can move the market.Accustomed to respect and favor from partners and customers, it’s easy to mistake the platform’s or system’s capabilities as your own, indulging in a hollow sense of personal achievement.

This ailment often lurks when the industry is booming and individuals are young, and manifests during an economic winter or when one reaches middle age.

Guo Degang once told a story on a show. Years ago, when Yue Yunpeng first became popular, he was tempted by fame and fortune and became arrogant.

Guo confronted Yue Yunpeng and gave him a cold splash of reality:

“Do they cast you in films because you can act? You might be able to, or you might not.

But remember, you’re a xiangsheng performer. They don’t hire you because your acting is great, they hire you because you perform at the Deyun Club and you have some drawing power; they use you to add color to their film.

There are so many professionally trained actors from Central Academy of Drama and Beijing Film Academy who have no work—why would they pick you? Is it because of your outstanding acting? No! When you were selling noodles at the zhajiangmian shop, why didn’t they hire you then? Do you really think you’re Teacher Yue, Old Master Yue?”

Recognize yourself: don’t over-attribute the platform’s shine to your own merit.

Falling into the trap of being a “customized” talent

My father worked at a state-owned enterprise for nearly 30 years and is about to retire; he did the same job his whole life. In recent years, as the company’s performance declined, the once iron rice bowl now threatens every employee’s livelihood. Younger employees in particular worry about how they will be placed if the company goes under.

My father later told me, “Those younger people who, like us, spend 10 or 20 years at the factory are ruined—when they come out they can’t do anything; they have no competitiveness. How can they not be anxious?”

Many face the same problem: having worked in an industry for years, they only understand the task in front of them and know nothing about other parts of the company; being separated by one team feels like being separated by an entire industry.

Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, used the example of a pin factory: no single worker, however diligent, could make 20 pins a day alone, but after dividing the process into 18 operations, the average per worker can be 48,000 pins a day. This shows the efficiency of specialized division of labor.

The progress of all humanity is the process of society-wide specialization and division of labor.Every company’s owner wants to increase efficiency and reduce costs to make more money. The larger the company and the more mature the industry, the more a job is split into many parts, with each person specializing in one piece.

But for talent, this can be disastrous, because you become a company’s “customized” employee—like a screw whose size and material fit only one specific place; moved elsewhere, it’s useless.

To avoid being customized and having your value tied to a single platform, actively develop your general-purpose abilities—this is the fundamental solution.

General-purpose abilities include problem-solving, collaboration, communication and expression, and rapid learning, among others.In this fast-changing era, any scarce knowledge or skill can soon be replaced. Only robust general-purpose abilities let you remain resilient and adapt to change.

Systematic growth

If a company is a system, the underlying capabilities that support its operation are the sum of all employees’ general-purpose abilities.

So you need compound, systematic growth—not just doing the tasks at hand but continually training yourself—so you can break new ground and build foundational and system-transcending capabilities. Otherwise, you easily become a component highly dependent on the system and cannot access greater development space.

Always maintain clear self-awareness and a vigilant sense of crisis. The earlier you understand the importance of systematic growth, the more confidently you can exercise your autonomy in the future.