Rule 3: Maintain Pervasive Professional Flexibility

Overview

SNAPSHOT

Is flexibility an essential element of professional success?

Yes: 96 percent

No: 4 percent

According to former Senator Alan Simpson, flexibility is essential to a successful career because unpredictability is the way of the universe. "These guys who wake up with their days all planned out on a Palm Pilot and a computer notebook, well God bless 'em," says Simpson. "I am here to say to them that I have never found a single day in my life that worked out the way that I planned it. Not a single day."

Stephen Hawking—among other leading popular physicists—writes book after book telling us how the universe, while seemingly rigid, is actually quite flexible. Space bends time; matter can be condensed and expanded. For many of us, it all seems interesting but very far away. Not for the invincible executive. The fact is we can apply those seemingly distant principles to improving our professional lives.

Most invincible executives have a very broad perspective on the world around them. They develop not only the cultural interests that we discussed earlier, but also historic and scientific interests. "We learn through anomalies," notes leading medical researcher Dr. Joshua Korzenik. The most successful people, according to Dr. Korzenik, are those who expose themselves to a wide variety of scientific and cultural ideas, and whose minds are always working to reconcile the anomalies that they see in those diverse concepts. This scientific sense of curiosity prevents "stasis"—the cessation of learning, says Korzenik. Indeed, most top professionals are intrigued by space, time, and matter and have learned to use these elements of the universe to their professional advantage. It seems they have all read Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

Invincible executives are, therefore, as flexible as the universe itself. Since the universe is composed of a flexible continuum of space, time, and matter, it should be no surprise that top professionals show a profound understanding and flexibility in terms of all three of these qualities. "Your goal is not to find the job that you need, but rather the one that needs you," according to aerospace executive Tom Gunn. And that process—locating your future—requires both a strong perspective on what is going on around you and a great deal of flexibility, according to Gunn. Let's talk about the specific areas where you need to be flexible so that you find the right path to success.