Develop your Five Year Plan today with help from Prodigy
I learned about the Five Year Plan very early on in my working life:
When I was in my very early 20’s, when I was breaking into the television industry as a production person (i.e. – camera person, editor, producer/director…) I had a job opportunity in Collingwood, Ontario for which I was scheduled for an interview. I was living in London, Ontario at the time, my hometown where I was born and grew up, and my car had just given up the ghost and I had no money to buy a new used car for myself. I had no credit either, so I believed renting a car wasn’t in my options.. and Greyhound buses were infrequent and were a 8-12 hr trip that would have required an overnight stay (remember I had no money) either in Toronto or in Collingwood.
So I chose to hitchhike – this was the mid 1980’s so it was already past when hitchhiking was considered a cool and hip way to travel, there had been stories of bad experiences both true and fictional that made it a unreliable and even dangerous way to travel. I was also extremely naive and quite sheltered, so while I was apprehensive I was far more interested in starting my career path and getting paid experience than concerned for my safety… this is a sexist remark but at least I was male and 6′ 3″ tall, so it would require someone with strength or other means to subjugate me. The trip itself is a story that can be told elsewhere, it’s belies the point of the post…
I arrived in Collingwood about 45 minutes before my interview was scheduled. I went into the McDonald’s that was just down the road from the tv station, went into the bathroom and changed into my interview clothes (that I had packed in my canvas backpack… all rumpled up) and then walked to the front door of the station arriving 15 minutes before my time. I had to have been quite the sight – rumpled clothes, shoulder length brown hair skinny 145 lb kid who looked like they just traveled the entire 240 miles on foot. I wore my Converse basketball shoes as I couldn’t put my dress shoes into the backpack…
The Station Manager comes out, introduces himself to me and brings me back to first talk with his 2nd in command. We sit down in one of the editing booths and engage in an hour long conversation (note the word “conversation”) where we talked about what I’ve done to date, what my desired role would be and what the job would require from me. All good – we finish up and he hands me off to the Hiring Manager.
Hiring Manager starts off with the same kinds of questions, but then he discusses my “demo reel” – a professional video I had on 3/4″ tape cassette showing off what I’ve done before. All is good, he says he’s impressed and then he moves to the fatal question:
What do you see yourself doing in Five Years from now?
AAACK!!!
I’d never thought of that – not even close! I was very focused on the NOW – getting a job that I enjoy that also pays the bills. I believed that I really needed to get trained / educated in this field on the job, and earlier that year I had unceremoniously left in my senior year of college three credits shy of a Math/Physics B.Sc because I couldn’t see a job coming out of it. Counsellor said I needed to get my Masters, then move to a PhD and Post Doctorates – that would be my future for the next 10 years. I didn’t want to continue going to school and not having fun (lol, little did I know…)
This career choice was based on my volunteer time and honorary position with my College Radio station – it gave me immense satisfaction during school and kept me there, really. I also volunteered doing television production with my local Community Access channel (the Wayne’s World jokes can commence…) It was personally rewarding on an exponential scale, especially compared to a future of numbers and studies. I hadn’t thought of a Five Year Plan or any plan really – I just wanted to get on with it.
The Manager saw I hadn’t put any thought into it, and he was very kind and started to tell me about The Five Year Plan.
The Five Year Plan
He had read a self help book that explained how building a plan, identifying in that plan what your career goals were and assigning a timeframe to them was the key to a successful and rewarding life and career. In fact, building this plan usually provided you with such a clear and defined focus and purpose that most people achieved their three and five year goals much earlier, and needed to revise their goals to think bigger. The final message passed to me was The Five Year Plan was not only necessary and provided me with an answer most managers would be looking for, but it was a living document that would be updated at a regular interval reflecting your new goals and purpose.
I didn’t get the job. They gave it to another candidate who was slightly older than me who had a car. Hitchhiking was an admirable thing I was told, but not the reliable transportation I needed to fulfill the role going forward.
Ironically, two years later I was working for a sister station up in North Bay Ontario and was invited to be part of the crew producing coverage for the Ontario Winter Games. At the end of the week of hectic work, the same manager took the stage at the wrap party and was thanking people by name when he got to me. His statement “I wish I would have hired you two years ago” blew me away and validated that, maybe I didn’t present well but the quality and quantity of my work, plus my work ethic really meant I was exceeding in my career. My Five Year Plan at the time was to become a Station Manager at one of the other satellite stations – and it would be just a few months later that I would be given and take that opportunity to do exactly that.
How do I create my Plan?
I can work with you on this. It requires some really honest thought on what you want and what you can reasonably achieve in that time period. It also becomes the road map for what experience and learnings you need to gain in that defined time – a syllabus in effect for the courses or seminars you should complete, or certifications you need to have the credibility to get into that role. It also informs you on which paths NOT to take – just because a role and promotion might get you to that level of seniority, it might not be the right role or the right space for you. It should help to define your passion, and if that changes you change your Five Year Plan to reflect that.
Remember – the Five Year, and by extension the Ten Year Plans are iterative and amendable. There is no perfect or right answer in your career – you really can only assess how correct you were in retrospect. But by putting enough thought and soul searching about your strengths, weaknesses, passions, etc… you will build a plan that you can fully invest in. And also one that if you have good managers helping guide you, they will also invest in your plan and provide opportunities to achieve your goals.
The Five Year and Ten Year Plans are an investment in yourself. Put that time and effort into it, and the investment will pay off in ways greater than you thought.
