I distinctly remember the first time I
had this feeling. I was a years out of college, and into my first stint
in management consulting. I was working with my team to set up relatively
complex spreadsheet to analyse and track the group's financial wellness. I
had to through piles of data and do tons of analysis.... something I had
limited experience with.
The terrifying bit was discovering
that, in the small team where I worked, I was the person who knew the most (or
rather just had more time) about what kind of analysis we should run –
terrifying because I knew I didn’t know enough, and I definitely knew less than
what was expected.
In retrospect, since most of the gap in
what I knew was technical I should have found a way to find SOMEONE who could
help me bridge the gap. But how to better navigate the analysis wasn’t
the important bit. The important bit, the part that sticks out is the “this
can’t possibly be up to me” moment I experienced. I felt like if it was
all in my hands then something was massively broken, it was a temporary glitch
in the Matrix and we’d soon get back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Because what did I know?
These moments are hitting people
earlier and earlier in their careers, because we’re no longer asking people to
walk a path or climb a ladder. We’re starting to recognize that whole
industries (music, books, finance, technology, energy, infrastructure,
philanthropy, healthcare) are either already unrecognizable or will be within
20 years, so we don’t need young people to master the old tricks of the trade,
we need them to reconceive everything.
I can shout that from the rooftops but
I probably won’t get you to believe that it all should be up to you, today.
Because you are.
