Hit the Ground Running

I read an article on the Motley Fool website the other day that referred to the “Red Queen” economy. In Alice in Wonderland, the Red Queen is the one who says you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place. If you want to get anywhere, you have to run faster than that.

In the Motley Fool article, the phrase “Red Queen economy” was used to describe deleveraging in the face of falling asset values. Normally, deleveraging, or paying down debt, increases your net worth, because you still own your assets, there is just less of a claim on them by the bank. If asset values are falling, however, you can pay down debt and still go under water, with your equity less than the remaining debt. You have to run as hard as you can just to stay in place.

I thought it was such a good metaphor that I’m going to try and use it in the area of work skills. When I started my career, back before globalization had taken hold, and at the start of the information technology revolution, it was possible to learn one set of skills, and use those skills for an entire career, oftentimes at the same company.

Early in my career, I met a man who was a draftsman. In his fifties, he had spent his entire adult life making drawings on a drafting board. When times were slow, he was laid off. When business picked up, he went back to his drafting board.

He had done basically the same job for the last thirty years. In the 20+ years since then, he would have had to reinvent his skill set twice to stay employed. First, he would have had to master computer aided drafting. A few years later, mastery of three dimensional modeling software. That's two reinventions of the job, for a field that had been the same for the previous fifty years.

In today’s economy, whole industries are created and wiped out in near record time. To stay ahead of this wave of creative destruction, you have to be upgrading your skills all the time. This requires a couple of judgment calls on the part of the skill seeker. First, you have to place a bet on what skills are going to be in demand. Second, you have to acquire those skills.

Formal education can only get you so far. You also need to find ways to sharpen and deepen new skills acquired in the classroom. To keep yourself employable, a necessary step is to pick up some experience, as well as education.

In the meantime, you have to continue performing in your current position. Run as fast as you can just to stay in place.

Like the survivors in the movie Zombieland, there are rules for surviving the Great Recession. Rule number 1: Cardio.