Great Work, Great Career: How to Create Your Ultimate Job and Make an Extraordinary Contribution
Stephen Covey, Jennifer Colosimo, 2009
A résumé describes your past. An employer cares more about which problem you will solve. Stephen Covey and Jennifer Colosimo show how to find your contribution, express it in one paragraph, and bring it to an interview or your current manager. This book is about moving from asking for work to offering a solution.
Who it is for
For anyone seeking work who is tired of sending identical résumés. For anyone clinging to a position and fearing redundancy. And for anyone who wants work to become something to be proud of.
People looking merely for a job have a résumé. People building a great career have a contribution statement.
A job description on two legs
Imagine Marina opening her work email on Monday morning and finding a message about redundancies. Her name is not listed, but she feels no better. That evening, rewriting her résumé, she realizes she is writing the same things as thousands of others: experience, responsibilities, skills. Nothing on the page explains why she in particular should be hired.
Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Jennifer Colosimo, who led learning at FranklinCovey, wrote this book in 2009, during a crisis when millions lost work. They said something unexpected: this was precisely a good time to build a great career, even without a job. In their view, the Industrial Age is departing and the Knowledge Age arriving. The old era promised a stable company, a ladder upward, and retirement. That promise has gone, but so have the old limits.
The book’s central idea is this: you are not a job description on two legs. Your combination of talents, experience, and interests is unique, so you can contribute something nobody else can. An employer does not hire for the sake of hiring. They hire to solve a problem.
In this book, you will learn to find your contribution and express it in a few sentences, see how a technical writer facing redundancy created a new position, and learn an approach to job searching in which you arrive to offer rather than ask. Let us begin with what a great career actually means.
A great career begins with contribution, not a title
A great career seems reserved for the chosen few: doctors saving lives, celebrities, people with rare gifts. Covey and Colosimo disagree. They say a person with a great career makes a meaningful contribution and inspires others’ trust and loyalty. Anyone in any position can do this. A great career grows from within rather than from approval: from curiosity and your combination of talents and passions.
The authors describe three characteristics. You solve important problems, even if not on a global scale. You work wholeheartedly rather than watching the clock. Your contribution makes a difference to people you care about.
To find your contribution, the authors suggest examining your strengths first. There are three kinds, each with its own questions.
Talents: what comes easily to you but is difficult for others? What do people ask you for because you do it well? What do colleagues say about you?
Passions: what do you do in your free time? What energizes you? What do you read about most?
Conscience: what is your genuine duty toward your organization, colleagues, and customers? The authors call conscience an inner compass and believe you can take pride in work only when it aligns with your convictions.
Strengths alone are not enough, however. Contribution appears where they meet a genuine need of people or a company. Imagine Oleg, an accountant everyone in his department asks for help with spreadsheets. He considers it trivial. But combine his talent, love of order, and the company’s confused reporting, and an unexpected contribution emerges. The authors frame the question this way: what work needs doing, and what work can only you do?
About the author
Stephen Covey wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and cofounded the consulting company FranklinCovey. In the year this book appeared, Jennifer Colosimo led learning at FranklinCovey and worked as an executive coach.
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