Rethinking our career navigation model
In this post, we explore how we may need to rethink a deep-seated mental model to build the careers we truly want. Would love to hear your reactions via comments!
Our education system sucks at preparing us to navigate our careers.
Many thought leaders discuss how traditional education, designed for the industrial era, is outdated for today’s rapidly-changing world (see the most-watched TED Talk of all time by Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?). In the NY Times Bestseller Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz claims that even the so-called elite higher ed is deeply broken. He criticizes how top universities turn young minds into excellent sheep: credentialed conformists who “[lose] the ability to think for themselves” and get stuck on uninspired career paths.
How our education leads us astray
In this post, I’d like to share thoughts on one far-reaching way in which our education may be misguiding us. To do so, I borrow the concept of deterministic vs. stochastic models from the field of operations research. A quick terminology overview: a deterministic model is a representation that assumes no randomness, while a stochastic model explicitly builds in uncertainties.
In a nutshell, I think a big shortcoming with our education is that it develops us into deterministic thinkers who are ill-equipped to manage uncertainties in our highly stochastic world. Most of us finish formal schooling with little to no clue about how to assess and take smart risks—let alone properly acknowledge how much the element of chance actually pervades our lives.
From kindergarten to college, we learn in a manufactured, over-simplified environment. Day-to-day, we are given structured assignments with right or wrong answers. The inputs required to get the output we want (i.e., good GPA) are clear. Year-to-year, we follow a set curriculum and move up in grades.
Results? We get programmed to be planners with a “check-the-box” mindset.
Most of us carry this deterministic thinking into our careers. We seek out paths with clear structures, processes, and upward trajectory—ones that readily scratch our check-the-box itch. It’s no surprise then that we see such massive herding by high-achieving college graduates into so few types of jobs such as finance, consulting, big tech, and law—despite all the efforts by colleges to construct diverse student bodies.
As someone who followed one of these default paths too, I don’t fully discount the merit of herding in the early-career years. Following the wisdom of the crowd probably isn’t the worst heuristic (though I believe there are better alternatives out there) if you feel like you haven’t experienced enough of life to know what really makes you tick. Also, these default paths do typically put you on a high-growth trajectory: they offer a shortcut to accumulating key markers of success such as skills, connections, and financial security.
But I’ve come to realize the medium- and long-term pitfalls of deterministic thinking. So many of us in our mid-career, even if flourishing on paper, are deeply dissatisfied: feeling stuck, drained, frustrated, unfulfilled, and apathetic (as we mentioned in our first post).
Ultimately, I think the core problem with deterministic thinking is that it overlooks the exploration necessary to thrive in the statistical game of life. It:
Makes us underestimate the potential upsides as well as overestimate the risks associated with exploring unfamiliar paths
Breeds anxiety whenever we think about unstructured possibilities because they overwhelm our check-the-box mindset
Biases us to compulsively climb whatever shiny career ladder seems most accessible to us, without properly questioning whether it’s even the right ladder
Embracing stochastic thinking
So if deterministic thinking is failing us, what would stochastic thinking look like?
We can find a few starter clues from examining how the stochastic problems are best solved in operations research:
Evolving beliefs: It’s important to acknowledge that our current beliefs are built on incomplete information. That there is a whole lot we don’t know. We need to be deliberate about learning and updating our beliefs continuously.
Experimental mindset: The more experiments we run, the more beliefs we can test, and the more uncertainty we can eliminate towards cultivating our best life and career path.
Strategic exploration: Exploration isn’t free; it involves real costs and risks. There are way too many possibilities in the world for random exploration to have a high likelihood of finding our optimal path. Effective exploration strategically incorporates what we already know in order to maximize the chances of meaningful gains from our next experiment.
How much would the world change for the better if stochastic thinking became the default? If many more talented people reached the passions that fully unleash their energy and creativity?
We look forward to exploring more practical ways to exercise stochastic thinking via our future posts. In particular, we’re excited to discuss what we might be able to draw from studying the Renaissance, a historical period of extreme stochasticity that led to a massive social transformation from the Dark Ages to the Enlightenment.
Stay tuned!
Feel free to share your perspective via comments!
Some thought starters...
How does this post resonate with you?
When in your career have you followed deterministic thinking? What might have been different if you took a more stochastic approach?
If you had to take a more stochastic worldview into finding a new job/side project today, what might you do?
I've also often thought that school doesn't properly prepare us for work because the school environment and the work environment are so different. In school, teachers are there to guide and teach and even nurture students, but in most work environments, employees are thrown in and it's up to them to find out how to swim. Almost everyone I've spoken to has found the transition from school to work challenging. I think if they even acknowledged this during schooling to mentally prepare us that would be helpful.