I clearly remember a time when ponies were central to the lives of our young children. Our home was filled with various types and styles of ponies. We had plush ponies, plastic ponies for the bath, ponies that required batteries (and parents to stand them upright or point them in another direction for the fifteenth time in fifteen minutes after they inevitably fell or ran into a wall).
Our daughters both pretended to be ponies as well and I could not imagine a time when ponies would not be part of their lives. Alas, one day I learned a great lesson and one which is relevant to executives and their careers.
My wife gave me a couple of bags of toy ponies to drive to a local charity. Actually, she gave me a couple of bags to take to a local charity and once I got into the car I opened them up to see what it was that we were getting rid of. To my horror, the bags were filled with toy ponies, and I immediately returned to the house to ask her if she knew what she was doing.
As usual, she did and she explained to me that the girls had stopped playing with them and probably never would again and that under those circumstances would it not make more sense to give them away so that some other children could enjoy them? I had to agree with her and off I went, but not before taking two of the ponies for my office.
You may be wondering why I have two plastic ponies in my office and what they have to do with careers and executives?! From my perspective the story is very relevant and many of my clients have heard it and understood the analogy.
Just as I could not envision our daughters losing interest in ponies, many of my clients have been fully invested in their roles and a particular set of circumstances and have had difficulty imagining a life without a particular role within a particular organization.
Just as our daughters would not have grown and changed had they not moved beyond their pony stages, my clients have had opportunities to continue to grow and experience new things when it was the last thing they wanted!
In fact, over the years, when asked the question, “Did the transition result in a better overall personal perspective?” 93% of my clients answered “yes.”
Sometimes we have to throw away those ponies so that we can continue to grow.