According to a recent column in Forbes Magazine written by Nathan Bennet, a management professor at Georgia Tech, and Stephen A. Miles, vice chairman of Heidrick & Struggles, making big career decisions can be explained through a well-thought maritime metaphor: don't tack to cover.
Because you only have one chance to achieve your life dream, it makes sense that there is a desire to make each career choice the "best one," the authors write. But maximizing the return on a decision as ambiguous as "which college is best for me" is impossible.
Questions like this one have too many unknowns. "Such efforts only provide comfort to the degree you let yourself be fooled about your ability to know the unknowable risks associated with each choice," the authors write, proposing an approach to career decision making that balances over-analysis and leaving things to chance.
If you find yourself basing your career decisions on those around you, or perhaps those that have gone before you, that means you are playing it safe, as sailors in a race who stick with the pack, who tack to cover, are guaranteed good winds and currents. The sailors who decide to break from the pack could be rewarded with even stronger currents and more favorable winds, according to the authors.
People who tack to cover in their career choices do so when they justify a decision based on standards, such as a student who goes for an internship because that is simply what he has seen is the next step.
Bennet and Miles suggest that when you are confident that your boat and crew (your resume and talent) are ready to surpass others, go for it. Tacking to cover may be safe, but it may stifle the personal change that can be necessary in the pursuit of one's life dream.
