How to Make Your Career Move

A career needs consistency, especially when the world around you is changing so fast. So pick a high-order theme in which to excel, such as "everyday computing," "elegant user experiences," or "electronic communities," and stick with it. In the short term, lend your services to companies that share the same theme. More important, over the long term, align yourself with people who share it.

Most companies change priorities with the financial winds. Don't be surprised or take it personally when their goals start to diverge from yours. The key is to reconnect with a group of like-minded people.

Consistency brings you industry-wide respect. And as you mature through the phases of your career, it opens new and unexpected horizons. Jumping from fad to fad to get promoted quickly is neither satisfying nor sustainable.

Patrick Naughton is one of the creators of the Java programming language. He left Sun Microsystems in 1994 to join Starwave.

Esther Dyson
President
EDventure Holdings
New York, New York
edyson@edventure.com

Be careful about getting too good at one thing. The world around you keeps changing, and if you can't change with it, you're in trouble. So develop ways to open your mind. Don't always read the same section of the newspaper first. Don't always visit the same Web sites. Look for adventure. If you feel as if you can't get much better at something, do something else.

That's why I left Wall Street in 1982, took a huge pay cut, and went to work for Ben Rosen's newsletter. I've been at the same "job" ever since. But I keep finding ways to do new things, to keep learning, and to have intellectual fun. Perhaps this hasn't been the best approach to my career. But I've enjoyed my life more. If you're not enthusiastic about your work, you won't be very good at it anyway.

Esther Dyson is one of the world's most influential commentators on technology and business.

Joline Godfrey
Founder
An Income of Her Own
Santa Barbara, California
jolineg@aol.com

Don't take a job, make a job. That could mean starting your own company. It could mean identifying things that need to get done where you're working now. Whatever the form, the principle is the same: people who solve problems get the most opportunities. I learned this lesson when I joined Polaroid after getting a graduate degree in social work. I was not technology-oriented. I had a modest title, almost no budget, and (being a woman) little real power. But I had room to build relationships, take on interesting assignments, and experiment. I ended up starting a company that Polaroid spun out as a separate venture, which started me on my own entrepreneurial journey.

Joline Godfrey is the author of "No More Frogs to Kiss" (HarperBusiness, 1995). An Income of Her Own teaches entrepreneurship to teenage girls.

Bill Haber
Special Advisor to the President
Save the Children
Westport, Connecticut

In his autobiography, Jean Paul Getty says that to become rich, you should change jobs 12 times between the ages of 21 and 35. I did the opposite. I stayed with the same company -- Creative Artists Agency, which I cofounded -- for 20 years. But I never let myself get stale, which I think is Getty's real point. And I became "rich" in ways that he perhaps didn't anticipate. There are lots of ways to avoid getting stale. Throughout my career I've kept a list of 100 life objectives, things I want to do before I die: fly an F-18, spend a night on a nuclear submarine, have tea at Buckingham Palace. I've managed to cross out half those items. Why do I keep such a list? It encourages me to reach out to people and experiences I would otherwise not know or have.

At CAA, when people were promoted, I would take them to lunch. I would get to know them. Find out where they came from and what they did. I always encouraged my agents to do the same. Try to make your life different each day, however you can. Drive a new way to work. Order something in a restaurant that you've never considered eating. Keep meeting new people. One word on careers and money: the less I've cared about money and commissions, the more money I've made. Make the right decisions for the right reasons and the right things will happen. Remember: He who dies with the most toys ... dies.

Bill Haber cofounded Creative Artists Agency with Michael Ovitz in 1975. In November he will open "The Scarlet Pimpernel" on Broadway.

Leigh Steinberg
Partner
Steinberg & Moorad
Newport Beach, California

If you want to play the new career game, you have to be a good negotiator. It's not a natural skill. But for talented people, in sports or business, this is a seller's market. Keep these five principles in mind before you sit across the table from your next employer.