As many of you know, Thomas L. Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat” has occupied the top spot on The New York Times bestseller list for several months now. In it, he recounts a discussion he had with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates about what Gates calls the “ovarian lottery.” Gates describes it this way: Thirty years ago, if you had a choice of being born a genius in Shanghai or an average worker in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. the rational person would have chosen the small town in New York.  Why? Because even a worker of average capabilities would have had a better life in Poughkeepsie than the most brilliant person living in China’s leading center of commerce.

Thirty years ago, the rules of the game were clear and well understood by everyone. In fact, there were just two:

• You had to work hard
• You had to be loyal to your employer.

If you played by those rules, you could expect to enjoy decent Employment compensation and genuine employment security for the whole of your career.  As a consequence, you would be able to have all of the trappings of the American Dream. You could afford to buy a home, drive a late model car, eat out occasionally, take a vacation every year, and still have a little left over for a Valentine’s Day gift.

This good living was available to the best and brightest among us — and in the United States of America at least — it was also within the budget of the average guy or gal.  To put it another way, you could enjoy the highest standard of living on earth, while producing an average level of work.  Whether your “C” level performance was a matter of inherent capability or personal choice, you could count on being able to find an employer willing to hire you and a job with a decent paycheck.  It was the best of times … and it ended in 2000.

By then, several factors had begun to change the “world of work” forever:

• There are now many more people around the world who are willing and able to do some or all of the work we do;
• These workers are easily connected to our employers by new telecommunications, more powerful computers, and the Internet; and
• They can deliver the same caliber of work (or better) that we can and are willing to do so for less pay than we will.

As a result, if you had a choice between being born a genius in Shanghai and an average worker in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the rational person would opt for Shanghai every time.

Does that mean we are destined for a dramatic decline in the American standard of living?  I don’t think so.  It does mean, however, that we are destined for a dramatic change in the way we work in order to achieve that standard of living.  We can no longer deliver mediocre work or work for employers that produce mediocre products and services and expect to earn a paycheck that will support the highest standard of living on the planet.  The rest of the world is now competing for what we have, and they’ve changed the rules of the game in the process.  To put it another way, the competition has made the average or “C” level performer obsolete.

If you want to enjoy the American Dream, you have to adapt to the “world’s new rules.”  Working hard and being loyal to your employer will no longer ensure your ability to find an organization that will hire you and a job with a decent paycheck.  Instead, you have to:

• work smart
• be loyal to yourself.

These are the new dynamics of a successful career, whether you live in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. or Pomona, Calif.

Work smart

The sole source of success in a highly competitive “world is performance.” It is the key to both decent compensation and genuine employment security. We have to be at the top of our game, and we have to play for winners. It’s our individual responsibility (not our employer’s) to ensure that:

• Our skills and knowledge are state-of-the-art in our profession, craft or trade. No less important, we must deliver those skills and that knowledge on-the-job every day.  In short, we have to work as “A” level performers.
• Our work must be done for an employer and in an industry that have a future.  We can be superior performers and still find ourselves without a job, if what we produce is no longer competitive in the world’s marketplace.  In short, we have to work for “A” level employers and industries.

Be loyal to yourself

If success were enough to guarantee happiness at work, then working smart would be all that’s required of us.  Happiness in our workday, however, is built with both on-the-job success and from-the-heart accomplishment.  It requires that we be the best we can be in a role that engages and fulfills us.  In other words, we must not only do well at work, but we must do what we believe is good work.  And the only way to achieve that goal is to be loyal to ourselves. Self loyalty means:

• We are loyal to our employer by delivering the highest possible level of performance on-the-job.  This loyalty to an organization, however, is also a form of loyalty to ourselves because it’s up to us to put ourselves in a position where we can do our best work.  We have to stop accepting the wrong jobs and/or the wrong employers and complaining about them, and start finding the right jobs and the right employers and doing work that fulfills us.
• We regularly seek new opportunities to expand and express our capabilities.  This unceasing quest for self-improvement is the way we compete and win in the new World of work.  Sometimes it will mean a move within the same organization, and other times, it will dictate that we move on to another employer.  In every case, we make the decision, and the goal is the same: to protect the American Dream for us and our families by outperforming those who want to enjoy the Indian or Chinese or Sri Lankan Dream.

Whether the world is flat or not, it is certainly a more competitive place. We cannot survive in this environment by holding ourselves above the contest or by wishing it will go away.  No, the only way to endure in this new “world of work” is to win, and the only way to win is to be better than the other guy or gal wherever they may live.