A career plan is useful. So is being the person who can work it out.

Nathan Coutinho started studying accounting.

Then a friend dragged him into a computer lab to look at this interesting new thing called the World Wide Web. Accounting suddenly had competition.

In our conversation for Before It Was Obvious, Nathan explains how curiosity took him through consulting, 17 years at CDW, corporate strategy, collaboration leadership and Logitech.

What struck me was how often the next opportunity began with a project he had neither asked for nor particularly wanted.

One involved integrating part numbers between systems after an acquisition. Hardly the stuff of inspirational graduation speeches. But he learned how the business worked and met people he would work with for years.

The experience became useful long after the assignment had stopped being irritating.

There is a leadership point here, too.

When Nathan joined me at Logitech, I told him to “do good things.” He was expecting rather more detail. Possibly a job description. Perhaps a clue.

For Nathan, that freedom eventually worked. For other people, I should have provided much clearer direction. That failure belonged to me, not them.

We also discuss why learning a craft helps you commission it, how presenting to the board changed his career, and the day he discovered that delivering 150 slides in 40 minutes was not quite the achievement he thought it was.

You can probably guess which bit I enjoyed most.

Explore Before It Was Obvious: https://b4obvious.com/interviews/nathan-coutinho/

What has helped your career more: a plan, or an opportunity you were not expecting?

#Leadership #CareerDevelopment #LifelongLearning #B4Obvious