Linear careers differ from portfolio careers just like a tree trunk differs from a coppice

Linear careers are like single tree trunks. 
Portfolio careers branch out like a coppice.
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 122

1. Some careers are straight tree trunks:

Many career paths are stable and predictable. If you pursue a career in medicine, you know the steps you need to take: study for years and invest consistent effort in one direction to obtain a specialisation. 

2. Other careers are crooked trees:
The tree trunk of a linear career is not always straight, just as trees don't always grow perfectly straight. In fact, German philosopher Immanuel Kant said that "out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." If you change direction, e.g. move from finance to teaching, the sharp turn would result in a crooked tree in the forest of life. Also, there may be smaller career hiccups (e.g. gaps and sabbaticals) that create knots in the wood grain. Yet, the resulting trunk after 30 or 40 years is still a single massive block of wood.

3. Portfolio careers are shaped like a coppice:
Some people have portfolio careers: a diversified set of activities, such as consultancy, entrepreneurship, sitting on corporate boards, volunteering for charities. This model resembles a coppice. Coppicing is done by cutting down a tree to the ground, so that multiple shoots come out from the stump and grow into a bunch of (thinner) trees. Coppicing stimulates growth and increases the yield of harvested timber. By foregoing a linear career, you get a more interesting and diversified portfolio career which may result in a bigger timber harvest, i.e. higher income compared with a single salary job.

4. A "tree trunk" or a "coppice" career is mostly down to choice
Most trees can be coppiced: typically hazel, ash, willow, elm, beech, oak, chestnut. However, a small number of trees are not amenable to coppicing, for example birch. So it is of paramount importance for the "birches" among us to know that they should not pursue portfolio careers.

Coppice tree
(image source: Wikipedia)

Humans can learn from animals and professional photographers how to apply Strategy

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 114

We are all decent photographers nowadays, given how easy it is to use a smartphone and take pictures that are well lit and in focus. But then there are the professional photographers. On a professional photograph, only the key object is in focus, while the background is unfocused, even blurred.

The same principle applies to strategy. The real strategist focuses on one thing, to the exclusion of everything else. "Strategy is what you don't do" - says Michael Porter, the creator of the Five Forces model in strategy. The blurred background is where all the elements of "what you don't do" blend in.

Animals are micro-strategists: they prioritise and focus on doing one thing at a time: eating, drinking, hunting or escaping a predator. Perhaps this is because they don't have the mental capacity to do more than one thing. Or perhaps they only live in the present and for the present as they don't understand abstract concepts like the future.

Humans, on the other hand, with our larger mental capacity, can live in the past, present and future at the same time and end up preoccupied with multiple objectives. Picking one thing to do and focusing on doing it well is very difficult. Yet "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" - says Leonardo da Vinci.

Focus in Photography (Source: Wikipedia)

China is a juvenile elephant: Vulnerable now but invincible in 10 years

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 71.

China is a juvenile elephant, in both economic, military and scientific terms. Elephants keep growing until they are 20 years old. China has at least a decade more to go until it reaches full size. Whereas the US is a full-grown tiger which has already reached the peak of its power.

The juvenile elephant is still vulnerable to predators but give it another 10 years and no rival (or predator) will dare to confront it. So Donald Trump, while generally lacking in strategic thinking, is for once acting strategically. He is aware that despite his "Make America Great Again" sloganeering, his country is an ageing tiger. He is playing hardball with China now because this is the last opportunity for the US to influence China. In 10 years, China will simply brush the US aside - not necessarily as an enemy but as a nuisance.

Juvenile elephant (Source: Wikipedia)