Feel the heat.

The million-dollar question is why people change? People don’t change easily. They are driven by the habit they follow. Habits can be hard to break and hard to create new. However, we continue to acquire & create new habits unknowingly all the time. Accordingly, we demonstrate the behaviour. The behaviour is seen by many people but very few give the feedback to correct the wrong behaviour. This needs courage, courage to challenge self, challenge the status quo and challenge the overall assumption we follow every day.

It starts with the tasks and jobs we do, questions we get and answers we give. In our life all the events, all the tasks, jobs, question etc can be classified in three categories as under:

• Doable
• Stretched
• Broad possibilities

Doable: You do it easily. You have required skills, competence, and experience to handle such events or questions. 60% employees, 60% people in this world are happy doing things that they know. They are happy to handle regular jobs, in fact, maintain what they get in the legacy. You have the knowledge, skills, and experience. If you are a production engineer, you don’t go beyond that and the same applies to others. This doesn’t mean that you are not doing your job good. You are perfect; however, you are not eager to stretch yourself.  

Stretched: You have the right skills, competence, and experience but you have to take extra efforts to perform. You have to do some research, benchmark with peers, learn from others, network and influence others who are not related to you. You have to find the solution based on your skills, competence, and experience. But your current knowledge, skills, experience may not be enough to get those answers. For example, you are comfortable working with the customer to whom you are working for the last few years and all of sudden your boss assigns the new customer who is very notorious and difficult to manage. 20% employees, people come in this category.

Broad possibilities: Sky is the limit. You don’t know anything. This is a new territory, new company, new function, new geography, new people, new customers. Your existing skills, experience, competence may work or may not work. You have to reinvent yourself. Growth mindset is the requirement of such events. You have to stretch beyond your limitations and beyond your imaginations. For example, working on a greenfield project in another country, or taking a different role, which is not your functional domain, or handling the strong union, strong situation and leading the team during crisis events like pandemic. 

There are no ready-made answers, but you have the mindset where you use your skills, experiences, and competence to find the new solutions. In this process, you have pressure and stress. You feel the heat, but you learn a lot. The heat you feel may burn you, but you become comfortable afterwards. If the heat is not comfortable, you are doing too much and take a pause to think and ask the question, what are you looking for and what is the purpose? Great leaders and successful people go through this process. If you are managing such events, questions, situations, you are among 10% of employees. 

If you want to do something extraordinary find out your possibilities.

The question is where the remaining 10% have gone? Do you know them?

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Mid-Career Crisis: Inevitable but manageable

I keep getting a lot of calls of friends, professionals, peers, consultants, journalists, professors, training & placement officers, conference organisers and many more. Purpose of calling varies from asking career advice, asking views to selling their products or services. After a few interactions, they become comfortable with me to share their personal achievement and sometimes ask for some help in career development. At a certain point, most of them mention that they are working hard, they are doing good in their current job, but they feel they are stuck and they are not enjoying what they are doing today. 

Have you experienced a similar feeling sometimes in life? You are successful, you are earning a good salary, you have everything with you but still you are unhappy and looking for something different in life. You are unhappy because you feel that opportunities you should get in the organizations are given to somebody else. This happens typically when you are at mid- career at the age of 40-50. 

There are 5 stages in career development: 

5 stages in career development

Exploration: Your initial period where you decide about your career.

Establishment: You gain the experience and you settle in the career you choose,

Mid-career: this is the stage where your struggle starts. You are established but you are not enjoying the job. You don’t want to change the job because now you are comfortable doing what you are doing and scared to take the risk. 

Late career and decline are the different stages of career and most of the people are at these 2 stages accept the fact of life and don’t do much. 

However mid -career is the stage where the mind-career crisis starts popping up in your life. 

Mind career crisis is defined by a sensation of feeling stuck, specifically in your career. People going through a rough patch in their professional development will commonly perceive a lack of growth and opportunities in their current work environment. Further at this stage life seems to settle, but you feel that nobody in the family, spouse, children etc or peers and superiors understand you. And you feel that nobody values your contribution. This is a strange situation. 

This stage is a normal phenomenon but can lead to disappointment, self-destructive behaviours and depression. It may also lead to making wrong decisions about the career like changing the job desperately without thinking much or starting your own venture. 

How do you deal with mid-career crisis?

First recognise the situation and face that. Believe that this is a temporary situation.  

There are two strategies to deal with this. Quit or Cope.

If you quit, there is no guarantee of solution. Your career crisis may go worse. People who are trapped in mid-career crisis mostly go for their own business, consultancy or alternate career. Before doing so, please review your situation and take a calculated risk.   

In our careers one of the issues is we are known for the position or title we hold and not really who we are. We have an identity which is associated with the job and company we work. Nobody knows us except for family, relatives and few co-workers. Ideally this should not be the case. This happens because we miss the larger purpose of the job and career and are held in the trap of the competition. 

So, find out the purpose. Go for the self -reflection journey. 

Invest in yourself. Learn new skills, read a lot of books, upgrade yourself.

Network strongly, there are a lot of people who may help and support you in your career journey. If you don’t share with them, how will they know that you need their support. It is reciprocal. Keep investing in building relations.

Find a Mentor or coach. Not necessarily we have all the knowledge and awareness about life. Get the mentor and if required Life Coach. You may have to invest some money here but consider this as an investment. 

Pursue your hobby, your “me time” is very important to reflect. Give some time to yourself and work on your hobbies. 

Finally, patience is the key. You have to learn to take the ownership of your career and life. Opportunities come silently, grab them.

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource    

How do you know that you are ready for the next leadership role?

At a certain point of career, everybody aspires to take a leadership role. Most of the time, employees think that by getting a certain high-level title, they are in a leadership role. Employees build up functional knowledge, confident self-image about their capabilities to handle the higher role. They start thinking that now they are eligible for the promotion and higher roles. 

"However, leadership is not about the title, designation, etc, it is about the role, influence, executive presence etc. It is also leading others, inspiring for the results." 

What are those indications that you are ready for the leadership roles? 

This needs strong insight and self-reflection. You need to take the regular inventories of your skills and competencies. There are some indications which you can rely on.

Following are some indications about your readiness to the next management level role. 

• You think beyond your job: In the current role, employees focus on what they need to do and perform well. However, it is very important you understand how your boss and senior leaders think. You make your job interesting, go beyond your routine and you think like one level above always. You think beyond the boundaries of your task and take a holistic view and impact of your actions on others. 
• You think beyond yourself:  You don’t think about yourself. You may have some personal aspirations, but that doesn’t mean that you should be selfish. You are regularly thinking about other people and how your actions impact them. You start believing in teamwork; you start supporting team members. You connect with the right people and create allies within the organization. 
• Job is not routine for you anymore: The task is not only the task for you. It is also not the job; you demonstrate the passion. Work happens automatically for you. Work is not 9.00 to 5.00 routine for you now. Now you enjoy being at the office. The clock is there to help you manage your calendar, not to determine what time you leave. Your passion and enjoyment for the work you are doing is contagious and others can count on you because of your work ethic and positivity.
• You take constant feedback: You are open to take the critical feedback and you don’t feel bad about you. While listening to the feedback you don’t become defensive. You think about it and try to improve on the feedback given by people. In fact, you set up a mechanism to get the feedback and make your development plans accordingly.
• People speak good about you: In your absence, people recognize your achievements, speak about you nicely. This is because they are benefited because of your work, decisions etc. 
• Your presence makes the difference: When you are in the office, your presence is felt. You give positive vibes and people feel good when they speak with you. They get inspired. You give them confidence & offer support. Juniors ask your suggestions and guidance. Leaders and managers in your organization suggest your name for new projects or assignments.
• You try to excel and ready to learn: You enjoy learning new things, you enjoy experimenting, you make improvement proposals to your manager. You not only do your job great but improve the way of working. You are ahead from your peers. your managers always ask your opinion than others because you keep yourself updated. You choose reading books, listening podcast over watching stupid TV shows & movies. You proactively seek help from others & mentors.

"After realizing that you are ready for the next role, think about how you can work to achieve your goal. Your manager and organization should feel comfortable to promote you."

However, it totally depends upon the opportunities available within the organization. Work on a plan, always have a direct discussion with Manager and HR. Be visible in the organization on different forums. Take the opportunity to ask questions to the leadership team, express your ideas during meetings. Develop a network with the right people. Still it will not be enough, finally it is creating the credibility within the organization.    

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource   

How to avoid derailment in the career?

He had good communication skills, he also had good curiosity. He had worked in one of the European countries for a few years and when he wanted to come back to India, it was a natural choice to hire him in a technology function. Because of his good exposure and presentation style, he was also nominated in the list of top potential within a year. He was good in everything but had a struggle for managing his team members. He was strong in his functional knowledge but somehow, he was always perceived superficial by his peers and team members. He had to struggle to establish his credibility. When he was assigned the mentor from the management team, he wanted the mentor from business & not from support functions citing they didn’t have the knowledge of business. But his immediate development need was his people management skills. Instead, he was thinking for the next role in the business and was expecting coaching on that.

He said that he would not learn anything from the coach assigned to him and he would like to work with the business director instead of that person who was in support function. Of course, it was his choice and his point of view might be right. However, his insight was not that great. When you start thinking that you are much better in particular traits without understanding the actual reality, your career may start derailing. He could not succeed only because of his perception that he needs to understand the business, which is perfectly fine, but missed the most crucial part of behavioural skills, i.e people management skills.   

There are three types of learning normally we have in life. Those learning are important at different stages of the career. These are:

• Domain knowledge and functional skills: This learning happens when you are in early career. You are expected to be sound in your area of functions. You can choose to be an expert in the area of the function.
• Perspective building: Here you learn how people behave & how they react. You learn about different perspectives in life, differences in the social strata, culture etc. This is not that easy, you have to build upon your learning, interpret your understanding and make the strategy to deal with the people.
• Leadership building: This is about overall leadership development. Your signature style, executive presence, influencing and networking etc.

In the first stage, learning functional skills is not that difficult. If you have the basic talent, you grasp very easily. You become professional in your particular area of the function. You may not know all things, but you can read and learn. For example, you may be an expert in tax matters, but if you have the learning ability, you will also learn accounting. You also can learn business, market and all business-related things here easily if you are smart enough where to get the information. This applies for all functions. 

However, both stages required a lot of effort and an open mind set. Other two stages are about attitude, behaviours and competence (ABC). You can’t learn this like other skills. Functional skills can be taught and learnt. Perspective and leadership skills (including behavioural soft skills) needs more attention while learning. You have to put yourself always in a student mindset, you need to act like a sponge, absorbing the learning from events happening around you. Easy to say but difficult to put in the practice. 

And this is the challenge we always have. Here we need good mentors and coaches to help and support you to excel in your professional life. You will learn what the business is, but you have to learn how to do it.  

Most of the time, professionals only focus on functional learning and miss other parts of learning. Ignoring those two learning derails career growth easily.    

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource            

Make yourself redundant

We study to get the job; we don’t study to be employable. Our education system doesn’t create employable workforce. They create qualified people who don’t have any idea how their life will take shape. Even topmost schools (except vital few) who claim that they create best engineers or management students, are not doing good. Students get their placement because of huge alumni network.

However, everybody in life manages to get something. Not everybody does what they wanted to do but they choose something in life for the livelihood. Few gets job, they change jobs assuming their life will be good, but it never happens. Few choose to be an entrepreneur. Few fails, few succeed. Success stories are discussed, and failure stories are buried under the carpet. Finally, they do what they have in their hand, and life moves on. Those who are successful in their lives are because of their individual efforts and not necessary what they learnt in their colleges.

The problem starts when they start settling in their job. In the struggle of life, most of the employees just stop learning new things assuming that what they are doing today will remain forever. Accountants do the same job for many years, same is for HR Professional and salesperson selling the product in same way what he uses to sell a few years back. Most of the people just learn but don’t want to unlearn. They don’t understand that the world is changing so fast that methods, ways, tools are becoming obsolete very fast. This is applicable for all generations.

When I started my career long back, the HR department was just a support function. Main responsibilities were transactional like employee relations, legal compliance, payroll processing, recruitment, training & development etc. Everybody working in HR department was doing all things without giving much thought. But over a period of time, role totally changed, organizations realised that they need HR specialist in different areas of HR, not only the person handling everything and missing the core. That’s how HR Transformation started, new roles like HRBP, Center of Excellence Experts in L&D, Talent Management, HR analyst etc started getting attention. Those who change their mindset and learn for the future ensure that they are in the Game. Rest remained at same role and then went outside from the profession or working somewhere which they are not enjoying. Same thing happened in Finance with new roles like business controller, finance controller, business analysts, experts in different functional areas. This is in all areas of the business. This change is because of the market and not because of internal change. Customers are more educated and aware. They already know the features of your products and hence it is not only selling the products but selling the value proposition and benefits of the product instead of product itself.            

So, with high end technology, changed expectations from customers and market, we need to reinvent our jobs also. For this we need to think how we can make ourselves redundant.

Once I think that the job I am doing will not be there tomorrow, then what are that roles will be for me and then what I need to learn. In this process, learning is fast. You not only confirm your seat when there is reorganization but also increase your employability in the market.        

Education, Job, Career & Dilemma

Recently one of the former colleagues called me to ask about the expectations from fresh talent. Her son is doing his engineering from reputed college at Delhi and he is aspiring to go outside India for post-graduation. She met one of the career counsellors who assured her that if his services are taken her son will get the admission in Stanford, Harvard etc. No comment about the career counsellor here. It is their business.  

But she asked me some interesting questions which I think every parents and students may have in their mind. I thought that such questions are important to understand what those things are, students should focus on.

1. Is it okay to do the post-graduation in India from reputed college or instead take an admission in foreign university? 

• Every student’s & parent’s dilemma. There are a lot of foreign universities which encourage students to take admission outside from their countries. If you have enough funds, it is easy to get admission in foreign universities. You can go in the US, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Germany or any other European countries.  Just you have to crack some entrance exams or language exams. It is not a big deal. Big deal is getting admission in top universities. If you are aspiring to take admission in top colleges in India, like top IIMs for business management, you have to prepare hard to crack the CAT. Getting admission in post-graduation in engineering in IITs is not that difficult. If you did your education in foreign universities, you may also get the job there. Question is what your purpose is. Lot of students still struggle to get a job in India, when they are back in India.

• Just getting the degree or postgraduate degree (unless you are from Top Universities) doesn’t make you eligible to get a job in India. For entry level your institute background or university matters. If you are from reputed (Not mostly advertised) institute anywhere from the world, your chance to get the job at entry level is easy. But once you get the job, everybody is equal. 

• In summary, if you want to study outside India, do it, but choose the university wisely. If you want to stay in India and study in top tier colleges, do it. But again, choose that institute wisely.

2. What are the top 5 things you see in the resume of an entry level candidate?

• Funny thing is that all resumes are just copy pasted in the college by students. Their objectives are the same, their hobbies are similar. Placement officer gives the format and students just put the information in the resume. I don’t think, either college or students give enough attention in designing the resume. They are trained how to give interviews, how to speak in group discussions, etc etc. Hence, it is difficult to get the clue from entry level resumes. But then as a professional I will notice the following things in the resume.

• Have the students given some thought while making his resume or just copy pasted the format?
• His score in different exams,
• What are that extra-curricular activities (leading the events, organising some fest etc) he has taken in the college to improve his soft skills?
• What he did during his summer and winter internship?
• What is his project and how seriously he did it?

During the interview the interview may ask more details about all above to understand the seriousness, depth, understanding of the student. 

3. What are those things one should focus to make a career in the corporate world at management level?

• First message is don’t go by the title, go by the role. Titles may be misleading. Whenever you join any organization, focus on formative experience and learning. Formative experience is as under:

• Building the functional or domain knowledge: In any organization, you need to be strong in your functional or domain knowledge. you have learned the concepts in the college, now it is the time to test them and understand them better. Practical application of your learning makes your foundation sound. Focus on more learning. Understand the things in detail. Strive for the excellence.

• Perspective Building: As you grow in the organization, start learning about the people, culture, diversity and interacting with them. Start learning what are different perspectives and thinking pattern and how are they developed. Work with different teams, on different projects. Build the perspective in social, international context. Widen your horizon.

• Leadership Building: This is about working on your personal style. Leadership not necessary means you should have a team to lead. It is about how you build your leadership by observing, learning and experiencing while working. 

As a professional when any resume and subsequently candidate comes to me, I will see how he learned in the organization, what is his development & experience pattern and how he has grown in the organization.

Please watch here to know more "How I build my Formative Experience." 

How to save the career?

I keep getting calls and meeting requests from friends and from people in my network to ask my advice about the career. Most of them are in mid-40 or in mid-50. They are looking for new opportunities or looking for some new career because of some insecurities in their current jobs. Some companies’ management has certain views about ageing workforce, especially those who are above 40-45. In case of any restructuring, this is the population which is mostly axed.  

India is a country of young people. It is expected that the average age of Indian will be 30 years by 2020. Unemployment rate in India today is almost 6%. At one side there is young talent ready to come in the workforce, at other side workforce above 45 is becoming costly if they are not acquiring new skills or adding value to the organization. This is a severe problem in service, IT industries where employee cost is the main component of expenses. 

As young generation is easily available, employees who are above 45-50 have not focused to develop their skill sets and competence. Most of the time, once they get a job, they go in a comfort level. Sometimes organizations just exploit their needed skill set with less focus on future development. But when organizations are not investing you, it is crucial that you invest in yourself.

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robots are already coming in the workforce which are replacing human beings. Automation is taking jobs away. If you are in the job of repetitive nature, you are easily replaced by robots (automation). This can happen in account payable where payments can be processed automatically; this can happen in manufacturing; this also can happen in the customer service where customer service executives are replaced with chatbot. Going forwards, there will be no salesperson in the field, and more will be consultants to customers who will sell the value proposition and help customers to improve their profitability. Instead of selling products, you will sell the value proposition to the customer. Customers are much educated and aware about their requirements. They already study the products and make comparisons, only they need to check the look and feel of the product and what value that product will bring to them, their processes etc.

The decision of buying something is made on the computer or internet after discussion with family in case of domestic/consumer product or with team in case of industrial product. In such a scenario, do we need sales managers. Perhaps no, we need a person who is beyond the sales manager, typical marketing manager. This is applicable in all professionals. HR managers needs to be more than just handling generalist HR and same is for finance managers. Nowadays, we need business partners in each profession. They are experts in their profession, but they are also strong in soft skills with leadership behaviours. They need to apply their knowledge which is not done by typical professional. In short if you can think differently, you manage different stakeholders, you understand what customer desires, you know how businesses work and you know how to solve the problems, you have more chances to survive during turbulent period.  

InReGo ©: Design your own career plan…

Career development is the buzz word in corporate world. Employees leave an organization because they think that they don’t have the right career in the organization.  HR professionals have the struggle in designing career path and match aspirations of employees. However the issue is still vivacious in HR world.

At the other side, employees don't have the right perspective on career development. I have seen employees who leave the organization for the sake of career development, end up just receiving the title change without any role change in next organization. S/he gets the upgraded title without any upgraded role. Sometimes for them tile change is also a career development which is not the real case.    

Let’s see what actually these terms means:

Career is the series of work-related positions a person occupies through life.

Career Paths represent employees’ movements through opportunities over time.

However employees should understand what actually career means for them.  Manager and HR professional need to educate employees and facilitate their real aspirations instead of mere focusing title up-gradation. 

Organization-Centered Career Planning focuses on jobs and on identifying career paths that provide for the logical progression of people between jobs in the organization.

Individual-Centered Career Planning focuses on an individual’s career rather than in organizational needs.

There will be always mismatch between above two.

Before speaking and expecting about career development, employees should focus on their own inclination and their focus in the career which always is missing initially.

There is a test called InReGo© -(©Vinod Bidwaik)

What is InReGo ©?

Everybody can design their own career path!

(In) Insight: Do you have the insight about yourself? Have you done analysis thoroughly what is your potential and at what level you can climb?

(Re) Reality Check: Most of the time, employee does not check the reality. Dreaming is good, but day dreaming is bad. Have you done the reality check about your potential, your qualification, skill sets?

(Go) Goal: Once you have the insight and reality check, it is the time to set right career goals. Set ambitious but realistic goals. During interviews, candidate always mention their career goals like to be the General Manager of the unit etc. Nothing wrong, but when 3 years experienced candidate dreams to be the general manager, I have the doubts if S/he has done the reality check.

Based on the InReGo © decide your career choice assessed on your Insight, Interest, Self-Image and your Background.

You will be more happy with this approach rather than just following the blind competition of career development and your peer pressure.

You can design your own career…don’t rely only on your organization…