Think before quitting the job

Vishakha has her aspirations, her manager was supporting her in her development. She was also nominated for the global development programme. However, she was missing something, and she thought it was not enough. She was expecting quick promotion. She decided to quit the job. She thought that she has required competencies and will get the better position in the market. No doubt she got that, but she realized that the job is not what she was looking for. She was missing the company culture, manager’s support, the progressive mindset of peers and development opportunities. She quit that job also.

Sometimes impulsive decisions about job change harm the career. It is always good to take the proactive approach before the frustration is built.

Pranay was a performing employee and his manager was happy with him.  However, his salary increase was not what he was expecting for the last 2 years. He thought that the company didn't care about him. He got a good salary hike and joined another company. Within 2-3 months, he realized that he got a good salary hike, but the culture and development opportunities were missing. There were few benefits which he assumed were there, but it was totally a bureaucratic organization.       

It is observed that while quitting the job and joining another organization, we may get the sense of achieving more and getting something extra which is missing in the current organization. However, by doing this, we may get a few extra but may miss few vital which you were enjoying. For example, you get a salary increase, but then realize the culture is the problem or manager is difficult. Of course, totally depend upon your priorities.       

If you are stuck up, if you are totally frustrated and if you think that you have reached a glass ceiling in your current role and organization, then you can think of exploring new opportunities. Changing jobs and getting something new is always good. This also required the courage. You really need to be a risk taker. 

Adventures are good but then decide those adventures are worth trying. Before taking such decision, 

• Evaluate your company culture, people around the organization and your relationship with the team and peers.

• Also evaluate your company’s financial situation, movement of key people in the organization, impact of regular turbulences (recession, covid19 etc) on the organization and the behaviour of the organization (leadership team) during such crucial periods.  

• Your role in the organization and future opportunities.

• Learning & development opportunities provided by your manager. Sometimes employees need some time before taking the next step. 

• In the following circumstance be sure that your manager and company are investing in you for your future and they are developing you for the next role.

• If you are nominated different local and global development programmes. 
• If you are assigned for different cross functional projects. 
• If you get visibility during leadership meetings,
• If you get the opportunity to speak with HR or leadership team members time to time. 

• And finally ask the question, is the organization is purpose driven and performance focused with people orientation.

In spite of having this all, if you are frustrated deep dive why you are frustrated in the current job. Sometimes it is just the lack of reflection and insight.       

You may also want to read, Decide your exit strategy

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle, Vitality in Human Resource: Adding human dimensions in HR processes

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

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 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