Climbing the organisational pyramid

What Do You Want To Be

I am writing this for a larger number of people. There are exceptions who would defy this, and this should not be read with exceptional people in mind. I am aiming at people at the bottom of the pyramid of an organisation. It is this set of people who actually run the system, and they have the potential to grow. Only a few in a career reach the top. Some reach faster than others. Is it a matter of chance or luck? Is it a case of being born with a silver spoon? I know there could be many reasons for this. I am trying to express some of them that I have considered important based on my experience.

I have been interacting with many first time employees as well as experienced employees during induction programs that I conduct for my clients. I have also been engaged with many experienced employees who are in junior or middle management functions and roles. There are questions I often ask them:

What do you want to be?

Why are you in this organisation for what you want to be?

I could see clearly that this question shakes many of them. Some of them have even told me they do not understand why this question is relevant to their job. It takes considerable time for them to realise the importance of this question.

The First Question: What Do You Want To Be

Let me explain the first question. There are different kinds of people, hence employees, from this question's point of view.

People often confuse dreams and goals. They are not the same. Dreams become goals when you convert dreams into a verifiable and assessable form. Dreams are more transient and imagery based. This is necessary to get to the right goals. Goals are more specific, with a sense of time in them. Goals are necessary to actualise one's dream. The issue is not whether someone has articulated their goals. The thinking of the goal is more important. This thinking often gets influenced by real life situations.

For example, I always dreamt of becoming a research scholar when I was in school. But my goals kept changing as I progressed. In high school, my goal became joining the Armed Forces, as I was in a class of 42 students in Sainik School and 40 of them wanted to join the Armed Forces. The rest were girls who, at the time, had not thought of the Armed Forces. I failed, but my dream stayed alive. My next goal became to start earning for myself and, if possible, for my family. I started teaching, tuitions to be precise. This goal was influenced by the environment I lived in. I could see my family struggling for two square meals, so I knew that if I had to study, I had to do something different. The good part of this goal was that it met some of my intrinsic desire to research. When you want to be a good tutor, you have to study more than you would for yourself alone.

I do not want to make this a biography, but it is important to note that I was doing something many were not doing. In fact, my brother, who grew up in a similar environment, never thought of it. I did not have an answer for this then. With experience dealing with people and management processes, I now see one reason why this happened.

I was always in the company of people who thought about tomorrow and discussed what they should do next. My brother was in the company of people who were cribbing about yesterday and trying to just live today.

Even when I joined employment, there were people cribbing about the current job. They were a separate group, one you would find easily in your organisation. I avoided them, as they push you not to think of the future.

In my view, if you want to start thinking about what you want to be and work in that direction, you must choose your company carefully.

The Second Question: Why Are You Here For What You Want To Be

Let me address the next question. It is quite natural for job seekers to take up the first opportunity that comes their way. It is not common for people to wait for their choice of job. Even those who wait for a while, for various reasons, eventually get into something that comes their way. In my view, what you do after you get a job is more important than the job you got.

We need to identify opportunities in our existing job that would take us towards our goal. Some of the steps we can take are:

• Get into the right group at work, people who are positive thinking and forward looking
• Ask what is in it for me in this job
• Ask how I can find things I would love in this job

For example, while I did not pursue higher studies, as taking up a job was more important, I picked up the job that came my way. The job was in Andhra Pradesh, far from my place of stay, which was then Bihar. I did not know the language, and the job was in Bhadrachalam, a village town in Andhra Pradesh. As I was always looking for an opportunity to learn something new, I got into doing a lot of things beyond my shift management job. This included working with other departments during my off times and working actively with the society and club. I gained maximum basic learning from these other things, more than from my actual job of managing shifts and running a chemical recovery plant. It is that other learning that helps me the most today. The learning opportunity needs to be found and searched for. It is never available on a platter.

Mindset Determines Growth

An individual's mindset determines whether he is going to learn and grow in the right direction. I am reminded of a story narrated to me by someone.

There were two people, Happy Guy (HG) and Sad Guy (SG). They went to a new town and wanted a place to stay. Someone directed them to a house that had a vacancy for one person. SG went inside and came out quickly, saying the house was suitable to stay in only if you wanted your life to be miserable, since everybody there had a sad and sullen look. HG felt odd, but with limited options, he also went inside to try for himself. He took longer to come out. When he did, SG asked him for his decision. HG said he had come out only to tell him that he could not think of any better place. HG did not even want to come out, as everyone inside was happy and cheerful.

The truth was that the house had mirrors in place of walls.

If you have a learning attitude, you would find a learning opportunity in everything, everywhere.

One needs to learn and move on in the journey. But moving without learning mostly leads to stagnation at a critical point in one's career.