Acquiring positive traits like patience is not useful for work achievement

The essential characteristics required to achieve in work-life - perseverance, confidence, goal-setting, focus, passion, values - are listed by meeting achievers. That is why you will find every book listing down these positive traits as 'success habits'. But when we start chasing these success-habits to find our success, we are putting cart before the horse. Why?

Because the central Challenge of achieving in work-life is matching the character traits with cognitive abilities to produce the targeted results  

If you ask any successful man, if these traits are required to achieve in life, he will undoubtedly agree with you. For instance, if you ask Narayan Murthy who created second-biggest Indian software company, Infosys, in his one lifetime, you will find that he will surely agree that these 'positive traits' are useful and mandatory. But that does not mean that you should advise aspiring achievers to acquire those positive traits. This is like seeing full fledged apples, discovering their good characteristics and then trying to grow the same apples irrespective of the soil conditions in your field. Wise men will tell you that in Nagpur, where the climate is too hot, you cannot grow apple. Instead, you should be growing oranges, because the conditions suit them.

Similarly, the challenge for each one of us is different in achieving because we are producing different results in programming, medicine or sports. We commence our lives from a different starting points. We have different innate abilities - logical, verbal, visual - and different traits - self regulation, creativity and emotional stability. The nurturing conditions around us grow some of these innate abilities and traits, while it may block the growth of some of these . For instance, although rich financial status of your family provides you more options, it also lowers your motivation to use those options.On the contrary, poor financial status may reduce your options, but they enhance your motivation to use those limited options. Both these individuals require different 'traits' to utilise their distinct background. So no innate ability (or nurturing condition) is purely good or bad. Our family background may increase/decrease our options. For instance, even though Sachin Tendulkar's son is likely to achieve a lot , if he choses cricket-path, it may not suit him.

Therefore blindly acquiring positive traits alone is not useful in work-achievement

So why are we advised to acquire 'positive traits' like perseverance, confidence, focus, creativity and others. Obviously, many believe that, if we acquire positive traits, we will automatically succeed. But is this true? Let us understand.

Please read this part of story of Narayan Murthy. In 1973, Narayan Murthy had no goal, no desire to start a company. He wanted to become a communist and run an orphanage. His values were completely anti-capitalist. No one could have imagined that he would start his own software company later in 1981.But something happened in 1974. Read his speech to Graduates of New York University.  In 1974, in a border town between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, he went through an incident that completely changed his 'values'. In this speech to NYU, he says "I always thank the Bulgarian guards for transforming me from a confused leftist into a determined, compassionate capitalist!". His beliefs and character traits changed indirectly due to the events and experiences he went through. We can consciously alter our cognitive abilities, but our character traits and beliefs alter unpredictably through our experiences, and more specifically how we interpret those experiences. 

You will find similar instances in the lives of successful men if you dig deeper in their stories. For instance, read this story of  Manmohan Singh's ascendancy to highest post of Prime Minister, and  you will realise that  his 'positive traits' did not help him become Prime Minister. In other words, these so-called positive traits are not the causes, but are the reverse. They are caused by producing desired results. After these individuals produce big results, they assume that they achieved because they were 'focused, confident and had passion'. Psychologist call it "cognitive dissonance". Wanting to find a coherent explanation for their achievement, they find it easier to explain the 'dissonance' in a 'rational' language.

Morever, psychologists also know that 'positive traits' like confidence are emergent traits. They are not the traits 'hidden within ourselves'. They emerge from the way we interact with the external systems, from the way our work impacts our personal life and vice versa, from the way the resulting outputs support our values and vice versa, from the way our relationships impact our work and vice versa. Positive traits are not the habits that we can 'practice and create' in our minds. They are the 'resultant' of our interactions with work-life through which we produce results. They are not the 'cause', but the 'effects' of creating different results ( be it work or friendships) in life.

Therefore, contrary to what many of these self-help books tell us, we can never deliberately plan to acquire these positive  traits of perseverance, focus, passion or values, because they are the 'result' of our' interactions with external output systems of work, family and society'. Therefore we should never chase these positive traits because they do not cause achievement; instead they are caused by achievement.

Spirituality is a means, not an end

Last week I was talking to a senior corporate professional on the different aspects of spirituality.  On the one hand, one sees growing popularity of spiritual-oriented movements such as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living, Sahajyoga, or 10 days meditation of Vipassana. On the other hand, many feel that these movements of 'spirituality' are mere 'talks' and have no relevance to 'hard performance' in corporate or work life. They claim that spirituality can help manage stress-related disorders, at the most, and are therefore useful only at the later ages of life. For a hard core working professional, engaging in spirituality is a luxury, it is presumed.

As always, the truth is hidden. We have confused means with ends. For working professionals, spirituality is a means to achieve our ends. (For others, it could be an end itself.) But, because corporate professionals  have forgotten the 'end'  of spirituality, they are throwing baby with bathwater.

Spirituality offers three benefits which are absolutely critical to excel in work-life:

1. It helps us understand and appreciate the purpose of life
2. It helps us appreciate our inherent limitations of effort 'that we can only produce output, not outcomes' and 
3. It helps us accept that "People around us are not black and white; they are grey"

If any other system ( other than spirituality) can offer me these three benefits, then i need not try to become 'spiritual' ?

Why is the first benefit of spirituality [finding the purpose of life] useful? It helps us get a long term direction in life, a bearing that enables us to navigate through the thick and dense jungle, called life. It helps us understand that our daily work is just a means to achieve an end that connects us to the source of life. It helps us therefore avoid short term actions ( such as immediate transactional benefits ignoring our conscience ) that hamper the long term result of our life. It helps us do something daily to reach that end to which we can only 'contribute' like all others. It is a brilliant stress buster for us who are constantly in the mode of achieving something everyday.

Why is the second benefit of spirituality [Effort can produce output, not outcome] useful to excel? As we have discussed earlier in an earlier blog, through our effort, we can only generate output. But we cannot generate outcomes, because outcomes are the result of many interacting elements, most of which are out of our purview of control. Even President Obama cannot control terrorism; or ensure health-care to all. Good intention, hard work, or single minded dedication can only produce outputs, but may not produce outcomes. Deluged with advocates of 'positive psychology' self help Gurus, we have forgotten this important principle of second law of excellence. We therefore tend to overdo efforts, 'somehow' try to twist outcomes impairing the long term health of the system, and win the war, but lose the battle.

Why is the third benefit of spirituality [ People are not black and white, they are grey] critical? We tend to see others ( and therefore ourselves) as black and white. However, we are more complex grey creatures, because our ( and people's ) behaviour changes on how our past interacts with the unfolding present, on how the reality matches with our  expectations, and how our actions produce ( or not produce) the desired outcomes. But instead of understanding this reality, we tend to simplify people as good vs bad, nice vs rude, confident vs passive, right vs wrong. This results in dysfunctional behaviour with people: conflicts, taking rigid stands, avoiding to face  reality. People, instead of becoming collaborators, become a bottleneck. And without joining hands with people, nothing of significance can be achieved.

Conclusion

With these three benefits, Spirituality is not only useful for corporate professionals, but is absolutely critical to excel in their work. By providing them long term direction in their lives, it not only helps them excel in the current task, but prepare for the next challenge. Professions, with long term direction, tend to anticipate the challenge instead of reacting to the challenges.

Third benefit of spirituality affects our productivity the most. We tend to take stands visavis people all the time, and unwittingly create roadblocks for ourselves in our path of excelling.We are either against them or too attached to them.

The second benefit perhaps affect us the most because we always forget that we cannot produce 'outcomes'. Like Daniel Kahneman, the Noble Prize winner says, Success is equal to talent plus luck. But big success is a little bit of talent plus a huge luck.

I have seen many working professionals practicing spirituality without gaining these three benefits, because they are confusing means with ends. For them, spirituality becomes another way of spending time, instead of learning more about life. Spirituality becomes another crutch, instead of a step to go ahead. For them, Spirituality is really a luxury.

But i have also met some professionals practicing spirituality without being religious, or following any movements of any Guru. I know a family where the father has been doing social activity while the mother has been working to keep the fire glowing in the kitchen. Both children claim to be atheist, but are deeply spiritual and successful in their work-lives.

How are you practicing spirituality?

Ability blindness can prevent you from achieving your simple goals in life

I met one interesting individual, Nishikant, last month.

Nishikant is a B.Com graduate. Did his MBA. Worked in a Hotel Construction Company selling their services to companies. Did very well with them for 3 years. Left that job to join a multinational based group in the same domain, Hotels. He was therefore given a senior position. In one year, he managed to  grow within that company to a significant scale. He was sent to new territories, to hire new people, train them and then manage them from his head office. As such his job involves lot of travel, meeting tough targets, and closing deals with companies. 

After 4 years, of experience, he got an offer from his close school friend, who has an automobile business. He sells bearings. He wanted to start his own office in Northern Region. He asked Nishikant to set up the office and manage his dealer network in Northern region. He is expected to get 12 Lakhs in the first year, as compared to his current remuneration of 8 LPA. He was actively considering leaving his current job to take over this job. 

When i asked Nishikant the reasons of his desire to take over the job of automobile dealer, he said ' I will get more money. I will not have to work on Saturdays and Sundays.. I do not have to appease bosses, because i would be working with my friend. And even after working in the company, what will i be doing?' 

What is wrong with Nishikant's thinking and line of action? Nishikant is making three mistakes 

Mistake 1: He is moving from a job requiring higher ability to lower ability

Selling automobile bearings to dealers is far more easier than selling Hotel Services to companies because of three reasons: Transaction size of Hotel services is higher, Selling services is difficult than selling products, and selling to companies is far more difficult than selling to individual dealers ( as decision making matrix of company includes influencing decision maker, user, and authoriser who could be three different individuals in a company as compared to a dealer where all three roles are embedded in one person). 

When any job requires higher ability/skill, it earns more premium. When someone is doing a work competently, he naturally wants to move to a more challenging task that will demand higher ability or complex combination of abilities. What happens when Nishikant moves from a job with higher skill to a job of lower skill? He will quickly get bored. 

Instead of his old boss, Nishikant will find that he has got a new boss: his owner. He will soon find that he is 24*7 in his job, not just on Saturdays and Sundays, because it is his own business. What will he do after three years or so? I get many coachees who are 40+, have money,car and security and even some fame, but desperately try to find meaning by changing their jobs which have similar ability or lower ability than the earlier job..

Root cause of this mistake: Nishikant is aware of sales abilities at a very gross level. But he is not aware of the individual components of that ability ( such as transaction size etc) and therefore cannot figure out how it is different in the next job. He is ignorant of the basic skills of achievement. This is called mapping the abilities of a job. These Ability-blind individuals cannot view job as consisting of fungible components. Therefore, these individuals are unaware of the abilities they have, or the jobs that require those abilities. 

Mistake 2: Nishikant is taking this decision because he is ignorant of how (sales) ability develops 

Some individuals may have not have ability blindness, but they may have Ability-development ignorance. 

Nishikant seems to be aware of his sales abilities, but he was ignorant of 'how to develop it further'. For instance, Sales ability involves learning different components to close a sales cycle. It includes understanding and influencing the "decision making matrix" of a client company. Or the component of Negotiation. Or Mapping client and identifying its fit with the one's company offerings. When one is doing a sales job competently, one is managing these components unconsciously. But to achieve your results, one has to master these components consciously. One has to understand and use these components in actual selling to know its strengths and limitations. 

The route of achieving big results is from Unconscious competence > Conscious Learning of the different components of competence > Conscious competence. Without consciously learning the components, one may have a great skill, but one may not be able to repeat the achievement or use it in other domain or scenario. It is the classic syndrome of Virendra Sehwag. When you are performing well, you have no time to consciously learn the individual components. But when you fail, you have no time to recover from the failure. For instance, if Nishikant cannot sustain his achievement because of  some external events, he may not be able to even shift to selling Xerox machines to companies ! He will get stuck, if he does not develop his sales ability consciously..

Root cause of this mistake: Nishikant has to understand how his sales ability must be consciously developed. This is called understanding the arithmetic of Ability-Development.This is required to convert Unconscious competence to Conscious competence. Without doing this, one is at the mercy of the outside environment. One is not taking charge of one's direction in life. 

Mistake 3: Nishikant is confusing ability with domains   

Every ability is used in a domain. If you have a sales ability, you can use it in any domain,  be it selling software, hotels, soaps, automobiles or anything else. If you have a teaching ability, you can teach to school students, graduate students, executives or any other community. Domains are playgrounds to use our abilities; they are not same as abilities. Teaching is an ability, but can be used in different domains depending on what you desire in life. An athletic ability, for instance, can be used in different sports. Domains, when we separate them, can be used to pick an area of work where our requirement of money and other career objectives can be simultaneously achieved. 

For instance, if Nishikant is bored of selling Hotel services, he can take up another domain: selling software services to gain international exposure. Or if he likes to work alone without boss, he can sell services like Insurance/Finance on his own and still earn huge money. Or if he is likes to sell products, he can sell products to companies. There are any number of multiple combinations that one can figure out in using one's ability after one separates ability from domains.

Another big opportunity of understanding domains is by combining abilities.  For instance Nishikant is a BCom graduate. He can use his Accounting ability to combine with sales and sell financial products to companies. For instance financial professionals who sell mergers to companies have these two abilities. Another possibility is understanding the whole of your work of you are doing the part, understand  other ways by which your capability can be combined and find new combination. For instance, Nishikant will easily understand that his sales ability can be combined easily with marketing to grow further in his company.  

Root cause of this mistake: Like most other professionals, Nishikant cannot separate ability from domain. Due to this basic ignorance, he cannot keep track of different domains, gain more knowledge of them, and find what other achievements are possible for him.That is why he said " What will i do in the company?" This domain-confusion (confusing domain with ability) will ultimately disable Nishikant in achieving the four objectives of life that every man desires: Money, job Satisfaction, Achieving something of significance and leaving behind legacy. 

Conclusion

Lack of Input framework of Achievement - Ability blindness, Ability-development ignorance, and Domain confusion - today makes or breaks the progress in sustaining one's work-achievement. You will learn how to use these inputs only after you adopt new law of Achievement. 

Without adopting the New law of Achievement, Nishikant may perhaps earn money in his career. But without adopting it, Nishikant will  almost certainly fail in achieving any meaningful work-achievement in his life. And this is a paradox of sustaining achievement. Until man is struggling to earn money alone, he is lucky . But when he wants to achieve many other objectives through his work-achievement, he is compelled to use a framework of achievement. 

Unwrapping your beliefs is important for your growth

If i ask you a question, "What is your belief about a person like Mahesh Bhatt ( whom you have not met)?' in a nice classroom setting you will answer this question in a very cool, rational, and calculated way. You will try to recollect many of the past stories you have heard about him, try to reason your thoughts, and then respond in a very deliberate manner.

But if i give you this interview of Mahesh Bhatt, which seems to be done at a very personal level, you will respond almost immediately and without any barriers. These are 'semi-dense' situations, situations in which you use lot of your head and less of your emotions. Fully dense situations are ideal to 'unwrap' your beliefs, because both emotions and mind equally strong.

But because we encounter very few 'dense' situations in our life, we must learn to use these semi-dense situations to know more about ourself. This helps us grow faster. For instance, your response to this interview of Mahesh Bhatt will tell you about 'YOUR' intrinsic beliefs about many aspects of your own life, instead of telling you about Mahesh Bhatt. If you use these situations intelligently, you will be able to grow mentally. Remember that your intra-personal ability is not only a big accelerator for growth, but also becomes a bottleneck for growth  if not developed adequately. 

Let us, for instance, use this opportunity of Mahesh Bhatt's interview. Read this interview from end to end, and write your response on a piece of paper. Write whatever comes to your mind. Be honest and frank with yourself. At least, try to answer these three questions after you read the interview: 1> Write your evaluation of your Mahesh Bhatt as a person? For instance, do you think he is genuinely good person or a fraud or ... 2> Do you think Mahesh Bhatt could be right in his way of doing his work? 3> Do you think Mahesh Bhatt is a good father or a good husband?

Here are some clues to understand your own beliefs from the above interview of Mahesh Bhatt (semi-dense situation):

1. You could be giving an overt emotional reaction: If you think Mahesh Bhatt is a 'liar' or a person who just hogs ' attention', or is a hypocrite, or his interview was 'fabricated' etc, then you are letting your 'beliefs' dominate your thoughts. Your emotion is crowding your thinking. Remember, we are not aware of any truth even after reading this. Our emotional reaction is not just based on what Mahesh Bhatt is 'saying', but on our accumulated belief about 'Entertainment industry professionals' that we have formed till now.

2. Your views could be dominanted by religious linkages : If your reaction is driven by his 'Muslim' mother, and other aspects of his 'Muslim' views, then your reaction is perhaps governed by your own 'anti-muslim' sentiments. It is ok to be pro-muslim or pro-hindu, but when it comes in the way of evaluating someone ( and that too only on the basis of heard interviews and newspaper comments), we should start worrying.

3. Your views of Entertainment business could be filtering your evaluation : Most of us work in professions where our personal values are not brought into foreground in our work-life; they remain in the background. For instance, our personal views of 'how movies should be done' are not expressed in our work, but they are highlighted when we talk and think of movies. If we have strong one sided views of how movie should be done, we express them indirectly at such occassion. And if they are 'contrary' to what Mahesh Bhatt is saying or doing, we will 'dislike' Mahesh Bhatt. We have the right to have our own views, but we do not have the right to evaluate others through its lens. Morever, do remember that, our views are just ring-side academic views. If we are inside the 'movie business', we may have different views. Psychologists observe such differences in every individual; they call it hot-cold empathy gap.

4. Your views about Mahesh Bhatt being a good father could be based on hearsay evidence:. We can have different beliefs about what it is to be a good father and so on. We are responsible for our beliefs and therefore we must take care while adopting them, not just blindly follow someone else's beliefs. But when we are trying to evaluate someone else on our criteria, we should be extra-careful. We should not judge them on our benchmark, especially when when we are evaluating an inter-personal relationship ( a relationship of father and daughter!).  Please remember that our evaluation of Mahesh Bhatt as a good father/husband is only based on hearsay evidence. To know whether he is a good father or husband, we should be asking his daughter and wife.

Conclusion

Unwrapping our beliefs is important for you, because beliefs block us from understanding the as-is reality.  With beliefs, we see things through a lens and therefore tend to mis-read the situations. It is therefore important to unwrap the beliefs and be aware of them, instead of getting 'used' by them.Please read this blog to understand how beliefs and emotions are intrinsically related.

Every semi-dense situations highights different aspect of our beliefs. For instance, Norway incident highlighted our belief about of 'whites and blacks'.

Should you do analysis of every such semi-dense event in your life? Not for all events. But, whenever you have strong views about something, you should press a pause button, and take a time-out to review your beliefs. For instance, if you are not having any views about Mahesh Bhatt, you would not have found the above exercise of reacting to Mahesh Bhatt's interview beneficial for you. But you can use the above format for some other semi-dense event in your life. 

Art of sustaining work-achievement can now be learnt like science

When I talk of achieving with corporate professionals, writers, lawyers, doctors, researchers, teachers, managers, consultant or designers, all of them wish to achieve. But almost all of them have learnt the craft of achieving in their chosen knowledge work by randomly picking stories of others, by haphazard actions of doing this or that, by hearing interviews of role models, or sometimes, by having a good mentor. That is why we believe that work-achievement happens either by doing nice positive qualities like passion or goals, or becoming a perfect human being, or by having willpower.

But practically no one believes that this craft of work-achievement in career can be learnt by practice, or that the pains of achievement can be minimised by learning a framework of sustained achievement in career. Most of the brave corporate professionals follow the rules of the simplistic law of achievement such as work hard, concentrate, try hard and others. And if these rules do not help them, they feel that there is no better alternative.

But now there is a better alternative of succeeding in career than just taking a blind chance. There is a better understanding of achievement than just following other role models. There is a more guaranteed way of work-achievement than relying on homegrown homilies like  promote yourself like a brand, connect in a network, or think of original ideas. There is better way of preparing for achievement, instead of falling and learning from mistakes. There is a better way of preventing failures, instead of doing damage control after failures.

Learn the New law of sustained achievement in career. 

This law has six characteristics:

1. New  law of sustained achievement requires one to find one's success formula, not duplicate the formula of others: Everyone produces unique results with their unique abilities. Every individual is a unique bundle of expectations, beliefs, goals, and paths. This unique combination always makes you see life differently than others. What is good for others is therefore never good for you and vice versa.

2. New law of sustained achievement is about facing the realities of life, not avoiding them: Realities of life have to be faced, not avoided, in order to remain human. For instance, hard work alone does not produce output, 'smart work' does it. Or achieving results does not guarantee 'monetary rewards' because rewards depend on the skill market. Or 'perceptions' are more important than 'objective facts' in evaluating work and people ! New law of achievement not only forces you to encounter these realities of life, but by helping you understand the why, they also help you to negotiate these realities without building false hopes.

3. In New law of Achievement, everything changes with context: There is no ONE guaranteed way of achievement, because there are many varieties in achievement. Varieties exist due to the kind of knowledge work. For instance, there are five main variations of knowledge work: Doing the knowledge work, Synthesising the Doing work ( which is Managers work), Teaching the knowledge work ( trainer), Advising on knowledge work ( work of consultant) and Creating new knowledge ( researcher). Out of these five main forms of knowledge work, thousands of combinations emerge, each creating its distinctive flavour, style and challenges.

4. New law of sustained achievement is about Archetypes, not stereotypes:  Archetype is a structure that captures a universally common experience, but can be used to wrap itself in a unique, individual-specific expression. For instance, the archetype of 'team functioning' in a company ( which we discussed in the earlier blog) is a unique structure experienced by someone working in every company. But it can be applied to thousands of individual-specific experiences you experience in a company. This enables you to  find effective solutions by using an archetype instead of just stereotyping the situation.

5. New law of Achievement is about thoroughness, not shortcuts: New law of Achievement cannot be applied as simply as first law. Every individual has to do lot of homework ( because he is producing unique results with his special abilities) so that he/she can apply the basic principles in his/her life. It cannot be applied by using short cuts like strive hard, or focus more, or prioritise. It can be applied only after understanding one's situation so that one knows which archetype and form can be used when.

6. Although New law of achievement is about mastering the art of achievement in work-life, it treats you as a one whole person: As one achieves in work life, one strives to reach even higher. But one cannot just achieve in work-life and use Mind poorly. Because, sooner or later, the poor outputs of Mind will start affecting the achievement in work-life. Only when one learns to remove the bottlenecks of Mind, one can reach the higher stages of work-life. In other words, New law of Achievement forces you to be holistic in life.

If you are a knowledge worker - corporate professional, writer, accountant, lawyer, doctor, researcher, teacher, manager, consultant and/or designer  -  you no more have to succeed blindly. As we have seen earlier, to achieve in sports and music, there is lot of help already available at least in playing the sports and music, if not in other work. By learning the New law of achievement, you can anticipate, prepare and equip yourself appropriately to also sustain achievement in Knowledge work.

Are you ready to learn the New Law of Sustained achievement in work life ? 

Why sustaining work achievement is a pipe dream for many professionals?

The first reason is obviously the ignorance of the new law of achievement. But apart from this ignorance of new law, in my coaching experience, i discovered three blocks that make it difficult to sustain work-achievements:

Block 1: The Big Golden Prison

In the initial career, when you are struggling for food and shelter, you are chasing money. This pursuit pulls you into a 'golden prison', from which you may not be able to pull out.

When i passed out of MBA, some of my classmates joined banks because Banks were offering huge salaries as compared to other companies. As these colleagues started earning good salaries, they bought houses with mortgage loans. That starts a hefty EMI every month. So that is first lock that ties you to a unhappy job. Now even when they want to shift to a 'better job', they cannot shift because no one can offer them a comparable salary. So the lock is further tightened. Secondly, as they learn to work in a job which they do not like, the mind plays the game. It finds justifications to do the unhappy work. Good lifestyle, affordable holidays is an obvious justification. That is the second lock that ties you to the unhappy job. Further, as they marry, new responsibilities make it even more difficult to leave the job. This brings the third lock. And so on.

These professionals are caught in a bind. Because they have never experienced 'joy of having doing happy work', they have no incentive to unlock. Please remember these individuals have never experienced a job 'which they could like'. So for them, the concept of a satisfied job is just an illusion, a bookish concept. So even if we assume that they ae 'willing' to unlock, they have to start from scratch. Because of this uphill battle, they can never get out of the Golden prison; even if someone unlocks the prison for them; they do not want to come out. I know of many such 40+ corporate professionals who are stuck up like this. They have all the luxuries in the world, but are not satisfied with the job to enjoy them!

Block 2: Idiosyncrasy of skill market

Some individuals are lucky to avoid the golden prison. But they encounter another block: the skill market. Skill market enables you to convert your skills into money ( it is also called monetisation of skills)

I had interacted with a coachee in 2001. Let us call him Shailesh. He had an excellent background in psychology. He tried to get a job in a company. Managed to find some work in a counselling company that counsells students.  He was working with many school students. But because counselling is problem oriented, he wanted to shift to coaching. However, that did not work out. Ultimately, he was so frustrated, that he left India last year, despite resisting going to west for last 10 years. 

People like Shailesh, encounter the vagaries of skill market. If you become a master in any skill, be it music, sports, programming or medicine,you expect 'money' to automatically come your way. But that does not happen because money follows another logic: the logic of skill-market.

Skill-market, like product market, has a different set of coherent rules. For instance, price of a product ( or skill) depends on its scarcity, branding, and other extraneous factors as much as the product's characteristics. Shaliesh could not get the 'price' of his counselling skill, because his skill had lesser demand in a country like India. But in western countries, this counseling skill is a premium skill. If one does not 'comply with this logic of skill market', one is unlikely to convert one's skills into comparable money.  Not all are like Dhiraj Rajaraman, who understood the functioning of skill market and therefore could monetise his skills smartly !

When you cannot monetise your 'best skills', you are disheartened and demotivated, because you think you are not getting what you deserve. If , however, you understand the functioning of skill-market, you may take radical decisions to monetise your skills if your skills are unique. But when you do not understand the functioning of skill market, you blame the entire world for not giving you the rewards you should have got. You become a whiner and waste all your formidable talents in 'whining' against the world !

Block 3: The power of Group's perception

While working in a company, one assumes that one does not face the whimsical logic of the market. But one encounters another equally powerful block in companies: the power of group perception !

When you work in any group of 50-100 persons, be it a MNC employer or a local employer, you encounter the power of perception. As we have discussed in this blog, given the high degree of specialisation in a company, and given the 'time scarcity' of senior executives, perceptions are heavily used to evaluate employees in a company more than the objective facts. 

In an organisation, perception is heavily used for evaluating your performance. Whether you like it or not, you live in the imperfect world of people ! Most of the excellent individuals, unaware of this dynamics, refuse to play by the rules of perception. For someone who is excellent in his work, he has to consciously learn this skill. It is easier to learn this skill early in life. But some excellent performers miss this age of learning.  Because of this lack of crucial skill, you will find many many professionals languishing in companies. 

But they do not languish silently!  Unable to understand the power of group perception, this excellent performer blames the entire world for not getting his deserved recognition. He becomes another whiner, but instead of whining against the entire world, he whines against the politics of companies. Companies call them 'disengaged individuals' who actively use their talents in 'harming' the company! ( Gallup's survey have found that more than 70% of the professionals in an organisation are disengaged!)

If you are aware of the New law of Achievement, you can actively anticipate these roadblocks in your career and get prepared to meet these challenges. Or you can fall by the wayside and become a world class whiner! What choice do you want to take? 

Do you tackle problems or anticipate challenges?

Problems-  be it with boss, wife, work, or with life -  have to be addressed in life. But tackling problems is a time consuming way of dealing with life. It is rectifying the situation to bring back the status to normal. Nothing more. Tackling problems therefore often wastes lot of productive time.

Why do problems happen? They happen because you missed to do something that you should have done. They happen because you did not foresee something in advance, and therefore were not prepared to deal with the situation in the right manner. Problems happen because you were surprised with something emerging and were not ready to counter it quickly enough. In short, problems happen because you missed doing something yesterday. Problems are the result of yesterday's work not done well. It is far more productive to prevent problems, instead of dealing with them after they happen.

But to move away from tackling problems, you have to anticipate the challenges coming ahead, and prepare in advance. If you do not take this simple preventive action, you keep on spending time on fire-fighting on the yesterday's issues, instead of creating your future.

For instance, when you are unable to persuade boss to give you a raise, it is because you did not anticipate the challenge that the boss is facing in giving you the raise! When you are unable to deal with wife's over-reaction to your refusal to go for sunday movie, you did not notice and observe the build up of her frustration and therefore did not deal with it proactively. When you are stuck up in a job that is not giving you any satisfaction, you have not done enough to understand what gives you satisfaction. 

Why anticipating a challenge is so difficult for a professional? Anticipating challenges is not a rocket science. It is simply pressing a pause button once a while and taking stock of the events to anticipate what is coming. Professionals can take this step easily. But they falter at the next step. They do not know 'how to tackle the impending questions'.

For instance, they do not how to tackle of the questions of boss if he starts sharing them? Or how to tackle the growing frustration of your wife of which you are also a source? Or how to find 'what gives satisfaction in the job? Unable to deal with these questions, professionals push these questions under the carpet and hope that they will get resolved by themselves.

Average Professionals, i found in my coaching, dodge such difficult questions, hoping that the questions will go away, if they do not look at them for a long time. On the other hand, successful professionals deal with this questions proactively. They actively seek a Mentor ( an elder, a relative, ex boss, or even a Guru) who can help them 'resolve' these questions. Resolving such questions about people and self is a critical thinking skill that every professional has to learn. Today, professionals have another option. They find a coach to learn this skill of anticipating and dealing with these questions before they become big.

In my coaching, i have observed that this is a key difference between average and successful professionals. While average professionals spend far too much time on dealing with yesterday's problems, successful professionals spend all their time in creating their future.

How are you tackling your problems? In advance or after the event? 

Can you make luck happen?

This is a question which i often encounter in my career talks and seminars. There is a technical answer to this question, which i had found very difficult to simplify until i met Anushka last week. And, in her scenario, the luck equation fitted so well that the whole 'mystery of luck' got unravelled for me. So here is an attempt to articulate.

So let us define luck first..

 Luck is the emergent property of a system** ( caused by multiple stakeholders who are working for their own interest) that becomes 'favourable' or 'unfavourable' to someone in the system.

When it is favourable , we call it good luck. When it is unfavourable, we call it bad luck. We discussed case of Manmohan Singh in an earlier blog. Narsimha Rao picked Manmohan Singh in 1991 because it perfectly matched his need of a good finance minister who will help India get out of the big financial mess. Similarly, Sonia Gandhi picked him for PM in 2004, because his profile fitted the need of hour. This is a perfect example of how the emergent property of system became favourable to Manmohan Singh, not just once, but twice. Manmohan Singh was the right man at the right time. And if you read the above blog, you will find that but for the support of Narsimha Rao, Manmohan Singh may not have survived the tough baptism ( third time lucky!). In other words, one has to wait for luck to happen. 

There is another way. One can 'read' the system and wait for the emergent property to happen. One of the best example of this is in cinema making. Anurag Kashyap, Anubhav Sinha or Tingmanshu Dhulia could not have made their type of movies in 1990 ! It took lot of events to alter the 'cinema system' to make these new type of movies work. For instance, the emergence of multiplexes ( that enabled audience of 300 economical to see a movie), deregulation of TV ( that brought in lot of new actors and directors on the horrizon), availability of finance due to corporatisation of cinema production made it possible for 'niche' movies to be made 'commercially successful'. When the system is too big to be influenced, one has to wait. If these directors were born 20 years back, we would not have been able to hear about their work, despite their honest intentions, hard work, and enthusiasm. 

So can you make luck happen? You have three options.

Option 1: If you can read the system relevant to your work area and make yourself 'ready' to benefit from the emergent property of the system, you can make luck happen. For instance, if you were working in software industry, you could have read the emergence of Data Analytics like Dhiraj RajaRaman did in 2004, and made luck happen like him.

Option 2: You can also make the luck happen, if you are able to re-program your mind and understand the inherent unpredictability of outcomes. This is what Andy Murray did with his career. He lost two Grand Slam Finals in 2012. But despite these losses, he did not forget that 'Outcomes are not in one's control'. By adhering to this simple rule, he managed to keep 'stress' under control. And when the opportunity came in US Open Finals, he won that finals despite playing poorly in the final.

On the other hand, if one fails to follow this rule of 'Outcome not being in one's control', one tries to 'change' the system too forcibly. If one tries to force the system to suit for oneself, one can only be breaking one's head against the wall. The effort is misdirected and often does not produce the desired result. Observe the career of Sharad Pawar, a very astute politician of NCP. He tried too many things to 'alter' the system to 'suit' him, but despite his good credentials, he is unable to become PM. 

Option 3: Instead of waiting for the system to alter, learn to 'read' the system and then learn to influence the system slowly and carefully. If you are working in a bounded system like an organisation, this is more easy to do. I have helped professionals who wanted to 'grow' in an organisation despite heavy odds stacked against them. It takes patience, tact and capacity to 'read' the system, but it is possible. 

Do you want to make luck happen in your life? 
***Systems thinking is a 'thinking' where properties of 'whole' take predominance over 'parts'

Blog on excellence

This blog has been removed because the content was not compatible with Enlight framework in many ways.

If you do not grow mentally, your work performance dips sooner or later

We have seen how tennis players playing brilliantly and winning the same points as their opponents, still lose the match. Similarly, the gap between work-output and the resulting outcome in some professional's life is too big. Despite being excellent technically and cognitively, they tend to suffer from poor outcomes in terms of rewards, reputation or promotion.  They could be intense in their desire to produce something; they also could be committed; but somehow the final result eludes them. Bridging this gap of output and outcome is possible with mental growth. Let us see how. 

If you have to bridge this yawning gap between your efforts and results, you have to stop thinking about improving your technical skill, cognitive skill, or sports skill ; you have to increase your tactical skill and grow mentally.   

First key to bridge the gap between output and results is Tactical skill 

One of the simplest direct way of bridging the gap between output and outcome is gaining tactical knowledge of the situation: the knowledge of what to do in a current job. Not trying to do everything, but doing something that matters at the time.  Tactical knowledge is the knowledge of determining the type of action to do and the timing of when to do them in your job. 


In his interview, Andy Murray writes this about tactical knowledge. He said "When I was young, my tactical knowledge, knowing how to win matches, was always one of my best attributes." This is a key attribute of winning a match.  Some players take years to learn this skill. Cricketers call this this the gift of 'shot selection'. In music and entertainment industry, it is called the gift of 'deciding whom to work for what'.

The same is true for corporate professionals. Corporate professionals also have to learn this skill. This skill looks very intuitive and innate. But one can learn this intuitive skill by learning systems thinking. One can understand the metasystems of one's job and find how to use the interdependencies of the job to produce outputs that matter.  We have seen how a corporate professional can learn this intuitive skill some time back.

Second key in bridging the gap between output and outcome is Mental growth

Second key  is growing mentally. If you are wondering  how 'mental growth' helps in producing any 'concrete results' in the real world of action and performance, here is what Andy Murray said about mental growth helped him win his first Grand Slam Open. 

Murray said that  the key thing he has picked up from Alexis Castorri, his psychologist from Florida ( in the above mentioned interview), is "learning how to deal with people a little bit better". You must be wondering how dealing with people helped Andy Murray in improving his on-court performance ! This is what Andy Murray had to say, "When my mind isn't free of everything, when things might be frustrating me away from the court, I can't focus as well as I need to. But when my mind's clear, I can go on the court and play, not worry about anything else. I can play much better and think a lot better on the court."

In other words, by avoiding distractions, mind learns to focus.  And gaining focus is the key to produce excellence. Gaining focus is not about doing something directly related to work, it is about using your mind effectively. If you watch yourself during the day, you will often observe that hundreds of thoughts fleet in the mind. Psychologists tell us that about '60,000' thoughts stream in our mind during the day. So our mind is constantly distracted by these thoughts. In the case of Andy Murray, his psychologist  perhaps found that Murray was distracted more because of his people relationships.  The psychologist therefore helped him remove that distraction, which indirectly helped him gain focus in his on-court time! In your case, if you are distracted by something, your mental work helps you keep those distractions away. Some of the distractions are subtle, like in Andy Murray's case, while sometimes the distractions may be large. You have to find that out in your case!

One of the key aspect of work performance of a corporate professional is taking better decisions in corporate world. We have seen how successful corporate professionals and entrepreneurs can manage to keep their focus in taking important decisions by managing the depletion of their mental energy.  

Another common way to gain focus on performance, is to reduce the stress of performance. For a tennis player, sports psychologist help tennis players in reducing their stress by helping them manage their disappointment after a point is lost, increasing focus on the first game of a new set, tackling the frustration of losing a point which was almost won, keeping focus with a player of lower ranking and so on. We have seen how corporate professionals can also manage their stress.   

Summary

Mental growth indirectly improves work-performance and excellence by reducing outside distractions; gaining focus on a chosen task by channelising mental energies smartly, and by helping one manage stress of the work-performance better.  I have seen professionals spend extraordinary energy and efforts to learn the technical and cognitive skills, but completely ignore the development of mental growth. Only when they do not get the desire rewards and outcomes from their work-performance, they approach a coach like me. If professionals however learn to grow mentally , in parallel with their intellectual pursuits, it will save them lot of efforts and tons of disappointment and frustration. What are you doing in your life? 

If a professional cannot modify his winning strategy, he becomes a unknowing victim of corporate politics

As we have seen in the blog on excellence, strategy like driving, has to be constantly relearnt, and modified to keep it useful when the situation changes.

We cannot keep on performing well, if we follow the same old strategy of excelling which was useful in the earlier stage. Players know this principle of excellence well. No sooner a tennis player wins a first grand slam,he has to modify his excellence strategy, otherwise his win becomes a flash in the pan. Very few tennis players can do this. That is why we get very few Roger  Federers and Nadals in tennis. The same is true for a cricket player. When a player plays for the first time for India, he has to modify his strategy of excelling. If he cannot do it quickly enough, he is out of reckoning. Few like Virat Kohli have done it, but many players cannot modify it quickly enough. By the time they have altered their strategy, the opportunity window may have closed. The player does not get place in the team, even though he may have modified his strategy of excelling. In other words, the excellence strategy has to be modified fairly quickly before the opportunity window is closed.

1. Excelling strategy has to be altered in the first job itself

No sooner you start working in a company in your first job, your strategy of excelling that have helped you perform well in college, are no more valid. You have to understand the tasks that you are supposed to do in your job - either as programmer, sales officer, or production engineer - and learn to perform them well. We have discussed some of the challenges of tasks of doer in earlier blog.  Four primary strategies for excelling in a job that have to be learnt as a doer are perception management, learning communication skill to get across your point, boundary thinking and learning organisation protocols of meeting, disagreeing and sharing.Very very few professionals learn these four primary excelling strategy in their first job within the opportunity time window. And when they obviously fail, their only choice is to leave the company. That is why you see so many professionals changing 2/3 jobs in the first 5 years !

2. Excelling strategy has to be altered for every new role

Most of the professionals somehow manage to find their feet, at least in the second or third job. Their second challenge comes when they seek a role-change.

The role change can either be horizontal or vertical. Horizontal movement is possible in sectors like software, engineering consulting and free-lance segments like accounting and others. However, more than often, professionals avoid horizontal growth ( even if it suits them) because of the glamour of vertical growth that has been attached to managerial positions.

We have seen the different excelling strategies that a doer has to acquire to perform well in managerial position. In another blog, we have also discussed the complexities of managerial jobs and the difficulty in developing the strategy of excelling in negotiating them. We have discussed how a mentor is necessary to help you  develop the excellence strategy required to negotiate these cognitive jobs.

3. Excellence strategy has to be altered to meet different life objectives

When we do not have money, we are just trying to focus on current performance and not seeing too much ahead. Sometimes, the focus is so much on current performance that one does not see the next challenge that is coming one's way. And when a professional does not alter the strategy of excelling in time, it completely derails his performance in the next role. He unknowingly invites 'poor performance'. For instance, in my coaching practice, I have seen many failures in the new role of department heads because performing the role of department head entails not only the 'deep understanding of that function '(be it sales, quality or even finance), but also how that 'function' integrates with other functions. Most of the department heads fail to alter their strategy of excelling and keep on protecting the 'narrow interests of their function' instead of 'protecting the performance of the larger company in which the function is just a part' !

Similarly, the transition from 'doing the job for money and reputation' to 'doing job for one's sake' is achieved by very few professionals because it requires one to acquire a very rare habit of excellence, the habit which Andy Murray acquired in his first Grand Slam win. As Andy Murray said, that he may have achieved many wins if he was in a different era than that of Federer or Nadal, but he would have been a poorer player. Andy Murray was speaking for all the real winners who win 'to excel because they want to better themselves'.One of the key winning strategy that has to be learnt to negotiate this transition is by finding meaning in life. 

Summary

Excellence strategy has to change because the 'situational context' of the work, role or objective changes. The context determines what is important to perform the work. You may or may not have the requisite skill necessary to produce the work-performance initially. You have three choices: get ready before the skills are needed and/or colloborate with others who have the requisite skills and/or and manage perceptions of metasystems until the skills are developed. 

Most of the professionals know only of the last choice: the choice of using perception management. And that is why, you will observe, that smart professionals who can talk well succeed in a corporate life. But what about those who cannot manage perceptions? Despite their talent, they lag behind. They become unknowing victims of the corporate life. And so they start complaining about the 'corporate politics'. But , not having learnt the other two skills, aren't they themselves to blame?  

Are you ready to lose the war to win the battle?

As we have seen in the earlier blog, excelling in life is about using unforced situations to make the right choices most of the time to enhance your knowledge in the areas of your strengths as well as using forced difficult situations in life to grow mentally.  For this to happen, one has to battle with the mind's demons all the time. Because this whole battle happens in one's mind and cannot be seen or monitored from outside, it is therefore a battle against oneself.

But contrary to the common belief, excelling is not about winning every point, every game or even a set. If you have seen the Andy Murray's US Open win, you will appreciate this principle of winner. Infact, excellent winners use the losses in wars to prepare themselves to win the bigger battle. Winners use three winning strategies to help them win even from losses. Let us understand Andy Murray's win from this perspective.

1. Until he consolidates his strengths, winner does not worry about losing  

A baseline player like Andy Murray likes to play from the back of court. He does not like to go to the net even when it is easy to win a point. Despite what the critics and analysts have been telling him, Andy Murray does not still go to the net. If you see the match statistics of US Open, you will see that he came 24 times to the net, as compared to 56 times for Djokovic. Andy Murray was ready to lose points at net. Instead of using net, Andy murray preferred to consolidate his forehand which, according to Boris Becker, was a significant factor in Murray's win.

If you see Pravin and Angad's case, you will see that excellent professionals in knowledge field use the same strategy. Angad consolidated his strength of 'sales', even though he did not like 'sales'. So even though, you may not like working in software, BPO, or in any other function, please consolidate your strengths before you move into a new function, domain, skill, or venture. Being prepared to lose 3-5 years helped Angad win the ultimate battle.

2.While flowing with the unfolding of events, excellent winner does not think of losing 

When a server in tennis has made a good serve, he has a upper hand in the point. The receiver has to be defensive and play defensively. In such a situation, receiver has to flow with the unfolding of the shots and learn to wait for the right time to strike. If the opportunity does not come in that point, he has to let the point go without letting his mind affected by the loss of point. Sometimes, when an excelling professional is serving well, he loses many games before he gets an opportunity. The exceller uses this strategy to train his mind to wait (and not get impatient) so that he can play the right shot at the right time. Without training his mind, he tends to play low-percentage shots and try to manipulate the events forcibly.

Knowledge professional finds it very difficult to use this excelling strategy. I often find professionals reacting to the events instead of learning from the events.  Many professionals, for instance, approach me in May/June  to change their jobs, because they have get less than expected rating ( or increments) in their current jobs during the year-end performance appraisal? Instead of learning the dynamics of rating or increments, they just run away from it and then tend to repeat the mistake in new company! Instead of remaining with the flow, professionals are desperate to 'change the flow' forcibly, often causing too much of hardship for themselves. And more importantly, they never learn the winning habit of 'waiting for the right time to strike' which is a must-have skill of winner.

3. Losses are useful to tame the demon of Self doubt 

The demon of self doubt is always lurking in the corner. It can be best tamed when one suffers a loss.   Recall how Lendl helped tame the demon of Andy Murray's Self doubt after losing to Djokovic in Australian Open of 2012. Instead of saying 'he lost again', he said 'He got a self belief that if he could hang in, he could win'.It is more important to remember that Self doubt has to be tamed, not banished from the mind, because it is very useful to keep one's feet firm on the ground when one is winning.

Without self-doubt, one starts believing that 'he alone has caused the outcome of winning'. As we have seen, this  belief 'that we can produce outcomes' is unrealistic. And having unrealistic beliefs does not help us in sustaining our habit of excellence. Losses therefore are useful to tame the self doubt and keep it alive because it is required to sustain the excelling habit. If you hear Roger Federer's interviews after winning his match, you will see how he credits his wins to outside events and situations !

For a knowledge professional, this strategy is even more important. In an organisational dynamics, one often gets 'undue credit' for an outcome ( like big sales order, or good project management) because the team and colleagues performed well. Without self doubt, professionals often get the success in their head as they start believing that 'they alone' are responsible for their success. In corporate life, you will find many such 'one-victory'  professionals who survive with their one brilliant performance. They are unable to regain their winning habits, because they could not tame their self doubt.

Summary

In short, losses and successes both are required to sustain excellence practice because both are just feedbacks to your way of thinking. Like Thomas Edison said ' I have not failed 1000 times. I have successfully discovered 1000 ways of not making a bulb'. If you have to practice the habit of excellence, you will invariably win some and lose some.  And that is why it is important to be prepared to lose , if you have to excel.

Are you prepared to lose to sustain your excellence habit? 

Map the organisational interdependencies when you join a new company

When you join an organisation, it is important to know the expectations from your job, the constraints and opportunities in the new job, the interconnects with other departments that can help or hinder your performance in the job and the organisational protocols. This should be done in the first month of the job. But while doing this mapping, one needs to approach from the top.

Map the boss to whom you are reporting 

When you join an organisation as Sales manager, R&D manager, or Project Manager, it is important to clearly define your role. But before understanding your role, it is important to understand the role of your boss, of which you are a unit.

For instance, if you are a sales manager of Mumbai Region, you must identify the role and responsibilities of your boss who may be designated as GM ( Sales), or VP(Sales). Understand the importance of Sales ( or R&D) in your company. Are the top people supposed to have worked in Sales function before they reach the top? In the organisational scheme of things, what is the role of sales function visavis marketing? And delivery? Between all other functions, what is the role and power of sales? Understand the budgets that your function has? 

In order to understand this well, it will often require a helicopter view of the company vis a vis competitors. What is your company's explicit vision? If your company has operations in the world, what is the importance of India operations to its global balance sheet?  If you are joining a company at a higher hierarchy, this analysis provides you with high leverage actions. But even at lower levels, it is very useful. A MBA degree helps in doing this analysis. But a help from a MBA colleague or friend is also enough if one knows how to get this help. But doing this analysis often provides one many ideas that can spell a big difference to your success in a new organisation.

Only after the role of function ( sales, R&D, or delivery) has been understood, identify the person who is your boss. What kind of credibility does he enjoy in the company? How long has he been with the company? What are his strengths and weaknesses as others see them? What is the formal power and informal power of your boss? Is the power derived out of position, authority or expertise? How is his relation with his boss? What is your boss being measured against? What are his KPI's ? 

Map your role in the function along with your constraints and opportunities

Understand what is expected of your role in clear terms. There is a big difference between explicit and implicit role. A job in R&D may include also the work of productionising a new product idea in one company which may not be present in another company. A project manager in a specific company may include customer management , but in another, it may be different.

Once the role is clearly understood, understand the KPI's ( Key Performance Indicators) of your job. They are the metrics against you will be measured. They determine the yardstick by which you will be termed as 'successful' in your job. Here again there are explicit and implicit KPI's. Both need to be understood.

And more importantly, you need to understand the official and unofficial support that the organisation is offering you to perform your role and deliver your KPI's. The official support may be in the form of budgets, policies, formal processes ( how to include new customer requirements in a current project, for instance) and flow of information (how is the project doing) to take your decisions. These last two are difficult to dig out but surprisingly influence your job considerably. 

The unofficial support is equally important. It includes the ability to override policies in emergency situations, help in the form of quick decisions from the boss, and informal protocols that govern the day to day work ( such as when to fill up the customer reports). 

Map the horizontal departments and the people in those roles who influence your job performance (this is mapping the interdependence of your role)

In my coaching, I have often observed that professionals ignore to do this mapping. But producing any significant output in a company often requires to coordinate our work with others as a team. An organisation often provides explicit support in this coordination of work, but not everything can be made explicit. Therefore the extent of coordination is determined by the informal culture of the organisation. This is often invisible to an outsider. One has to take conscious effort in wearing a special kind of filter lens to see this.

First identify the colleagues within the department, their roles and the person behind the role. For instance, in project management, you may have to interact with other project managers to fulfill your job. Or R&D manager has to work with other legal counterparts to fulfill their role. Or sales manager has to function with other sales managers. Each colleague is performing a function. They depend on you to fulfill their function and you have to depend on them to fulfill your function. If the interdependence is mutual, it helps. When it is lopsided, then either you have more power to help/hurt others or vice versa.

Once the interdependence of colleagues is mapped, then map the interdependence with other departments. If you are in sales, you have to map the interdependence with marketing colleagues to get the right marketing support to promote your 'x' product in your territory. If you are a project manager, you have to map the interdependence with HR colleagues to get the right person when someone resigns. If you are a R&D manager, you have to depend on marketing colleagues to properly launch a product to succeed in the market. Their performance significantly affects your 'overall performance', but you do not control them. You can only influence them. And this requires considerable 'interdependence intelligence' to make it work.

Conclusion

This mapping of your role and organisational interdependencies spells the difference between succeeding or failing in a new organisation . Without this mapping, you are just roaming in the terrain. Your chances of reaching the destination depends on luck.

By mapping these interdependencies, however, you get a map of your terrain. The map helps you know where you stand what can you do next to reach the destination. The map helps you avoid costly mistakes, especially in the initial phase. And because mistakes are common in a work, it gives you a way of mitigating those failures so that they do not hurt you. More importantly, they clearly spell out the high leverage actions from the routine mundane actions so that you can focus on the more important and not get deluged by the daily routine. 

More importantly, this helps a professional in taking charge of his first priority: the priority of delivering immediate performance in his job. We have discussed elsewhere how he can deliver immediate performance. Please check it out. We shall later discuss the steps one has to take to ensure that one also simultaneously prepare to deliver long term performance. 

Opportunities of excellence are missed due to ignorance

Let us compare case of Pravin and Angad. Here is a case of Pravin:

Pravin passed out as BSc graduate in 2004. After lot of attempts, he got his first job with a very big FMCG distributor as a Sales supervisor for an entire district near Mumbai. It involved going to different towns in the district, talking with sales representatives about their order situation, ensuring that the stocks are full in the retail outlets, ensuring that distributor is fulfilling the retail orders in time. The job involved visiting all main towns in a district and therefore involved travelling 22 days in a week. He worked for this company for 3 years. He left this company in 2008 and did a course of one year in Communication design. He is working in Web design now at the same salary.

Here is a case of Angad:

Angad passed out as BSc graduate in 2005. After lot of attempts, he worked for another big FMCG distributor in the same district as Pravin with similar responsibilities. Worked for 3 years. Changed the job to another FMCG distributor in the same distrifct with bare 10% increase in salary, but more responsibilities. Worked 3 years in the new job. He was sent for a short training program on retail management in 2011. In 2012, he got an offer from a big distributor in Mumbai at almost double the salary and with further more responsibilities. 

Why did Pravin missed the opportunity of producing excellence that Angad cashed on? If you can understand the invisible forces operating in the above cases ( i have purposely taken examples which are similar to each other), you will have learnt one of the most important lesson of career building ( or rather potential unfolding). So let us dwell on this and understand it better. 

To enable you to see the invisible forces, please understand the cycle of excellence before reading further. 

First step of Excellence : Choosing the potential skill set to focus

Both Pravin and Angad did not get the freedom of choosing 'which job to take' after their graduation. This normally happens due to two reasons: one, because the opportunities in the market are limited for a graduate, or when one is not sure of what potential he/she has in which area. Second reason is often the more dominant reason. The understanding of data to knowledge conversion is so inadequate in most individuals, that one is not aware of what 'potential skills' should one choose to unfold. Because one is not adequately prepared, one is forced to take up any opportunity that falls in one's lap. In this situation, we chose the first option that comes our way. 

In other words, we allow ourselves to follow a unfolding path offered by the market. Surprisingly, I have also observed some professionals who managed to make the most of the opportunity that comes their way. We will later understand why some can do this and why some cannot. 

Second step of Excellence cycle: Utilising the opportunities to strengthen the chosen potential skill set

There is big difference between Pravin and Angad in the second step: the step of utilising the opportunities to strengthen the potential area. While Pravin could not 'utilise' all the opportunities, Angad could do so. I have observed that a professional can tap his potential when he learns to understand and use the metasystem he is working and exploit the interconnections of it. 

For instance, Angad managed to help sales representatives to find more easier way of selling to retailers, because he understood the economics of retailers. Similarly, because he understood the economics of distributor better, he also could help the retailers. His ability to see and tie the interconnections between the various stakeholders - retailers, distributors, sales representatives - helped him perform in his job. On the other hand, Pravin complained about the 'difficult' retailers, 'impossible' distributors, and 'selfish' sales representatives. When a person cannot 'see and use the interconnections' , you will often find him blaming the 'people' behind the roles. Pravin was not aware of the basic lesson of systems thinking: People are not 'black or white', the roles make them black and white. 

Third step of Excellence cycle : Sticking to chosen potential skills for a long enough time 

Angad stuck to the domain of 'Sales management' long enough ( 3 plus 3 years) to convert his potential strength into some useful marketable 'skill'. Even though, he changed the employer with practically no raise, he stuck to his skill set of sales management. On the other hand, Pravin gave up in 3 years and moved to another skill. Ability to stick on one  skill set  is determined by one's ability to Regulate one's Self. 

Regulating Self also enables one to focus on something even when one is disappointed. For instance, i was surprised to find that Angad disliked the job of Sales as much as Pravin disliked it. But some professionals like Angad, despite being forced in a job which they do not like, still manage their "Self" smartly and stick to a chosen path for sufficiently long time to 'tap' their potential.

Conclusion 

In early stages of career, it is important that one develops some 'marketable skill' quickly enough to 'unfold one's potential'. Angad is therefore right in his approach. Even though he may chose to leave 'sales domain' in the future, his ability to create a marketable skill early enough will allow him to 'identify and chose other potential' later.

On the other hand, Pravin, by choosing to shift his domain after 3 years has created a bigger problem for himself. After three years, he was not having a marketable skill on which he could bank. By choosing another domain after 3 years, he has reset the clock to Zero. He again has to 'tap' his new potential in Communication Design. If he fails in tapping it, he will have to again reset the clock to zero. As time passes, other pressure start building on: the pressure of marriage, the pressure of other's expectations, pressure of falling behind others. This pressure make it harder to regulate Self and therefore make it even more difficult to 'focus' on a potential path. Without focus, one fails to build a marketable skill. Bigger journey of unfolding of potential strength will never commence for him ! Even though for Pravin, he has chosen a wrong potential to unfold, his journey has started.

At what stage are you in your career? Are you on the journey of unfolding your potential strength or you still moving from one job to another with no idea of your potential strength?  Where are you stuck up? Is it at the first step or second step? Or is it the third step, where you know what you want to do, but cannot move from older potential area to a newer potential area?