Career making is similar to Gardening

Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer has used this metaphor in their recent book "The Gardens of Democracy" to explain the different approaches (Machinebrain versus Gardenbrain) human beings have used to conquer their environment.

Machinebrain is a way of seeing the world as series of mechanisms which work like clock and precision. Everything happens efficiently in this world and is predictable. These systems can be regulated easily whenever a problem arises. On the other hand, Gardenbrain sees the world as set of eco-systems. They are unpredictable like gardening. They are effective, not efficient. Regulating these systems is not 'after the problem', but is inbuilt in the process of tending it. Both preventive and corrective steps are necessary to tend them.

In my five years plus of coaching and research, I have observed these two approaches in career-making . Here are the six differences i particularly find enlightening: 

1. Machinebrain professionals assume that their career is made once they get the best education: be it IIT, IIM, MBBS, CA or Phd. Gardenbrain professionals assume that their career-making starts only after they have finished education and have started working. Career-making is a tough grind like gardening.

2. Machinebrain professionals assume that taking preventive steps is waste of time, while Gardenbrain professionals assume that prevention is the best form of tending life.Once the pest overtakes the crop, very little can be done to prevent the damage. Garden brain professionals therefore spend time in understanding the challenges of taking up anything new ( such as new job, new role) and prepare themselves for it. Machinebrain professionals, on the other hand, will take up anything for the sake of 'good position and salary' and will create the 'mess' that has to be cleaned by someone else. 

3. As people can cause unexpected disturbance, both professionals view relation with people differently. Machinebrain professionals view people as 'cogs in the wheel' who have to persuaded, cajoled or threatened to toe a line. Gardenbrain professionals, on the other hand, view people as multi-dimensional who have different viewpoint that may be as useful as theirs. They therefore tend to spend lot of time nurturing good people ( when they find them) and will go to extra-length to tend relations with them, even if it slows their progress in work-life!

4. Machinebrain professionals pursue money, career and reputation with a single minded pursuit because they believe that contentment can be acquired later. They believe that 'parts' acquisition will lead to the acquisition of 'whole'. Gardenbrain professionals pursue the money and happiness together because they believe that 'whole' has to be pursued, not parts, Even though Gardenbrain professionals tend to get this 'whole' at a later age, Machinebrain professionals never get it.

5. Machinebrain professionals believe that their work-life success depends on their talent and hard work alone. They therefore have a very unrealistic view of their capabilities that often blocks them in achieving anything meaningful in their lives! Gardenbrain professionals believe their work-life success depends on their talent as well as serendipitious events that have happened in their lives. They therefore respect the realities of life and tend to pursue visions in life that are meaningful. 

6. As Machinebrain professionals believe that life is predictable, they view unexpected events as aberrations and crisis something that somehow needs to be 'regulated'. As Gardenbrain professionals belief that life is unpredictable, they spend more time on cultivating the soft qualities of mind - values and emotions - to make them flexible. They therefore view unexpected events as opportunities to explore their hidden talents.

If you ponder, you will appreciate that career-making is very much like Gardening

- Like Gardener, one has to chose plants that suit the environment. For instance, one cannot choose football or research career in India ( if you have choice) because environment is not conducive enough for that.One also has to choose a career that is suitable to you, not just follow others, because it is the most popular !
- Like a Gardener, one has to pull out the weeds before they stop affecting the growth of plants. For instance, you should stop viewing relation with people as single-dimension. Emotional ignorance is another weed that can suck up the entire career, if not weeded out in time.
- Gardener views all the aspects of tending as 'one whole': he does not tend to use excess water or undue fertiliser just because he has them.He maintains the balance all the time. So too, in your career, you have to keep the balance between money and contentment. Overvaluing one retards the career growth, as it retards the plant growth. One has to therefore find time to 'find meaning in life' before it is too late.
- Like a Gardener, one must understand the characteristics of plants, earth and weather before one can garden. So too, in career, one must understand the characteristics of work ( cognitive or sports talent) and the conditions to make the right decisions.
- Like a Gardener, one has to accept the unpredictable weather conditions and be 'flexible' enough to respond to it. One has to work on one's mind (values and emotions).

If you can get accurate and timely feedback, it is enough to keep ahead in your career

Feedback is critical for learning and growth. A good quality feedback itself is enough to constantly improve one's skill and talent. If you want to see how, observe any sportsman.

Sportsmen constantly improve their performance with accurate and timely feedback because the quality of feedback in their work - playing tennis, cricket or football - is very good: timely, objective, context-independent.When the batsman in a cricket is told that his performance is 'poor', there is no doubt about it in the minds of batsman because the feedback is objective (he has scored consistently low in last three innings), seen immediately after the event and largely independent of context.

Having accepted that the performance is 'poor', the batsman takes the next logical step: 'find' an option out of multiple options that will 'improve' his performance by either correcting his 'technical' faults or 'mind' faults. His technical faults could be his awkward batting stance, his so-called strength of playing cut shots, or avoiding short balls. If he performs well in the next game ( even without correcting his fault) he is retained and can get an additional chance to rectify his fault. If he performs poorly, he is dropped. Although the system is very harsh on poor performance, it looks fair because it is transparent.


Why is it difficult to get accurate feedback in knowledge work

On the other hand, corporate professionals working in medicine, law, engineering, software or management find it difficult to improve their performance, because the quality of feedback in their knowledge work is very poor: it is delayed, subjective, and context-dependent. When my boss tells me that "My performance is poor in sales", feedback is confusing because it is delayed  (typically it is given after a year), subjective ( you are not aggressive enough) and context-dependent ( even objective-looking sales performance depends on various contexts: was the territory given to be tougher than others, was my budget inadequate in my area, or was the distributor  in my territory new, ...)

Because the performance is so dependent on context, I do not know that I have performed poorly in the first place. You will find many smart corporate professionals who use this feedback-characteristic of knowledge work to their benefit: they always manage to find other situations to blame their poor performance. They learn to manage perceptions.

But if I truly want to improve my work-performance, i do not know 'if I have performed poorly because of my lack of skill' or ' if I have not adjusted with the changing situation in my job' or if the 'situation required external support for me to perform'. I am stuck up because of poor feedback quality. Further, as I am prone to defend myself, i am more than likely to blame 'outside situations' and 'boss' for poor performance. If I find good reasons to blame bosses and colleagues, I stop taking feedback from them, even if they could be right. I stop believing that anyone is giving me good feedback. And that stops my learning completely. My performance cannot be improved easily now!

Because the feedback quality in knowledge work is poor and opaque, I start believing that the corporate system is unfair and stop doing anything to improve my work-performance! Instead I rely on something which I never wanted to do in the first place, manage perceptions!

Suggestions in obtaining quality feedback to improve your work-performance

If you wish to avoid blaming the corporate field, it is imperative that you learn to get feedback on your knowledge work. Here are five suggestions:

1. Get feedback on your behaviour, not on your attitude or thinking

We can see other's behaviour, not their thinking. Similarly, others can see our behaviour and not our thinking. This makes it imperative that you must get feedback to your actions, and not your thoughts.

Therefore, please take feedback on your actions, not on how you are thinking. For instance, please ask others 'what action did you think i performed wrongly'. Even if they tell you that 'you were not committed', ask them 'what actions of mine made you think i was not committed'. If they say, 'you were not prepared', ask them 'what actions of mine made you think that i was not prepared'. Learn to steer their feedback from 'interpretation of your thought' to 'action/behaviour'.

By restricting the feedback to actions, you ensure that the feedback is accurate and not subjective. Once you get the feedback on your actions, then you can 'review your thoughts' to correct yourself. For instance, if others are interpreting your 'action of early-leaving of office' as your lack of commitment, you appreciate that your thoughts are not in tune with the outside reality and 'recalibrate' your thoughts. This will give you important guidelines on how others 'interpret' your actions. This itself is an important feedback for you !

2. Always try to get feedback on the event soon after the event

In organisations, the feedback sessions are conducted once in a year. This kind of feedback is not useful to improve your performance, because one is rarely able to recollect the actions that have happened a fortnight or a month back. This becomes too 'generic' a feedback.

Instead, concentrate on getting feedback after an 'event'. Feedback becomes useful only if it is taken immediately after the event, say in a day or two. After a delay, one tends to give feedback on 'impressions' and 'memory'. This kind of feedback is not very helpful in improving your performance.

In sales situations, for instance, the feedback is ideal if taken after a closure of sales cycle. For other functions, feedbacks should be taken immediately after critical events are over: such as crash delivery done in short time, or after an important damage control event was conducted, or after an important presentation was done for a client, or when external events like audit are conducted. If no other option is available, feedback at the end of month is still helpful.

3. Get feedback on the event from the people who are involved in the event 

Always get feedback from the people involved in the event.  Bosses are ideal for getting feedback, but not all bosses are 'good' in providing objective feedback !It is therefore useful to get feedback from colleagues working in your group or working in another group with whom you interact.

I have a friend who gets feedback from his family members every 3 months in a very 'formal' manner. Every quarter, he asks his wife, for instance and asks her three questions, "What do you think i did wrong in last three months",  'what behaviour could have been better' , and 'What behaviour changes you would like to see'. He never 'justifies' or 'refutes' the wife's statements or conclusions. He only asks, if required, for clarifications such as "What actions of mine made you think that i do not care about your health". I find this is a very good method of getting good feedback as well as keeping your close relationships healthy! Although this is an example from outside the work, it is a good example of how feedbacks should be taken.

4. Talk with the best performer in the company to unravel the 'context' of your work

The right person to provide you feedback on your work is the best performer in your company, industry or someone whom you know ( even though he is not from your industry). If you are a sales officer, find the best sales officer in your company to talk to. If you are an investment analyst, find the best investment analyst to talk. If you are a production engineer, find the best production engineer to talk.

If possible, work with best performer for a time being, and observe his/her actions closely, whether it is programming or cooking. Ask specific questions to these performers such as 'I am finding difficulty in closing sales calls. What should i do', or ' I often work late to complete my work'. Asking specific questions help you diagnose the root cause quickly.

Or use these rules of excellent performers to improve !

5. Talk with a good external coach to 'sort' out the interdependency of the contexts 

In a corporate management job, there are too many contexts to 'peel out' to find how are you really doing. As we have seen earlier, a corporate job has very high variety due to three contextual mixups: function, domain and managerial contexts. This makes it very difficult to isolate them individually and determine 'what you are doing wrong' in your work. This first phase of diagnosis is itself very daunting.

A 'credible and trustworthy' coach is therefore not only useful but also necessary to help you sort out wheat from chaff if you are seriously interested in improving your work-performance. He can help you  perform an accurate diagnosis that can make a big difference to your performance in work !

What are you doing to improve your performance in knowledge work? Because, if you are not doing anything, you have to either depend heavily on perception management or adopt a victim  ( what can i do?) mentality to survive in corporate field. 

Find meaning in your life practically

As we discussed in the blog on challenges of today's professional, one of the significant challenge of today's professional is to find 'meaning' in life, because money does not motivate today as much as it motivated his father. Often, it is also a root cause of mid-life crisis when professionals take sabbaticals to find something meaningful in life. In a milder version, it is a problem of most of the today's professional, when they seek job-satisfaction in life.

Difficulty in finding meaning

'Finding meaning' is difficult for professionals, because it not a left brain sequential process. It is in the realm of your right brain. And therefore, it is not in your control. Left-brain outcomes like earning x money, or marrying with x are direct, sequential and easy to achieve. But finding satisfaction from x money, or finding happiness in marriage are right-brain outcomes. They cannot be achieved directly; they have to approached indirectly. For instance, you cannot 'sleep' at your Will. You have to approach it indirectly. 

Right-brain outcomes like satisfaction, meaningfulness, happiness cannot be achieved directly by Will. They are typically the by-products of some other actions, of the way you explore life. Meaningfulness is an outcome that 'emerges' out of the way you engage with life. It is an outcome of not what you do, but how you do. 

If you do it in the right way, you will 'automatically' understand what is meaningful in your life. But if you are one of those who have got attracted to the 'individualistic' philosophy of westerners, then you will find it very difficult to find meaning in life, because you do not appreciate the oblique way of exploring life. John Kay has written on how goals are approached obliquely, not directly. His reading will benefit this exploration. 

Methods of exploring (for discovering meaning in life)

Meaning is personal for everyone. If you find 'ecology' meaningful, that does not mean i will find 'ecology' equally meaningful. Here are some of the suggestions for indirect approaches of finding meaning in life.

1. Engage in action with your values: Narayanan Krishnan was lucky to find his value in one encounter when he visited Madurai. Most of us are however not so lucky. To understand if you value 'removing corruption' or 'tackling ecology', you need to engage in action with that value. For instance, you have to actually work with some NGO and help underprivileged and find out if you would really want to do that 'at any cost'. Only thinking about 'values' is not useful; engaging with those values in action is more important. To understand what values are, please read this. 
2. Use your passion to express yourself: We all have hobbies and interests. But we find it difficult to find time as we start working. I have a friend who loves to read novels and books, and tells me that once he retires ( he is now 45), he will 'rest and read books'. I have friend who wants to write poems 'after he is 55'. Developing right-brain hobbies like drama and reading help us explore our values.                                                                                                                              Expressing oneself provide us the 'fuel' to charge our life. Above all, it helps us meet people who are 'passionate' in their lives and understand the 'unfolding' of passion in others. When we start appreciating how others find significance in something as silly as 'cooking', we start understanding the meaning of passion and liking in our lives.
3. Develop friends who work with 'values' in their work:  Many corporate achievers in their quest of achieving money, fame, and position forget to look at their hierarchy of beliefs because in corporate life one rarely experiences conflict with one's value. This is unlike in some fields where one faces 'value-decisions' daily in 'work'. For instance, fields of entertainment, publishing and medicine expose our values and force us to take some stand. Infact, one of the most misunderstood fields where value is strongly incorporated in the work, is the work of politics and (one that is popularly portrayed in cinema) police work.                       One of the best way to explore your values ( or your belief hierarchy), is to develop friends in these fields. If your school friend is working in this field, you are the luckiest, because that will enable you to understand the interplay of 'values' and 'work' much more easily. Our values conflict with our actions many a times, but we chose to ignore such conflicts instead of facing them. A friend who is engaging in this conflict becomes a 'model' to understand these conflicts, if not face them, at the least possible harm to oneself !  I had a police friend whose value-conflicts affected my sleep for many months ! 
4. Help friends and colleagues to realise their values/passion: This is a more easier method to explore your values. Work with a friend or colleague who is passionate about some value. The interaction is very helpful because 'collaborating' forces one to engage densely and therefore discover many hidden aspects of what you believe in your heart , but which you have never questioned! 

Evaluation of value 

Process of exploration will lead to discovery of your values, which may fit with Scheler's Pyramid of Values. The pyramid from the lowest to highest consists of four categories. It starts from Value of use and pleasure > Value of vitality > Value of spirit > Values of holy.  Value of use and pleasure are the the values of utility such as value of 'taking care of my family'. Value of vitality are noble values like bravery, magnanimity, loyalty and humility. Values of spirit are values like justice, beauty, and truth. Values of holy are values of compassion that originates when one understands that 'everyone is same'. 

Moving from lower to higher value depends both on one's physical and mental resources. If you do not have enough physical resources like your father/grandfather, you will be forced to remain at the lowest value hierarchy. Of course, we all have our unique definition of what is 'enough' for us. While Aamir Khan considers acting in one movie in a year as 'enough', other actors are not satisfied with even five! However, it is the lack of mental resources that often blocks one from moving to higher hierarchy. One lacks mental resources not because of inadequate ability, but due to withdrawing oneself from the dense-situations (where one confronts one's value ). With little practice, one's mental resources remain undeveloped ! If one uses these four methods of exploration from the initial stages of life, one is more than likely to discover one's value! 

Above all, please remember that your value cannot be evaluated and rated. How will you evaluate a poem? or a relationship with friend? or a passion of a friend? So even if your discovered value is the "Value of utility", you need not be 'apologetic' about it. You have to be practical about it. You have to respect your constraints, wait for physical resources to increase, simultaneously keep on exploring your values, so that you are ready to migrate to higher hierarchy when the time comes.

Reclassify your relationship skills

Many of our skills, such as programming, can be learnt by one's individual efforts, understanding the topic in details, simulating different situations to test one's ability, correcting oneself on the drawing table and then be able to practice it in a 'live situation'. I call them off-line skills.

Relationship skill is however an online skill, because it can only be learnt by practicing it in 'live situations'. It is a product of using/misusing our Type 1 mind. Relationship skill is the derivative of Type 1 mind.

And because it is online skill that is derived from the way you use Type 1 mind, you already have a developed ( or undeveloped) relationship skill that you have unconsciously learnt from your parents, friends, and even movies, serials and stories. If your relationship skill is effective in managing your relations with others, you are lucky. In earlier days, the chances of developing this skill was high because we and our fathers/grandfathers had lot of opportunities in developing and fine-tuning our relationship skills.

If we lived in joint family, we could depend on many siblings and relatives to teach us the basics of relationship skill such as listen fully before you talk, or understand the unique drivers of a person to relate with someone, use different kind of powers such as persuasive power, ownership power or positional power. If we lived in small towns ( which had not Walmartised@ itself to only include transactional relationships) , we had siblings and families that exposed us to variety of relationships with unequal power, incompatible habits, irreconcilable beliefs, and diametrically opposite attitudes.

Our children are not so lucky. They confront the worst possible situations that inhibit ( and sometimes actively discourage) development of relationship skill. We have nuclear families with fixed pattern of relating. Sometimes siblings are also not present to provide enough differences. TV and computers have further reduced the 'interaction-time'. Friends are only from a specific 'strata' that pose only one kind of pattern.

If you are from one of these families, you have a big mountain to climb, because you are not only very immature in relating with people, but - more importantly - you are not even aware that you have a poorly developed relationship skill. As relationship skill is a product of Type 1 mind, none of your relations will tell you something is wrong with you because you will 'find' friends who are 'like you', you will work in 'familiar situations' with 'known bosses', you will convert your 'children' in your mirror-image. Type 1 mind manages to find 'coherency' in everything.

You find something is wrong in your relationship skill only

• when you cannot 'execute' big ideas because you cannot 'collaborate' with someone
• when you are comfortable only with people who listen to you all the time
• when your daughter grows young and wants to 'pursue' her own interests which are different than yours.
• when you will find something 'wrong' in others all the time
• when you are uncomfortable with your 'aloneness' 
• when you seek 'validation' from others for whatever you do
• when you keep on aping someone else's goals and dreams throughout your life

Because Type 1 mind manages relationship unconsciously, it never lets you 'detect' the relationship problem unless you consciously deploy Type 2 mind. But because Type 1 mind often manages with its unconscious package of heuristics, intuitive judgements, and 'rapid calculations', it is often difficult to undo this 'unconscious package' later in life. The longer one takes in detecting, the more difficult it is to undo the package of Type 1 mind.

Often corporate executives who succeed in 'corporate life' fall in a different trap. They conflate relationship skill with 'social relationship skill'. As they become adept at managing one kind of relation: the social relation (where the exchange between two people is transactional, either of money or in kind in 'return' of something) they feel confident in dealing with people. They become overconfident (overconfidence is also a trait of Type 1 mind) and often use the same 'style of relating' with their friends and family, which are dense relations. It is these dense relations which enable us to challenge our beliefs, force us to confront reality and find meaning in our lives. Because they get stuck up in 'social relation', they never get an opportunity to utilise dense relations ! Only big upheavals ( such as big financial loss, loss of a job, or deaths of near ones) in their life can challenge them to question their belief and heuristic set! Biographers then tell us that people need failures to succeed in life!

We all know that 'relationship skill' is critical to do anything in life: be it negotiating the pay rise, collaborating with colleagues or finding satisfaction in one's life. Unfortunately, Type 1 mind does not know that relationship skill is classified in three types: Social ( transactional), dense-social (collaborative) and dense ( with spouse and close friends). Because we never understand this distinction, we never exploit its fullest potential, nor do we train the Type 1 mind with appropriate heuristics and cues.

We shall see later how the relationship skill of 'dense-social' and 'dense' types can be learnt by altering Type 1 mind and reconfiguring the 'complementary relation' between Type 1 and 2 mind.

@Walmartised living: This is the term used by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer in The Gardens of democracy to define a state in which because people 'lose' touch with each other because of overreliance on laws and rules to govern every day interaction. People also lose their ability to judge each other and trust. 

Why intelligence is not enough to build talent

Many professionals confuse intelligent mind with rational mind. So here is a short summary of how our mind works. We have two minds: Type 1 and Type 2.** 


Type 1 is fast, automatic, and subconscious. It is quick, dirty and parallel, and requires little energy.  Type 1 uses all kind of rough heuristics (thumb rules) to come to conclusions and solve problems, even if they are imprecise. It is prone to all kind of biases. When you want to leave company because of a bad boss, it is your Type 1 mind taking the quick decision for you. When you chose a job on a impulse which turns out to be good, it is your hindsight bias that tells you that you have taken a good decision, even though you had taken the decision on impulse. 


Type 2 is slow, deliberate and conscious. It is therefore energy-consuming, slow and serial. Type 2 consists of algorithmic and reflective mind. While Algorithmic mind is linked to intelligence (measured by IQ) which helps us represent the world 'cognitively' and therefore help us manipulate it for our purpose, Reflective mind is the rational mind which uses  thinking skills such as logical, scientific and normative thinking. The division of reflective and algorithmic mind explains why intelligent people can behave irrationally and can fall prey to Ponzi schemes.


Ideally, one has to achieve the right balance between Type 1 and Type 2. Type 2 is the mind that helps solve problems, set goals, reflect on our experience and learn, but it also requires effort and energy. As the Noble Laureate Daniel Kahneman says, we are 'cognitive misers'. We avoid taking any mental effort as far and as long as we can. That is our natural tendency, so to say. So we rely on Type 1 processing even when it is harmful to us and even when the evidence against using it is infront of us.


Because of overuse of Type 1, we tend to take 'instinctual easy decisions', instead of 'right decisions'. Because of Type 1, we copy the decisions of friends and colleagues and then spend time in damage control. We blindly follow the logic of Type 1 mind and then waste huge effort in clearing the mess. Here are some of my examples that I have seen of Type 1 overreliance: 

1. Asit jumped from one company to another, even when everything was going right in his first job: his boss was right, his 'area' of work is right. But he changed the company because he believed in the thumb rule that 'one must change job after 3 years, if one has to grow quickly'.  He landed a job with 50% hike, but also landed with a wrong company. And then he approached me for damage control ! 
2. Parag left a job in US after 8 years, came to India with the hope that he will be 'grabbed' by the companies. Only when he started looking for the job, he was shocked to see, as he said, 'how the companies were exploiting his job-less situation'. A typical trait of Type 1 is overconfidence and therefore being unaware of market realities.
3. Jeevan, a CA, joined a software company, because he got a very 'big starting salary in 2005. In 2011, he met me because he was dissatisfied that 'he was not using even 10% of what he learnt in his chartered accountancy'. He was unable to leave his job, because he was handcuffed in the 'golden chain'. On the one hand, companies could not offer him higher salary because he had no relevant experience of accountancy. On the other hand, he was unable to start from 'scratch' in accounting. Another case of wasting time to clear the mess ! 

What can you do?


When I coach individuals, I ensure that they learn at least two skills to stop overuse of Type 1.


One is the skill of sensing a situation to override Type 1. Type 1 is always in a hurry and gives you the necessary confidence to negotiate daily situations with grace and ease. One therefore has to develop a 'sense' to detect situations that should be processed by Type 2. Unless this 'sense' is developed, one tends to 'follow' the Type 1 mind recklessly. One of the way to increase our 'sensitiveness' is to check the heuristics (thumb rules) that one is employing unconsciously. For instance, Asit should have checked his heuristic of "changing job in 3 years' before acting on it. 


Second skill is to enhance the 'logical skill' of Type 2. For instance, when one appreciates the unintended and ancillary consequences of taking various decisions and actions, one is able to compensate for the logical consequences of an action proactively. This skill simultaneously enables the 'sensing and detection ability'.
For instance, if Jeevan had understood the consequences of taking up a software job after doing CA, he could have simultaneously taken 'proactive steps' such as 'taking finance assignments in software company', or finding products like SAP finance to use his CA skills. On the one hand, this would have helped him 'polish' his finance skills ( keeping his other options open)  and also helped him find 'satisfaction' in the software job itself.  And if he found his 'satisfaction' in software job itself, why would he need to find another job to use his CA skills? ( The problem is dealt at the root level!) 


** Read any of the Daniel Kahneman's book on psychology. He is Noble Prize winner of 2002.  His latest book, Thinking Fast and slow, is worth a read. 

Pursuit of virtues is neither a way to build talent, nor to succeed in life

If you read any book on the 'keys of success', the book will tell you to follow a long list of traits and virtues such as honesty, hard work, confidence, motivation, pursuit of truth and so on.

But, as we have seen in our earlier blogs, traits are highly contextual, and have only limited significance. For instance, we have discussed how motivation is contextual.  Even confidence is contextual. Because of their contextual nature, traits are both time-dependent and relevant for a specific situation. We should not ascribe this traits more 'meaning' than what they represent. We should instead listen' to the signal they are trying to communicate, and take the necessary action. For instance, when the motivation falls for a specific task, it gives us a signal that our challenge is lower. It tells us that we need to find a way to increase our challenge by increasing the complexity of the 'task', for instance. The same rule pertains to confidence. When 'confidence' is lacking in a specific act, be it buying a house or driving a car, we know that our capability is not commensurate to that 'act'. Either we find the right person to help us out or increase our 'capability'. Sometimes, it is better to ignore the low confidence, because when a task is unknown to us, we will naturally feel 'diffident'. Trying to feel confident in all the situations, a symbolic hallmark of corporate achievers, is a sign of 'foolish bravado'.

In the same way, most of the virtues are appropriate for a specific context. Take example of a virtue, which is most talked about; the virtue of honesty. Are you honest if you pick up a lost wallet and give it back to the owner? or are you honest because you refuse to buy a cinema ticket from a rogue outside the cinema theater? or are you honest when you report your every 'cent' of money in the income tax returns? or are you honest because you refuse to pay additional money to the railway ticket officer for getting a reserved seat in a 3-tier coach and instead get down from the train? or are you honest because you refuse to pay 'additional sum' to the ration-card officer and  prefer to re-visit the office repeatedly? As you will realise from some of the multiple situations  described above, one may be 'honest' in some situation and not be so 'honest' in other situation. It is very normal for us to practice honesty that we think is relevant to us and not practice another 'definition' of honesty. Virtues by themselves are not 'right' or 'wrong'. They are just 'appropriate' or 'inappropriate' to the situation. The same is true with other virtues like hardwork, patience, pursuit of truth and countless others.

Many individuals confuse 'virtues' with 'values'. Values are something that we hold close to our heart, irrespective of the difficulty or the challenge we encounter in 'holding them'. In other words, values are not 'nice-to-have virtues' which are appropriate or inappropriate to a situation. Values are strongly held beliefs that we will live for irrespective of the 'damage' that is caused by them.

How do some virtues become values? Values are right-brain outcomes in which we 'ascribe' meaning to virtues. As we have seen in the blog, these right-brain outcome depend on the loosely-knit process that is occurring in our lives unconscious to us. It is a process of clarifying aspirations, understanding and 'resolving' the conflicts in the values one holds and method of closing the gaps that the 'reality' confronts. Because of this process, what is value to you is not a value for me. You may value 'ecology' and I may value 'education'. And when virtues become values, talent becomes a means to an end, not an end. That is the fourth stage of talent embedding phase we discussed in our talent unfolding process.

But do not get misled by the slogans of positive psychologist who tell you to pursue different  kind of virtues and traits like Have a goal, Pursue truth, Be creative, Form a Network, Be committed and so on. Each  new author will present to you with a new list of virtues/traits that will help you succeed in life. This list is a laundry list; 'useful to all' and therefore 'useless to anyone'. Like they say when you believe 'everything is holy' then nothing is holy for you.

For full description of the list of virtues and traits that have attained mythical proportion, please read the book " Sanjiv Bhamre, The five myths of career building"

You can acquire talent in more than one way

Talent can be acquired in more than one way; with or without educational background, or by following a role model, or by relying on one's own strengths.

In the earlier blog, we discussed how a working model of a task of 'stock broking' converts knowledge into a skill. One has to 'refine' the same working model to convert the skill into a talent. In other words, your journey of becoming a talented performer in your field is via the 'task model' that you develop. Task model is the medium of acquiring talent.

A working model can be built using solid 'knowledge base' of the ' task area'. For instance, Nicholas Taleb's 'task model' of stock market is based on the theory of 'randomness and probability'. Harshad Mehta, who made huge money from stock broking was a High school student. His 'task model' of stock broking was perhaps based on the simple 'rules' of buy and sell. Although, he later became too ambitious and used 'bank money', which landed him into trouble, one cannot ignore his talent in stock broking. He proved that the task model of  'Stock broking' does not need a degree in Economics or a Phd in Mathematics.

On the other hand, one can follow a completely different route to build one's task model. For instance, Warren Buffet  has a completely different 'working model' of share broking which relies on investing in one or two companies, and then influencing the company by taking huge stake in the company. There are various ways of climbing the mountain, so to say. Warren Buffet used his own 'strengths' to develop a task model of stock broking which earned him millions, as have Nicholas Taleb and Harshad Mehta

Books on talent building ( stock broking or any other talent) are misleading, because there is no one 'best' working model of a task. Every working model is highly 'customised' for the task done by the individual. Whose book will you follow: Nicholas Taleb, Harshad Mehta or Warren Buffet? Only one thing is common: Every task model has to go through the rigorous process of 'reality-testing'. Initial robustness or comprehensiveness does not matter. Accuracy does not matter. It's ultimate value depends on how you do the reality-testing so that the model closely reflects the as-is reality.

One of the biggest class of best seller books are management books written by erstwhile successful managers. As you will realise now, they are not particularly useful because of the above characteristics of task model. Every manager has to built his own 'task model' to manage his own unit/branch/group. The task model of 'management', to be useful, has to be sensitive to context ( depend on the function, domain and industry of the unit), cultural practices of the company in which he or she is working ( implicit company rules and practices) and the personal strength and weakness of the individual who is managing ( people oriented, task oriented ). Because of the highly 'contextual' nature of task model of management, one cannot easily adopt someone else's task model of management. And you will also observe  a curious phenomenon here:  Building a good task model of management does not require any degree in management, or post degree qualification in organisation behaviour.

Apart from task of 'management', which are the two big professional tasks where a talent can be developed without any educational background? Just take a guess. One is cooking !. Another is ....!.Hint: we engage with these talented people every day.

If you cannot monetise your talent you are forced to change your path

In 2004, Dhiraj Rajaraman, at the age of 28,  left a consultancy firm Booz, Allen Hamiltaon,sold his house, to establish a data analytics company. Dhiraj raised a total 400,000 US $ from his friends, started a front end office in US, back end in Bangalore. No body gave him any business in the eight months.For four years, he did not even take his salary. 

Decision analytics talent ( ability to use the information to take decisions) was rare in 2002. When a new talent area emerges in the industry, there is no  ready-made 'market' for that talent for few years.Because there is no 'market', there is no 'money value' attached to that 'skill/talent'. More often than not, it is the person with that talent who has to change his skill-path because he cannot find a buyer who is willing to buy his skill/talent. Because of inadequate opportunities in monetisating the talent, when it was difficult to 'nurture' a talent, one was forced to change one's path.

In early days, one had to depend completely on the intermediary- the company - and the available skill market to monetise one's skill/talent. If the skill/talent was well ahead of its time, then another option was to become an entrepreneur, which was fraught with considerable risk. Since last decade, Internet and VC market, the two big drivers, have brought in huge opportunities to the talented individual.  

Due to internet, global world has become 'localised', which means a person with a narrow skill/talent can also find a 'buyer' for his focused skill and 'monetise' his skill. I know of several individuals who sell their 'skill/talent' by working from home at the time and rate at which they are comfortable. I know of 'researchers' who sell their 'research skills' on a project-to-project basis. I know of a company where 'spiritual' talent has been combined with some other skill to sell 'spirituality' to corporate world. 

But where this is not possible, another option exists: the market of 'venture capital' where funds are available to monetise ideas into marketable product. Venture capitalist ( or angel funders) step in and 'fund' the initial idea, like in the case of Dhiraj Rajaraman. Although this VC market is not as developed in India, as it is in USA, it is developing at a very fast clip. 

Today's talented individuals are more lucky than our forefathers. On the one hand, availability of internet opportunity has made it easier to find a buyer for our talent, while on the other hand, the availability of VC market has made it easier to convert that idea into a marketable product. However this has also meant that 'talented individuals' also should possess additional skills: the skill of using internet and the skill of understanding the business model . Later skill is necessary to convert idea into a marketable product. 

In other words, if you are a talented individual, the boundaries between working for a company ( corporate individual) and working for oneself ( as entrepreneur, freelancer or consultant) are becoming thinner and transparent  One cannot decide in advance that one will work only for a company or for oneself. If one's purpose is to identify and nurture a talent, one has to work anywhere; and with it one also has to learn these 'complementary' skills which were unnecessary in earlier days. 

For today's talented individuals, although their opportunities have multiplied, with it it has also become necessary to learn additional complementary skills ( such as the above skill of identifying business model) to exploit those opportunities. Are you ready to nurture your talent in today's world?

Find suitable mentors to constantly improve your cognitive performance

Performers in Aesthetic and Psycho-motor fields, say in music and tennis, get constant feedback on their performance to improve their performance. For A&P performers, the bigger challenge in improving their performance is not in knowing 'what are they doing wrong', but 'how to correct the wrong', because it is easy to find 'what is wrong'. Better coaching practices in these fields have therefore emerged in knowing how to correct the wrong; because every athlete and musician is unique and requires a different approach to reach the top in his field.

Cognitive performers however face both the challenges in improving their performance: what and how. Because work output in cognitive work is not visible, it is difficult to evaluate cognitive performance through its output, This makes it difficult to know 'what is going wrong'. Infact, one does not even know, if everything is going right.

Because output is not visible in cognitive work (and therefore not measurable ), it cannot be evaluated visavis 'comparable performance' by other performers to guide the process of improvement. For sportsman, getting this comparable benchmark is a standard method of improving. If your serve speed in tennis, for instance, is less than 180 kmph, you know you have to improve that speed. Although performers in aesthetic fields such as music or painting, do not have such comparable benchmarks, they at least have the benefit of visible output. An excellent teacher can 'judge' their output and guide.

On the other hand, the only way to get guidance in improving your cognitive performance is through 'input' route. But,  as we discussed earlier, you require a special kind of person, who has worked both in your field and domain ( for instance, sales and computer software, or programming and telecom domain) to spend time with you, to guide you in your performance. We call this special person a Mentor. This is why, if you are serious about succeeding in the corporate world of knowledge work, Mentors are absolutely necessary in improving your cognitive performance.

Find good mentors if you want to constantly improve your cognitive performance

Good mentors are those who have worked in your combination of specific domain (software, engineering, telecom) and specific function ( sales, design or manufacturing). By asking you the right questions, they can understand your challenges, and definitely help you in developing your performance, especially if your cognitive task is of doing, and not of managing. Doers are the one who do the actual task, like selling, programming, or designing, while managers are the one's who synthesise the task of different doers to produce an output.

Your mentor should have an ability to appreciate the challenges of  your specific task in the context of your strength and limitations.

The first challenge for your mentor is that he/she cannot have a simplistic understanding of your task. For instance, sales task is not just the ability to 'convince someone to buy something', but is far more complex. Variety of strengths can be utilised to perform this task. For instance, it is normally believed that sales task can be performed well by extrovert individuals. But, as we know now, you will find even 'introvert individuals' excel in sales, especially where a 'solution' (software, for instance) has to be sold, not just a product ( car or flat).  The same is true with other doing tasks such as programming, design, production or training (or teaching).

The second challenge in finding mentor is to find someone who can appreciate your strength and limitations. Without this understanding, your mentor will make the mistake of advising 'Rahul Dravid' to be aggressive or advise Virendra Sehwag to bat in a 'technically correct' manner. Your mentor should understand your unique strengths and weakness, and not just offer advice which is technically correct ( such as improve your presentation skills), but which is 'impractical to implement'. Without this understanding, the mentors may give you a 'technically appropriate' prescription, but which is 'impractical'. The prescription may look good on the paper, but could be fundamentally impossible to practice because of your combination of beliefs, emotions and habits.

Because finding mentors for improving management task is structurally difficult, you have to rely on coaches

As the task becomes more varied, such as management, understanding of human being becomes even more critical. Jobs in Management are of very high variety; every job is different than other job, even within a single company. In jobs of such high variety, instead of trying to ' configure the person for a job', it is more practical to 'configure the job for the person'. The approach of improving performance in 'management task' has to be diametrically opposite than improving performance in 'doing task'.

For example, take a simplest example of a management task in a software company, task of a Project manager.  This is the first level of manager in a software company. Observe its variety. It can have multiple combinations of domain ( ERP, BIS, Simple solution, web solution etc), field ( software, support, time and material) customers ( Government department, private customer with small division, language and other possibilities) and size ( small, medium and large).  The combinations are numerous. Even in a single long duration project, the critical element of a task can vary from month 1 to month 6.

Despite this huge variety in the task of project management, software companies try to fit a person to the task of Project Management. Only a strong mentoring, which some companies employ, can help align the person to the requirement of managerial task and improve his performance. If companies do not employ such mentoring practice, it causes double whammy to the company: it leads to demotivation of good performers who cannot understand why they failed, and loss of good managers for the company who may leave the company to save their face.

Because of this unique characteristics of management task, it is more difficult to find good mentors to improve your cognitive performance, if your task is of 'management'. Your second best option is to rely on a coach, who really understands the variety of human beings and can collaborate with right 'function+domain' mentor to provide you a 'wholistic' advice which is both 'correct and practical'.

Stress is due to failure in (un)certainty management system

Most of the advice on stress management is ineffectual because the advice is based on a universal approach to stress management. Much like cancer researchers in 1950's who believed that there was 'one cancer' which can be treated with one universal cure, most of us believe that there is only 'one type of stress'  that can be cured by one approach. However as researchers found out, stress like cancer are of different types, and each type requires different strategy to prevent and cure.

To help you manage stress better, you have to understand that stress is caused by the failure of our certainty management system. It is like sugar control done by pancreas. If the sugar level is more, insulin hormone brings it back to normal. If it is less, glucagon hormone gets it back to normal. It is a homeostasis system.

When you desire an outcome such as passing with 85%, or getting a x job, or reaching your college by 11 am, this outcome is not in your control. You are uncertain if the outcome will indeed happen as expected/desired. When you face this uncertainty, your 'uncertainty level' rises. You feel disoriented. If it rises beyond your assimilation threshold - your capacity to assimilate the uncertainty - you become stressful, or dysfunctional. Stress is a signal that our uncertainty management system is failing to reach homeostasis, much like failing to reach homeostasis of sugar leads to diabetes. 

Dynamics of every-day stress  

You get up in the morning. Everything is fine.
Event 1: You hear the news of your father's deteriorating health on the phone. Possibilities of uncertain outcome goes through your mind. Uncertainty level increases. You go to the office.
Event 2: You come to know from your boss that you have to immediately go and meet one of the customer because of his complaint. Uncertainty pool increases further.
Event 3: And then you get a phone from your home that your son has fared poorly in arithmetic. Uncertainty level increases further.

Stock and flow model of stress***

At this point, let us assume that uncertainty level has gone beyond your assimilation threshold level i.e beyond your capacity to assimilate the uncertainty. Until now you were feeling nervous and disoriented, now this new 'event' makes you dysfunctional. You are 'Stressed'.

Now you tend to do something 'drastic' or 'incomprehensible'. Most of us go into 'action' mode and tend to display anger with our nearest or weakest associates. For instance, you may call up your wife and angrily blame her for not taking care of the house and children. Or  if you meet your subordinate who has put up a conveyance voucher, you will call him and 'blast' him for spending money on taxi instead of using auto-rickshaw.

This happens every day with all of us. Fortunately, after a nice sleep ( which helps you defocus from the outcome) or with some talk with the customer who accepts that it was his mistake, your uncertainty level drops. You feel better. You suddenly get a better perspective of the situation. With uncertainty level lower than your assimilation threshold, you respond to the situation 'appropriately' instead of reacting. For instance, you will try to understand what went wrong with your son's arithmetic paper and help him.

Every event generates uncertainty to a different degree

Basically, uncertain outcome of every event increases your uncertainty level of tub. The degree of increase however depends on two elements:

• perceived consequences from the undesirable outcome, and 
• the amount of 'control' you perceive to have over the outcome.

Firstly, the impact of perceived consequences. If you hear about the bomb blast in a local train at 3 pm, your uncertainty level will increase appreciably if you know that your 'son' returns home at the same time. If you know that your son reaches home at 6 pm, your uncertainty level will not increase as much. Please remember, the consequences are 'perceived'. It is your subjective interpretation. More the perceived impact of consequences of event, more it increases the uncertainty level.

Secondly, you have two levers to control the increase of uncertainty level: gathering information about the variables related with outcome and your ability to influence the outcome. For instance, once you talk to the customer and gather information  of what has caused the complaint, you know what can be done to address the outcome. This reduces the level of uncertainty tub. If you can take immediate 'action' to control the customer complaint, it will further reduce uncertainty level in the tub. On the other hand, if your 'ability to act' depends on your 'organisational policies'. If you are not sure of your boss's approval, you uncertainty level, instead of decreasing, may increase further.

By gathering information about the uncertainty, you can generate less uncertainty. For instance, travel to another city always increases the uncertainty level. But with more experience of traveling, as you gather more info about the city and schedules, your uncertainty level does not increase to the same level. In other words, expertise and experience of the outcome increases your uncertainty level by a lesser degree. That is why you may be more stressful in arranging 'birthday event' for your child (because you are not aware of it), than managing a 'global event' of your product launch ( of which you are expert)

Your response to the event depends on your assimilation capacity ( threshold level)

As you would have understood from the above example, a single event may not make you dysfunctional, because uncertainty is a 'stock' element, the level in the tub. At an event level, uncertainty is a transient flow. Only when your 'uncertainty stock' crosses your assimilation threshold, you lose control of your self and react disproportionately to the event. You may even get surprised by the 'extent' of your anger or 'reaction' at such times. This is what is meant when we say that 'the small event was the last straw on the camel's back'.

Each of us have a capacity to bear 'x' level of uncertainty. We call this level as the threshold level because it represents our mental capacity to withstand uncertainty in our lives. This 'x' level is essentially determined by our adopted beliefs of outcomes and the 'sense of direction' in our lives. 

Conclusion

As you would have deduced from the above discussion, you require 3 different strategies to manage your stress:

1. Strategy to manage inflow/outflow of uncertainty 

Every uncertain event will increase the level of uncertainty tub. You can only reduce the degree of increase. Depending on the 'event' you have to devise different strategies.

Only information, not data, will reduce your uncertainty level of an event. Internet websites only provide 'data', that is why it is not helpful in such situation! That is why, it is more helpful to call up your distant car-fanatic friend, when you are buying a car. Or finding a friend, who has recently bought a car, may also be more useful.

If you recognise your limitations of knowledge and are willing to seek advice from others, it will help you maintain your uncertainty level of an event. Given our 'limitation' of understanding every event, it  is prudent to accept that 'we cannot know everything'.

2. Strategy to enhance your assimilation threshold ( your capacity to bear uncertainty)

Spiritual Guru's offer this approach as a universal cure for managing stress by advocating meditation. However, after understanding the stock and flow model of stress, you will appreciate that managing stress as 'stock of uncertainty' is not enough; you also have to manage the 'inflow' and 'outflow' of uncertainty every day.

Although this is a more durable and solid approach to manage your stress, it also demands far more time, effort and commitment from your side to practice and perfect it than the first approach. In other words, you need time on your side to make this work. You cannot manage the stress of your next month's exam, by using this method.

3. Strategy to mitigate the effect of accumulated uncertainty 

Despite initiating the strategies of controlling inflow/outflow and managing the assimilation threshold,  you will accumulate lot of stress daily until you become 'master' in using the two approaches. You cannot wait until you learn, because the accumulated stress affects your daily life in two ways. You need to find your way of mitigating this impact.

One, you need to become sensitive to your ' daily increase in uncertainty level' ( especially when it is closer to your threshold level) and postpone the critical decisions until you recover to your 'normal level'. When your uncertainty level is closer to your threshold, you become over-sensitive to certain aspects and ignore other important aspects of a situation. It is prudent to wait and delay such critical decisions, especially decisions like choosing a life partner, or shifting a job.

Second, accumulated stress starts impacting our body. Chronic ailments of diabetes, BP and cardiac are correlated with high stress levels for a long time. It is therefore necessary to 'dissolve' this stress every day, either through yoga, exercise or some other 'physical method'. As impact of accumulated stress on body is irreversible, it is extremely critical to mitigate this effect.

I know that more detailed discussion on each of the above strategies will be required later to help you manage your stress. I however hope that this overall framework of Stock and flow model of stress will help you 'relook' at Stress management in a far more meaningful and practical way.

*** This "Stock and flow model of stress' is based on three principles
1.  Self control as a limited resource model enunciated by Mark Muraven, Dianne M. Tice, and Roy F. Baumeister
2.  Concept of assimilation capacity enunciated by Daryl Conner
3. Systems thinking concept of 'threshold' or 'tipping point' 

Lessons from the cognitive work path of Manmohan Singh

As knowledge workers, we already face many difficulties. I read this account of Manmohan Singh's career graph in October 2011 article of The Caravan by Vinod Jose. This has been written on the basis of accounts gathered over the course of four months of research that included lengthy interviews with more than 40 people who have known and worked closely with Manmohan Singh ( MS) in his private and public life during the last half-century. 

By donning the hat of  'career researcher', here are my six lessons of what corporate individuals can learn from the story. 

1. Change requires a 'pain' strong enough for everyone to rally around on one agenda

See the background that triggered the biggest change in 1991.

India’s debt to foreign lenders had nearly doubled between 1985 and 1991, and a series of external shocks—including the sudden spike in oil prices that accompanied the Gulf War—had reduced India’s foreign currency reserves to less than the amount required to finance two weeks of imports.

The government was so desperate to raise funds that it had pawned 20 tonnes of gold confiscated from smugglers, which were secretly shipped to the Union Bank of Switzerland in exchange for $200 million. When that proved insufficient, another 47 tonnes from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) were sent to England and Japan to secure loans worth an additional $405 million.In a country where pawning the family jewellery would be an act of final desperation, the sense of alarm was palpable.

Learning for CXO's: More radical change requires more intense pain to justify the change. Please remember this when initiating any change in your organisations. 

2. To change the system, you have be 'part of the system'

MS had been working in different ministeries for 20 years, before he took over the role of Finance Minister in 1991. MS had authored the current Five-Year Plan when he was deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, and he was implementing policies in 1991 which were totally contradictory to his earlier plan. When the question of this apparent contradiction was first raised in June 1991, at Singh’s first press conference as finance minister, his response was unguarded: “I agree that I had played a role in getting the economy into a mess, and now I want to play a role in getting the economy out of the mess.”

Learning for CXO's: Thorough understanding of 'as-is' state of what the Government did before 1991 helped MS to move to the new 'to-be' state much more quickly. The same capability is required to ensure successful change in organisations. 

3. System picks you when your profile suits the need

In both the instances, MS was chosen because of the curious situational factors, not because he was the first choice.

Narsimha Rao picked MS in 1991 because it perfectly matched his need of a good finance minister who will help India get out of the trouble.Rao needed a finance minister who satisfied three criteria: he needed a skilled economist to conduct negotiations with the international financial institutions; second, in the event of a backlash against the radical policy changes, an ‘outsider’ would be easier to dismiss from the cabinet; and third, if the new finance minister was successful, he still wouldn’t pose any threat to Rao’s own position in the party. MS matched these three criteria.

Sonia Gandhi picked MS for PM in 2004, because his profile fitted the need of hour: Cognitive architect of 1991 liberalisation, the image of technocrat ( substantiated by the inability to even win the almost sure seat in 1999) that gave a good public branding, and above all the non-political humble background that ensured loyalty.

Learning: As you would have observed in the above case, even MS's liabilities became assets for the position.  If you aspire to reach the top of such a complex system, it is more prudent to 'be' what you are, along with your plusses and minuses, rather than trying to change to something else. Do not get tempted by self-help Guru's. 

4.Cognitive growth is important than ideology when one is learning

MS worked under different mentors and bosses without getting confused with their 'ideology'. He worked with with P.N. Haksar, who went against Indira Gandhi in Pre-Emergency, continued with PN Dhar, who had succeeded Haksar, RK Dhawan, an intimate of Sanjay Gandhi. When Indira was ejected and the Janata Party came to power, Singh worked closely with HM Patel, whose position was almost diametrically opposed to that of Dhawan. His capacity to adapt to shifting political winds was nicely captured by The Times of India in a 1991 editorial: “Manmohan Singh was perfectly happy with the garibi hatao phase of Mrs Gandhi, then with the Emergency, then with the Janata Party, then with the return of Mrs Gandhi.  

Learning: This sounds 'atypical' with the image of MS, but this is an ideal way to maximise the development of competencies of your cognitive talent in the phase II.

5. Behaviour is always contextual; do not get confused with preconceived biases

P V Narsimha Rao's indecisiveness was known to the world. However, this story so clearly shows how wrong we were.

PV, who was known to be so indecisive—at cabinet committee meetings he couldn’t even decide between tea and coffee—was surprisingly sure that India had to deregulate and open its markets, and he gave Manmohan the crucial confidence to make those moves.

When MS told PV that the country immediately needed a huge standby loan of at least $5 billion, “There was no ambiguity in Rao’s mind,” the senior secretary recalled. “He was more convinced than Manmohan Singh.” Rao approved Singh’s proposal on the spot.

Learning: Our behaviour is determined by the situation. We are decisive in certain situation, and indecisive in others. Our traits are contextual. Even honesty, motivation, confidence are contextual traits

6. Transition from one role to another is the most difficult phase to negotiate   

See the initial examples of transition that MS went through in 1991 after becoming a FM ( after being in Government for 20 years):

a. “During that month of budget preparation, the Cabinet Committee for Political Affairs met almost every day,” the senior secretary told me. “Manmohan was so indecisive and nervous that Rao ended up doing most of the talking and convincing the others himself.”

b. Singh’s budget, which would come to symbolise the unleashing of the Indian economy, met with a cold reception within the Congress party. At a meeting after the budget speech to discuss the new economic policies, a sizable crowd of MPs vented their outrage. They were certain that slashing fertiliser subsidies, among other measures, would spell doom at the polls. “There was considerable unrest in the Congress ranks,” a CWC member and former cabinet minister told me. “There were as many as 63 backbenchers who spoke against Manmohan. PV really had to save him in that meeting.” 

Learning: In the early days of transition from one job to another, either you are changing from programmer to PM, or GM to VP or VP to CEO, the transition is the most difficult phase to negotiate where maximum derailments occur. Seek support during this period.

Do you want to add anything here?

Unfolding process of Cognitive talent

What is talent 

As human beings, we use our five senses, our body muscles, and our cognitive abilities - combination of all three in different proportion - to perform a task. Initially our performance in  a task is average. If we however practice it repeatedly, slowly and surely, we manage to acquire a talent in performing that task. Talent is not a 'potential' ability; it is a demonstrated ability in a person who can replicate the performance of a task  consistently in different situations.

A singer primarily uses his sense of 'hearing' along with his body muscle of 'vocal chord' to sing. His task is to sing. A sportsman, like a batsman, primarily uses his hand/body movements to coordinate with his ' visual sense' of judging the ball's trajectory. His task is batting. An innovator primarily uses his 'cognitive abilities' to rearrange the earlier thoughts of innovators along with his psychomotor skills to create a new engine, a computer or just draft a new idea. His task is innovating an engine. All three performers use all three sets of abilities, but the emphasis on each of the ability is varied. 

We therefore call dancer as an Aesthetic performer (because he primarily uses his five aesthetic senses), sportsman as a Psychomotor performer (because he primarily uses his finely honed muscle movements) and knowledge worker as Cognitive performer (because he primarily uses his cognitive ability to categorise data and correlate with other unlinked categories).

A&P performers can easily 'name' a task ( which they want to excel and convert it into a talent),  such as dancing, painting or playing cricket, to identify their talent zone. Cognitive performers, on the other hand, find it difficult to identify their task because cognitive task is multi-dimensional.

What is cognitive talent/task

In knowledge work, a cognitive task requires a combination of

- Subject Knowledge in specialities and sub specialities such as mechanical engineering ( not just engineering) or civil law (not just law)
- Domain Knowledge about domains such as manufacturing, banking, software, and
- Accompanying set of Skills based on the type of jobs such as front end jobs like sales and service and back-end jobs like  manufacturing, design or quality.

Unlike singe-dimensional tasks in aesthetic and psychomotor fields, cognitive task in knowledge work is multi-dimensional. It demands a combination of subject knowledge, domain knowledge and accompanying skills. Because of this multi-dimensionality, knowledge work exists in multiple varieties.

Unfolding of Cognitive talent

Talent unfolding process of A&P performer is well known and understood by researchers. Cognitive/knowledge performers can use this knowledge to guide them. Both A&P performer and cognitive performer use four phases of talent unfolding, although the duration and challenges faced in each of them differ widely. If you observe these differences closely, you will be able to anticipate the challenges better if you are a cognitive performer.

1. Talent exploration of A&P performer versus Ability exploration of cognitive/knowledge performer 

Because of uni-dimensional nature of task, A&P performer can chose his talent zone, say of dancing, at the age of 5, because the task of dancing at the age of 5 remains same when he becomes 25. His talent exploration phase commences at the age of 5-7 and continues for next 4/5 years to explore different options.

For cognitive performer, his cognitive ability exploration starts at the age of 6 and continues till the age of 22. Slowly and surely, he funnels his resources on a narrower area to increase his chances of developing his talent. For instance, by the end of high school, he chooses to focus on a narrow area of engineering or accounts. Later he may continue to narrow down the focus further, by say choosing to do a post graduation in a specific technology, or a course in law.

Knowledge about Data to Knowledge conversion will go a long way in helping a cognitive performer in making smart choices and even to guide him better in identifying and nurturing his abilities.

2. Talent development of A&P versus Competency development of cognitive/knowledge performer 

Once the talent (either of piano or violin) is decided at the end of Talent exploration phase, A&P performer starts developing his talent from the age of 9-10 and commits all his efforts and time in developing his talent for next 6-10 years. He gets all the necessary help from his coaches, support from parents, to develop all the necessary skills to become the top class in his talent.

Cognitive performer, on the other hand, choses a task or job at the end of Ability exploration phase. While choosing his job, he unwittingly choses his domain. The domain chosen could be automobiles, Image processing or software. Even if a person choses to join a BPO, he works in a specific domain, such as mobile call handling or financial products selling.  

While engaging in a task/job, cognitive performer converts his abilities into competency. In a competency, an individual has to synthesise his subject knowledge, domain knowledge, and develop accompanying skills required to perform the task. An engineer may join sales department of a Engineering and construction company and develop his Sales competency, or a CA may join a MIS department and develop his competency in 'Management decision making'.

While A&P performer takes long time ( 8-10 years) to develop his uni-dimensional talent, competency development takes shorter time frame of 2-3 years. Unlike A&P performer, cognitive performer gets no assistance from anyone either to identify the gap in the skill or to fill the gap quickly. For instance, many cognitive performers suffer poorly in their task due to lack of basic skill of perception-management.

As such, process of competency development is not well understood, and neither coaches are used as guide. This often lead to several changes in the work-path of a cognitive performer. This is why you see many cognitive performers change many jobs in the first part of their work-life: sales engineers becoming design engineers, software engineers leaving software, or salesman moving from selling medicines to selling shampoos.

Some cognitive performers, who succeed in their first task, develop multiple competencies one after another. The example of Noble Prize winner, Venkatram Ramkrishnan, depicts this development of multiple competencies vividly.

Some cognitive performers, though, find their their unique competency quickly and, instead of developing another competency, develop the same in a focussed manner.  Like A&P performers, they engage in Talent development.  I know of many Sales professionals, for example, who have spend considerable part of their lives in developing their Sales competency into an exceptional talent. Management consultants, trainers, Consultants in Engineering, Lawyers, Software and hardware engineers are some other examples. They are the happier lot of cognitive performers because they have found their element. 

3. Talent expression phase of A&P versus Competency convergence of Cognitive/Knowledge performer

For A&P performer, this is the stage where they express their uniqueness. Till now they were involved in the technical mastery of their talent area, be it violin or piano or chess. At this stage, they 'leave behind' all the technical mastery in their armory, and develop their own 'style' or 'innovation', which is truly unique.

Some cognitive performers use their multiple competencies to find an area where they can use all their developed competencies. They find a task where, everything they have achieved in life, becomes useful to them in their new task. This is converging all the competencies together in one task. I have met many corporate professionals who do not reach this phase at all.

4. Talent embedding phase 

This phase is common to both A&P and cognitive performers. Till this phase, the talent was an 'end' for which all their activities and decisions were meant to support. In this phase, they find a purpose or value where their talent becomes a 'means' to achieve the 'higher end'. Talent, instead of leading, becomes the follower. Talent is embedded in the lives of the performers. Nandan Nilekani's work as UAID Head is one such example.

Summary 

If you are a cognitive/knowledge performer, this is what is important to be remembered:

1. Ability Exploration: As compared to 4-5 years for A&P performers, your ability exploration phase is about 20 years long. Unlike A&P performer, you do not have to commit to a path early. That is both bane or a boon, depending how you use this period. In other words, to capitalise on the situation, you have to be one step ahead of the unfolding process.

2. Competency ( or talent) Development: Like A&P performers, you can focus on one unique competency and convert it into a talent. However, you also have another option. You can develop 2/3 major competencies in the next 10 years of life, provided you know how to do it.

Unlike A&P performer, you have lot of constraints though. During this phase, A&P has no family responsibilities. He also gets huge teaching/coaching support to develop his talent. On both counts, you have a handicap. You have to learn to develop competencies within your given constraints. That is why, you have to be one step ahead of the unfolding process. 

3. Competency convergence and talent embedding

Do not chase the illusive 'talent', as books seem to tell you. Just focus on 'converging your competencies'. If you are one step ahead of the unfolding process, you can jump this stage and move to the stage of talent embedding.

If you remain behind the unfolding process, you are constantly chasing, trying to control the damage.