Better than the best!

This is a short break from my political/governance posts. 

I spend time everyday coaching/counselling people on their careers. And like every bad counsellor, I spend an extraordinary amount time sharing feedback and 'guidance' on what they could do better in their careers. Most of the feedback centres around strengths and weaknesses, career choices, office politics and so on. I guess people come to me because I have the experience and some career success to sound credible. I really don't know if anyone really uses my feedback and counselling. 

A few weeks ago, my perspective about all of this changed. My long suffering friend and I were as usual chatting about life and what we could do better and differently and also why he was not making significant progress on some of the feedback (negative) shared with him in the past. It irritated me no end that he was struggling to improve. I knew him for a long time and my memory of him was an extraordinarly talented person that I looked up to. I was not in touch with him for a long time and the negative feedback about him from others convinced me that he needs to fix his problems. Coming back, given that he was making little progress on his weakness over many months, an idea stuck me momentarily.  I suggested to him that instead of asking what he needs to improve (given his career struggles), why doesn't he ask people what he was good at , may be there will be a positive trigger that would force him to work harder on his weaknesses. He sought feedback from numerous ex-colleagues and then shared the entire feedback with me. As a researcher, I compiled the data and looked at the feedback. I was astonished!  My dear friend was exactly the same as I knew him. The solid strengths that I admired him for continued to be there and people even saw that in him. The ironic thing was until that day, my friend did not realize that is how people saw him today. He was so smitten by his weaknesses because they probably explained some of the early failures in his career. This shifted him from believing in his strengths to 'fixing' his weaknesses. That said, that session made him to shift from just looking at his weaknesses to also appreciating his strengths.  

Over the last few weeks after that I realized in all my conversations with others that as a society (Globally) we have become extremely negative. Everyone is happy to point out the negatives in others or seeking improvements because that will apparently make them 'better' people. A 'better' person would apparently help the indivdual meet his goals and reach the next layers. Perhaps, it is true, but the fact is unless you are really VERY good at something, just fixing weaknesses (one or two) is not enough. This is a simple fact. 

The fact is it is impossible not to have 'weaknesses' and irrespective of what a self-help book or a baba tells you, you can't fix all of them. I have come to realize that as a Society we have to change our emphasis from 'fix your weaknesses' to 'can you do better than your best?' 15 years ago, two of my colleagues had a long discussion with me about how we should chase excellence in our work instead of worrying about the next position, the next role. If I am really good at persuading people, what can I do to become the best? If I am a great sales guy, can i invent new methods to sell? If I am a great tech guy, can I create something new that no one else on the planet has ever imagined? Change in emphasis from fixing the negatives to bolstering your strengths to another level?  I thought this to be quite impractical and old fashioned. I felt that people were more concerned about materalistic quests rather than excellence. However, our per capita income has a third of what it is today. With more wealth, one does not need to have the same mindset OR we could probably better accommodate both at the same (Materialism and the quest for excellence)

I realized that much of Corporate India is still old fashioned and is built on provoking our deepest insecurities and feeding those insecurities with greed and jealousy. These are destructive feelings and no wonder most of corporate India hasn't created one thing that the whole world can use. Zero inventiveness. We as Generation-X (including me) have actively participated in the so called 'rate race'.  The fact that remains that taking your strengths to a high level of excellence enables you to deliver more value to people and society around you by bringing down inefficiencies OR being more inventive. 

In this context, it is extremely important for each of us to identify the purpose of our life. By this I don't mean just the financial, family or other materialistic dreams that all human beings naturally tend to have. I mean, what kind of impact we wish to have on society as a whole given that at the end of the day we all are productive members of society. Finding this purpose is easier said than done and yes, I donot have a formula for finding your purpose. That said, this is an important issue to address fairly early in life. Combining your purpose with your strength can have a huge impact on society, fulfill your dreams and help you lead a much more satisfying life. Further, we are likely to have a much more innovative and inventive society thereby creating products and services for India and around the world. This in turn would solve numerous societal problems, create more jobs and create more wealth. Even if you donot know your purpose, knowing the answer to this question - Are you better than the best in what you do, is a great place to start from. I implore all young and old, stop going mad about your weaknesses and staying awake the night trying to fix them. May be you should to put in some effort but if you really want to lead a contended life, get better and better what you are good at. Become a genius if you can, it is something worth burning the midnight oil for....