Building Great Careers
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”?—Stephen Covey
Over the next several weeks, I intend to write a series of articles on what I observed and learnt on building successful careers. While I will focus on the theme of “career”, I fully expect that the principles I speak about will be applicable more generally in all aspects of life.
As I think about all the people I know who have/had good to great careers, the most pivotal moments in their career seem to have arisen out to randomness (luck, in other words). Their career graphs, almost without exception, are actually fictional accounts in hindsight, weaved by stitching together random but critical events that mark out as inflection points in their careers. As they were going through these critical moments in real time, they may not have had much inkling on how propitious those moments would eventually turn out to be.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” – Seneca
Although they may seem like lucky breaks, in most cases, they are actually occasions where preparedness met opportunity i.e., they were prepared to capitalize on lucky breaks as they presented themselves. I think this marks the real difference between those with great careers and those with relatively ordinary careers. Apples to apples, it is not as much higher intellectual or functional skills but a well-directed and structured approach that makes all the difference. Given long enough time, enough and more lucky breaks come everyone’s way – so what really matters is being ready to recognize and capitalize on those lucky breaks – as and when they occur. Being unstructured and unprepared stunts one’s ability to recognize these breaks.
Many try to emulate the path of their idol’s career. This is not an effective approach because everyone’s career path is uniquely their own path – a result of unique circumstances specific to each individual. A far more effective approach is to imbibe the qualities (and perhaps the processes) that helped these idols achieve their success.
“Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.” – Gerald R. Ford
Some of the common characteristics of those with successful careers: being ambitious, having personal vision for career, cultivating a personal brand, networking effectively, formal and/or informal coaching and mentoring from right partners, being curious, challenge seeking, questioning status quo, having unselfish objectives like how to improve value of the employer as opposed to only thinking about improving one’s own value, possessing ability to communicate clearly and effectively, playing the long game, delegating work and responsibility effectively, accepting existence of politics and dealing with it, maintaining compounding mindset, being multi-disciplinary, playing to one’s strengths and working around one’s weaknesses etc.
“Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had real positive influences in his or her life. I don’t care what you do for a living—if you do it well I’m sure there was someone cheering you on or showing the way. A mentor.”?— Denzel Washington
A systemic and structural approach lends one ability to respond to challenges that come their way as opposed to reacting to situations. One who reacts tends to be perennially caught up with dealing with one situation after another – stomping one fire after another, so to speak. Whereas people who respond tend to be on an upward path of taking on and taming bigger and bigger challenges.
"Don't be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for the President or you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it." – Donald Rumsfeld
People with successful careers commit themselves to learning about fundamental changes in their field – they do not get caught up in fads and fashionable trends. They tend to build capacities and capabilities as opposed to learning the latest skills. They develop people under them who will become capable of taking on bigger responsibilities. They tend to be leader factories.
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“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”?–?George Bernard Shaw
They tend not to be afraid of uncomfortable conversations. Also, they almost never complain about work life imbalance. They tend to be able to integrate work with life well.
I will cover these topics in greater detail in the next five to six blogs. If there is anything else that you think I should cover, please do let me know. If I believe I have any insights worth adding to your topics, I will share them.
Bottomline
While each great career story is a product of unique circumstances, most successful career stories have overlapping and characteristic set of tools and strategies – which together with luck contribute almost entirely to their eventual success. These strategies combine to create the supporting structure that amplifies progress along the career path. These strategies and the resulting capabilities can be learnt and developed by most. One is well served when one takes a project approach to career in which limited resources (time and energy) are put to their most judicious use in building right capabilities along with right functional skills.
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Thanks for taking time to read this. In this newsletter, I share my learnings that could help you improve your decisions and make meaningful progress on your goals and desires. I share stuff that I have personally experienced or experimented with. If you find this newsletter worthwhile, please do share it with others – of course, only if you do not mind it.
A bit on my background
I worked in India and the USA with most of my work experience with large global organizations. My last corporate role was the Head of Technology for “Treasury and Trade Management Solutions” for Citigroup South Asia cluster. At Citi, I set up from my Business Unit and grew it from a team size of 1 to over 1900 Citi employees in a span of eight years.
I quit Citi in 2021 to focus exclusively on my interest area of improving decision making. In the last 2 years, I studied this topic closely and developed a training course to systematically improve decision making ability.?I’m also an Investment Advisor (RIA) registered with the Securities and the Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As an RIA, I analyze and prepare financial plans to help people achieve their financial goals.
I have done MBA in Strategy and Finance from Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota and B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.