My tips for a happy working life

I recently retired after working for almost 40 years. During that period, I was fortunate to experience life in three different continents and worked for multinationals, start-ups and a private equity investee company.

As I look back on my career, I thought of what contributed towards a satisfying work life. I have not done the math, but based on a question to Siri I am informed that the average individual works about 13 years of their life in a lifespan of 79 years. If we add time spent in front of a computer, the figure jumps to something like 25 years or 30% of one’s life.

So, for the second largest activity in our life, here are some ideas how we may enjoy it.

1.    Plan the broad strokes of your career early and deal with the details later

When I graduated from the University of Kingston in Surrey with a business degree, I applied for a job with a professional accountancy firm. My reasons were simple - it assured me of a job at least for three years and the qualification if I was successful would be recognized internationally. When I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers, I spent many hours on the 11th floor of our office exploring the international assignments on offer. I registered my interest for an overseas transfer and dreamed of Bermuda, Bahamas or Cayman Islands as an ideal next location.

As it turned out, I finally opted for Toronto. And what a great choice it was. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

When I say plan your career, I don’t mean have a plan for each year but have a broad-strokes approach of what you would like to achieve.

Mine was relatively straightforward - work internationally and experience working both for a professional firm as well as in industry. The specifics of when and where and who came later. I ended up working in England, Canada, Singapore and Malaysia. I worked for the (now) Big 4 and got terrific experience. I also saw finance from both sides.

2.    Be creative and constantly think of how to improve

When I was promoted to manager with PwC in Toronto, one of my first tasks was to train the Partners and other managers on how to use a new software that the firm had developed to assess risk. I had to learn the software and hold a classroom session for my colleagues. It was a hands-on session and each Partner and manager was provided with a computer so that I could walk them through the software. It made be realize how powerful the computer could be. Remember, this was in the late 80s when audit firms did not use computers for their day-to-day audits. I was interested to see how we could be more efficient in our job. A bit later, I introduced an Excel version of the Summary of Unadjusted Differences (more commonly known as SUD) into the audit process. For non auditors, SUD is a sheet we maintained to show the impact on the financial statements of a client if errors identified during the course of the audit were not corrected. It seems amusing now to think that the SUD was a manual A3 sized sheet of paper which, by the time the audit was completed, looked torn and tattered as holes would appear due to the many changes that were made during the audit. For one such audit, I asked an IT colleague to create an Excel version of the SUD. It made life so much easier for all.

Graduates today would laugh that the Excel SUD was considered a technological breakthrough! I remember the audit partner being very impressed.

Fast forward to today, I have never been shy to suggest new ways of doing things. Not every idea has been accepted. And sometimes an idea is rejected and then developed later on. One example of this was digitizing our pipeline report on forthcoming work. Many years ago, when I first joined BCG, one of the pain points was getting information on our pipeline. It was a tedious, manual process which involved speaking to every Partner and asking for details or asking them to complete a spreadsheet. I suggested to our planning team that we create a portal where all this information can be captured when a case code is opened. We could then run reports to look at the pipeline by practice area, partner and whatever field that the leadership felt would be useful. I imagined a global leader of the practice areas being able to view the pipeline opportunities from anywhere in the world for any region he/she chose and for any client or partner. I also had this vision that we could get real time data on revenues as timesheets were submitted.

The idea was rejected as unnecessary.

Last year just such a tool was rolled out. It took a while but it certainly has made a lot of sense and makes it so much easier to understand what is happening in the business.

My latest idea has also been rejected but perhaps someone will take it up at some point. My idea is for BCG to create its own media channel to broadcast content for various interested parties. Imagine the day when a university student can click on a BCG media channel and learn more about what the recruiting team is doing and how to join BCG; or a CEO who wants to read about what BCG has to say about climate change, etc. And all of this can be done by just going to one location and clicking at the channel that is of interest. I know that there are LinkedIn channels that individuals can follow but there are just so many of these that it becomes difficult to manage.

Improving one’s job isn’t always about new ideas. Sometimes it’s just the little things.

I advised one of my managers in one year-end review discussion that I wanted her to take a day off every month, switch off email and Whatsapp and other communication channels and just review her work over the past month. In that self review, ask two questions:

·      Is there anything we can do to improve our processes?

·      What have I learnt in the past month?

The purpose is to continuously seek, to think about what can be done better and reflect on what lessons were learnt during the month.

I recommend each of us do this little exercise. It will help us become better. And these lessons we will remember since we actually took the time to reflect on them.

 3.    Create a network both inside and outside the company

Many years ago, a close friend of mine left the company that we were both working in. I was devastated and felt I should leave as well. I enjoyed having close friends at work. It meant I did not dread coming in on Monday. But I neglected building a good network outside work which would enable life to go on whatever happened at work.

Having a group of close friends in the working environment helps especially when things are tough; stress levels are high and the pressure is on. But rest assured, at some point, people leave the organization. In my early days, I always questioned whether I was making the wrong decision not leaving as well. As years went by, I had as strong a network outside work as I did at work. When people left, it did not affect me as much as it used to in my early days.

 4.    Set reasonable goals but internally set your own stretch goals

We all go through this process annually. We sit down with our line manager and set the goals for which we are evaluated at the end of the year. An ideal goal-setting process ends hopefully with goals that both parties believe are achievable. I have been through this many times and generally the process works well.

I think about the goal-setting process a bit like my gym goals. I set targets for what I feel is reasonable. Once I get comfortable with the execution, I try for the next level. I have had this debate with myself many times. Is it better for example to lift 50 pounds comfortably for say two sets of 10 or struggle with 60 pounds for one set of eight? Which is more beneficial? I found out the answer recently. I was very comfortable with lifting 50 pounds. After I completed my two sets, I tried with 60 pounds. I struggled and stopped for fear of injuring my back. This continued for a few days. Then one day I was doing the lifts again and thought this is comfortable. So as I had been doing the previous times, I went to change the weight to 60 pounds and to my surprise found I had in fact lifted the higher weight for the two sets of 10.

Our goals are like that. Once we get comfortable with what has been agreed, push yourself a bit further. There is only one beneficiary. You.

5.    Develop a keep-fit program

This may seem a strange tip but I can tell you this program literally saved my life!

I have always been a gym enthusiast. I can’t honestly say that I make full use of my annual membership fee, but I do enjoy the idea of being a gym member! And I do try to workout. For the past 15 years I have been trying to get fit at a gym conveniently located across the road from my office. Three times a week I would go there during lunch break. It was always a rush but I felt 40 minutes of exercise would help. Early last year, soon after Christmas, I was on the treadmill when I felt a pain in my chest. It was a feeling I never felt before. I put it down to my overindulgence during the festive season. Two days later I experienced the same feeling when I was on the treadmill. I stopped. That weekend I saw a cardiologist. To get to the point, he identified that one of my arteries was 95% blocked. He told me I was a “heart attack waiting to happen.” I am sure the second chance afforded to me is due to my wife’s prayers! But those sessions on the treadmill were the signal.

My exercise regime now consists of a 30-minute aerobics workout at home with Leslie Sansone - I recommend this for anyone who is not a gym member. There are many other programs and apps. So you do not need to be a member of a gym to keep fit. I follow the aerobics session with a one hour walk. It gets you the 10,000 steps that seems to be the minimum recommended number. I also came across a very interesting video on YouTube on the benefits of a daily walk. These are summarized in the chart below.

Life is precious. We should do our best.

So there it is, a few simple tips to enjoy what is going to be a big part of one’s life. These worked for me. Something else may work for you. Spend time thinking about it.

Have a good working life!