Power of Conscious Aspirations

Recently had the privilege of hosting Cloud First - Career Expo at Accenture Kolkata. Organizers registered 200 audience and had a turnout of 250+ members with many folks standing through the 5-hr. event. Where we were expecting a 150 we had 66% additional turnout, which goes to show zeal, excitement Accenture and Kolkata has towards growth, career, opportunities and most importantly being ready for the future.

During the event opening note I usually do try and gage the audience. 101 of public speaking - understand and connect with your audience first, who, why and what. I was happily surprised to see nearly 60% were on the first year of their professional career and 90% in the first three years of their career. That made the event and its sessions even so interesting. Here we had an audience who are eagerly awaiting their careers to take off and do not know what to expect, what to learn. Happily, surprised as I saw my young colleges were eager to ask several questions around better opportunities, new technology scope, areas of development and advice.

Aspirations - find what makes you tick!

With nearing two decades of IT professional experience now, it kept me thinking during the speech what is the first step towards my long successful journey in IT. What can I give back to this young people which they can take back as mantra for their career journey. And the answer was "Aspiration to lead".

?I always had the aspiration to lead, learn, teach, evolve, change. I do not know why, if I was part of a team of?5 - 10 members, I was always eager to find the way first, do things first and teach others and most importantly learn first and teach others, play new roles and introduce others to them. Today also the most difficult of challenges excites me, new and evolving technology projects drive me, I take missions which some of my peers would not like to lead.

Learn everyday

Eagerness to learn a new technology and then implement or work and teach others about it,?I love the most. And that was my driving force. Leading from the front, leading by example. Obviously, it has its benefits and negatives. Success or Failures you need to take both to your stride.

?We work in a knowledge industry - why I say that?

?Well technology is evolving faster than we think today, any IT expert without a zeal of learning would be legacy in just a few months now. The knowledge, skills, experiences build your intrinsic value and focusing on improving intrinsic value is important rather than fixing market value with the next HR team of another company.?

?Most importantly technology has branched out towards multiple arrays of areas you have cloud, data, AI, Metaverse, Blockchain, Quantum, High performance computing and each area has multitudes of roles, it is only though conscious aspiration building with a close mentor / coach you will be able to identify the path for yourself.

Find your Mentor

Having mentored and coached over 200 + employees and team members I feel the time is right for growing your technology and business acumen and hence raising the intrinsic value so that when the market is right you will get the correct market evaluation of your skills, for sure it would be in your current organization or a new one, but focus should not be money, it should be acquiring knowledge.?