The Problem Of Emphasis: A Short Story

Written By Harry Madusha -

Here's a short story, Kayode was a genius. He was a super programmer. When he was in college, he met Master Jefferson, in an embarrassing way though. It was a cloudy and windy evening, Kayode was stranded, he had used the last money on him to attend 'The A & X3 Summit', a prestigious and renowned tech seminar in which he was opportune to be a speaker.

He didn't have cash on him nor at home - His parents were due to send him money by the weekend hence he couldn't afford a Taxi. It rained cats and dogs, while on his trek back home, in the moment a car stopped in front of him, delightedly he assumed the driver was going to give him a lift instead, the driver who was Master Jefferson, offered him a job. Jefferson disclosed to him that he was impressed with Kayode's session at the Seminar thus he wanted him to come work for him at his startup, Cable. After several back and forth, a week later Kayode accepted to work as a Programmer for Cable. Jefferson was the sole owner and only employee before Kayode came onboard.

When Kayode joined Cable, the company wasn't really making profit because they hadn’t done a proper market analysis for their sole product; named RightChores. The product design and user experience weren’t well thought out and this affected sales. But in time, with Kayode's input and ideas the company started growing and 2 years later, Kayode was able to start earning 'salary' from his efforts into Cable. He was 23 when he joined Cable and by the time, he was 43 years old, Cable was worth $400 billion dollars and had more than 85,680 employees. Master Jefferson was now a billionaire and Kayode, just a CEO with a $90-million-dollar annual salary.

Kayode who had married at 35 was one night staring at his glass ceiling, sprawled on a sofa when his wife noticed he was sad, concerned about his state, she needed to know why, thus he replied: "I am not trying to appear as though I am not grateful. But I regret the ideas, years I invested in Cable without ever getting any credit from it. Master Jefferson was 38 when I met him, and I was 23 when I started. I was young and naive, yet I can't say he deceived me, but I can say I really didn't think about those employment contracts I signed. It said I couldn't own shares; it said I couldn't take credits for my contributions; it had some unusual non-disclosure agreements and all. And perhaps because it was my first job and also, I wasn't a better programmer compared to now, hence I used to underestimate myself and never believed 'we' would get this far. But in all this, there's no 'We', it's only him and those shareholders. I am a mere sidekick. Dear, people would use you certainly but don't ever let anyone misuse you".

One of the biggest traps that I see people fall into early in their careers is underestimating their future and overemphasizing their current state. In business analysis, strategy analysis (a knowledge area in the BaBok - understanding the current state, future state and gaps inherent between these) is key to helping organizations overcome their problems but this principle can also be applied to your professional life and career. You must understand that where you are, is only transient, so make your plans based on where you are and what you can become. Ensure to sign contracts and make deals with this in mind, to avoid future regrets.

When you’re young, you don’t have as many constraints that prevents you from changing track and pursuing something new. If you’ve just launched your career, right now is the easiest it will ever be to completely change your path professionally. Because Sunk Costs syndrome and Certain Obligations are likely to keep you stuck in one career. The mighty paradox of learning is that diverse expertise gives one freedom to try newer things but gaining expertise in just one endeavor - always means ignoring others. I often see the role of learning as both creator and destroyer of 'creative freedom'. If you don’t pay attention to what you get good at, it’s easy to get stuck in a certain field simply because that’s what you're invested in, whether or not you find it fulfilling.

Final Note: No One Looks Out for You Better than You!